Repetition and the Way of the World

How often do we start and end our days in the same fashion? Our personal groundhog days see us rising at a particular time, checking on the weather either electronically or by peeking out the window, cleaning, dressing, and fueling our bodies, and then going about our business, whatever that might be. We wind down in a similar manner, with our nighttime rituals leading us to the moment when we ultimately drift off to sleep, ready to begin the next day, and again, and again.

How strange, then, is it, when we travel, which we all used to be able to do pre-COVID-19, and our routine is disrupted? Even the slightest alteration – stepping onto a tile floor instead of a carpet, a little too much or too little light seeping in from behind the curtains or under the door, an unlikely choice for breakfast food or a different brand of coffee – somehow these little inconsistencies register with us and color our outlook on the rest of the day.

So too is the situation now, with the coronavirus, where we have made small changes in our lives that have forced us to examine the necessity, the essentialness, of our daily habits. Those changes impact the way we work as well, the way we communicate with others, the color of the clothes we wear as we dress for video conferencing, the lighting in our workspaces, the tools we work with, the snacks we consume at our makeshift desks.