I’ve always found light fascinating. Did you know it’s all electromagnetic radiation? Our eyes are actually finely tuned Geiger counters, and the more radiation we encounter the brighter the light is. And each color we see is just a specific frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum we call “light.” As the frequency changes, the color changes – from red at the lowest frequency to violet at the highest.

But you aren’t here for a physics lesson, are you?

So far in this season of the Counter Culture we’ve covered the four building blocks that make up your life: habits, routines, rhythms and seasons. At the risk of mixing metaphors or something, these building blocks have a spectrum of how much control we can exert vs. how much control they exert on us.¹ Here’s what I mean:

Season <- We have very little control over this.
Rhythms <- We have some control over this.
Routines <- We have a lot of control over this.
Habits <- We have complete control over this.

For the most part, we don’t have a lot of say as to the Season² of life we’re in. If we’re 15, then we’re most likely going to be in high school. If we’re sick, well… we’re sick. We do have a little control, as in we can choose to get married or take a job. But we often find ourselves in a Season without having chosen it.

Rhythms give us a bit more control. Yeah, you can’t choose when you were born or when Christmas is, but you can choose to take a vacation or do a weekly review. But the timing of when you choose to do those things will depend on the Season you’re in, so you’re not making all the decisions here either.

But this starts to change when we get to Routines. We can decide what we want our mornings and evenings to look like. You might have a job that makes you get up really early or a class that makes you get home really late, so you loose some control there. Even if you’re in a really chaotic Season where you don’t really have a schedule, you still have the ability to slot Routines into your day – even if the exact time it happens changes all the time.

And finally, we have Habits. We have almost total control over which Habits we cultivate in our lives. We can get rid of not-so-good-ones and build oh-so-good-ones. Sometimes the Season will determine which Habits you can actually do – if you’re really sick you’re probably going to find it hard to have an exercise habit – but there are lots and lots of Habits you can build that have nothing to do with the Season you’re in.

My point here is that when you’re building Habits and Routines you have to adapt to the Rhythms and Season you find yourself in. Have a little mercy on yourself and don’t try to force things that are just unrealistic given your circumstances.

Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash.