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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  1847 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The People Who Eat the Same Lunch Every Day

I think this is key:

    I find it’s a way to maintain a routine

I'm so far away from desiring a routine that if it weren't for my daughter's school schedule I wouldn't know what day it was without looking. There's nothing in my life that lends itself to a routine; when I am working my start times vary between 7am and 10pm. There are times when I wish I had a little more? but I don't even like being in the same place five days a week unless it's home.





_refugee_  ·  1847 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Hmm. For a very long time I felt I had no consistency in my life. It was self-imposed and due to driving by the seat of my desires, to mix metaphors. I got my work done week to week and so on, but could I make it to a pre-determined event on a given day at a given time? Unpredictable. Which means that basically, no, I couldn't.

My day to day and moment to moment desires were encouraging me down a less healthy path a majority of every minute. I had to learn fucking off didn't actually feel good. But when you're in a loop of funk and "hey, I'd rather do nothing[AKA I'd rather sleep/drug/drink] than leave the house or shower or change my clothes despite it being the 5th day in a row that i haven't done any of that," it's hard to realize that "actually doing things" is the better path. It was a life of resisting doing things for...what? Nothing. To feel defeated at the end of each day anyway.

Personally, I felt I needed more consistency in my life, and less 48-hour-all-nighters backed with day-and-a-half-long sleep sessions. I was really tired of living my life according to the day or hour's or moment's whim. So for me, it was an improvement to impose routine and rigor. But it's not for everyone -- from the outside, I was extremely functional before, without routine, so I can't even (and wouldn't) try to take a place of 'authority' or 'righteousness' and claim it 'saved my life' or anything, ha. It just made me feel better about myself to force myself to leave the house to go to work, to eat healthy food, to take a shower every day, and so on. I had to realize it might be a thing of forcing myself...but ultimately, in the long run, it would feel better. It was about trading the single moment in my vision for the whole week. Or month. Or year.

One day I might go back to having less routine. But for me, it wasn't healthy to give in to the desires of the moment, as half the time those desires were, let's be honest: drinking, doing drugs, or generally fucking off however I knew how and could get away with so long as I hit my deadlines and turned my work in on time.

kleinbl00  ·  1847 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's interesting: you went from "routine" to "discipline" in about a sentence and a half. You're using routine in order to enforce discipline; I've never had problems with self-discipline so I don't see the allure of routine.

_refugee_  ·  1846 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Good for you! Maybe someday internet likes (or passive internet non-likes) will be the same for me as they are for you. (Or...maybe...hopefully not:

)
kleinbl00  ·  1846 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Whoa! I'm not saying "I don't need routine therefore I'm a superior human" I'm saying "I don't need routine therefore I like to change up my lunch".

Sorry to have offended you.

_refugee_  ·  1846 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Shook!

Seriously tho, plenty of room for misinterpretation across the internet, and that snark was probably not totally warranted.