While thinking about what I should write about today in my blog… I was coming up with blanks. I felt like writing, but I it seemed as though someone had stolen all my idea bubbles. Today was just an average Monday, nothing too exciting, just my normal routine…

That got me to thinking (scary ain’t it?). So many people have their routines… their morning routines of getting up, shower, brushing, dressing, eating… and its all in a very specific order… taken to a science to perfect and heighten efficiency for that individual.

Let me tell you my morning routine:
7:00 - First alarm goes off - I smack it and fall back asleep
7:05 - Second alarm goes off - I groan, smack it and hopefully don’t fall back asleep
7:15 - Roll out of bed, rub my eyes so my contacts will start working again
7:16 - I arrive in the bathroom and use the restroom.
7:17 - I turn on the shower to let it warm and start go to the sink to brush my teeth.
7:19 - I trim my beard (except right now my bear is MIA)
7:20 - Hop in the shower and soap, starting at the neck then down to my toes. I then wash my face, then wash my hair
7:30 - Hop out of the shower, dry off and shave.
7:34 - Say good morning to the pigs (Arthur and Charles) and give them a treat
7:35 - Get dressed
7:40 - Head downstairs and pack a lunch (and of course I pack my lunch in the same manner every day… but who cares about that)
7:45 - Walk out the door and get in the car to drive to work.

It’s pretty much the same thing every day… a little variable on the minutes, but generally the same routine… every… single… day.

With the question of routines being good or bad for you I decided to turn to my good friend Google for a little query. Just searching the query ‘routines good’ I found more links to healthy choice websites plastered with exercise schedules that I thought even I at 6’2” and 150 lbs needed to lose a little waist. I then decided it’d only to be fair to query ‘routines bad’. I mostly found sites that had to do with bad habits which aren’t really the routines that I am considering.

In the morning, is it good that I have a routine that I practice every day? Is it too mind numbing? Am I holding back my creativity and imagination by having routines?

My first thought was that routines could be very good when it comes to exercise and personal goals. When a person is in a routine, they are able to accomplish tasks (which sometimes the task is something they don’t really want to do… like crunches) without even thinking about it. You still get the physical reward from doing your crunches without having to convince your mind you need to do them… its already routine.

But in the same manner… what is your mind doing while you are in a routine?… here’s probably what my mind consists of in the morning during my morning routine…

"...i'm tired..." "...i don't want to go to work..." "...man that bed looks comfortable..." "...OUCH that water is hot..." "...should I wear blue or green today..." "...that girl was really cute yesterday..." "...wow, i'm really tired..."

Exciting eh? At the point when most gears are turning upstairs I’m in the middle of deciding whether blue or green is the best color for the day. This cannot be a good thing.

While I was at Indiana University, I had a friend who wanted to try something new every week… we had a blast. Coming back from one break he showed up with a unicycle. We tried learning to ride it in the dorm hallways and kept falling into people’s doors. They’d poke their heads outside to see who ‘knocked’ and see us… shake their heads and go back to whatever was so important in their rooms. It was a good time… until the Janitor found us and gave us quite the tongue-lashing. Another week we decided to learn how to play squash instead of the normal racquetball. That was great! I had a welt on my back for what seemed like weeks from that ball hitting me (that ball has no bounce, so you have to smack it quite a bit to get any movement off the walls).

I could discuss my opinions and thoughts more, but I’m already pretty far into a not so short post… so I’ll sum it up in the conclusion…

I think routines can be good things. As Google showed, exercise routines can be good, healthy eating routines can be good so your body knows when to do what it needs to do. Routines can be bad though if we get stuck in them. My friend Josh showed me that it is not only important, but also amazingly fun to get out of the routine of things and try new things. This is why flying has been so much fun for me I believe. It’s different.

I have a challenge for you. Make a list of five things… and over the next five weeks, do one of them a week. They can be as simple as trying that new restaurant you’ve been eyeing on the drive to work, or something more complex as finding a unicycle and learning to ride (which I never did succeed…). I am going to do just that myself. I will make a list of at least five things and try and complete them one week at a time. I might do this as a joint effort with my roommate, and make it a fun group thing where we try something out of our routine every week.

My job is OK for where I am right now in my life (in the internship world) but this place bores me to death… I just can’t let myself get stuck in the routine of working here. As of July 5th, I will have been working here for one full year.

Thanks for stopping by, best of luck with the new and exciting!