Routine: Friend or Foe?

Routine. 
Known expectations. 
Drudgery.
Boredom.
Freedom.
Liberty.
Framework.
A starting point.




When everything goes to hell in a handbasket there are a few options open to us. 
We can run around like headless chickens, panicking, knowing not what to to.
Or we can dig in, find ourselves, who we are, what we stand for, and do the next right thing on the list.




This is not limited to the Autism community, of which I am an honorary associated member thanks to family relationships with Awesome people. 


It is a choice we make in a moment of extreme experience.




But to make the choice, we first have to have a plan and if possible, some Allies.


Allies are like non-violent gang members, they've got your back, they remind you who you are until you recognise the person they're describing again, just the very idea that they are there holds you together.


The choices we make, when we are lost in a sea of bleughhhh, could be founded on "what worked before" as an experimental starting point.  Being locked in to responding as you always have is not healthy.  It is stifling. 


Using past success as a potential starting block opens the way for moments of absolute genius and clarity.


Routine bores me to heck and is a comfort blanket at the same time.


If I know what is expected of me as a baseline, I am then free to be open to flashes of inspiration, to enrich the experience beyond expectation, to dig deeper on the tricky days, but by golly the idea of routine just makes my eyes droop.


It leads on to the preparatory question... who am I?


We'll talk about that another day.