Daily Routines are the Scourge of Mankind

I was driving into work this morning, staring into a blinding sun, and blaring the music on the radio. I was thumbing the drum beats on the steering wheel, to some old AC/DC song, while I silently mouthed the lyrics (cuz I can't stand the sound of my own voice). It was the first day back from vacay, and I felt tired. I was back into the routine of life, and I hated it! My week long hiatus from the daily routines of traffic, work, and then more traffic seemed like a figment of my imagination, even though I had technically still been on leave not six hours ago. And as I was driving over the bridge, I thought about it...routines, as comfortable as they may seem, are the scourge of mankind.

I think most of our lives rotate around this idea that routines are good. And they are, to a certain extent. They make us comfortable, and they relieve stress in a very relevant way, and they offer a convenient way to keep our lives organized; straight and narrow. All good things. But what if those very same routines deprive of us something more important, more useful? And by something more important, I mean, creative energies. What is more dear to a writer, or gamer, than having the ability to create something out of nothing? To find the flaw in the seemingly perfect landscape? To make reality from our dreams?

I was watching this film a few hours ago, and in the film I heard this amazing quote: Everything that is or was, began with a dream. That simple line just slew me. This was how I felt about life, about writing, about gaming. The Dream, for me, is the fuel for my creativity, for my writing, for my gaming. Routines stifled my voice in a way I never realized. I was blindly following the daily labyrinthine routines of the rat race for whatever reason, and I was actually suffering for it. My single week of vacation allowed me to change it up, mix up the pot, and take a fresh look at what exactly I wanted out of life. And having done so, I awakened from this ground-hog day nightmare into a new and improved awesome dream.

So on the way home this evening, I contemplated taking a different route. In the end, I didn't but still, I thought about it. And although I didn't change much in terms of physical routines, I did feel different, just by making that one small change in the way I thought about routine. The way I thought about how I should get from A to B changed just very slightly. And directly because of that one small change, I was able to write this post.

You may or may not agree with me, but whatever the case, I think the next time I write, or play a round of Magic with the boys, I will focus on taking chances, and doing things a little bit differently, just to see where that brings me.