The Year of Routine – Take Two

At the beginning of this year, I mused about the life of endless routine that the pandemic had brought me. Now, six months on, I’m extremely fortunate that this routine is all the pandemic’s brought me. And yet I spent much of the past year with that edgy feeling that I was wasting time – a non-renewable and fast-dwindling resource – and that life was passing me by. So I actively sought to break the routine, to introduce novelty into my life in an attempt to slow down the subjective passage of time. Did it work? Well, up to a Read More …

The Year of Routine

At the beginning of 2020 I planned for a year of new experiences, but instead, it became the year of routine. Wake up at 5am. Meditate for an hour (or rather set an intention to follow your breath for an hour but end up lost in thought instead). Write or exercise for another hour. Make a couple of phone calls. Breakfast. Go to work. Lunch. Back to work. Dinner. Read. Write some more. Sleep. On weekends, replace work with a long walk, tai ji class, and longer writing sessions. Sprinkle in a few chores and appointments and add a hefty Read More …