Monday, October 12, 2015

Insights on routine

I spent three days in a Buddhist monastery last week. The time was nourishing and healing to me. I breathed, walked, ate, worked, slept. I was.

Returning to Berlin I could see my thoughts and behaviors with incredible clarity. What I noticed right away was, that my everyday life is full of little decisions. What will I eat today? Will I clean the apartment when I return home or rather go to the gym instead? Will I read or listen to music on the subway? What music will I listen to? Or maybe will I prefer to enjoy doing nothing?

Monks and nuns (in any religion) do not seem to face these "problems". For me it helped a lot to know  what's going to happen and just be present to the moment. This shed a whole new light on my opinion about routine. I can see now how it is possible to be free and happy in any circumstances. I can also see how my lack of routine reveals that I haven't quite figured out the direction of my career yet. The more rigid your schedule the more you go into a certain direction on a straight line. If you know what you are heading for that's perfectly fine, almost necessary. But if you feel that you are on the wrong path, you should stop.

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