For years, Jagar wanted to be a successful writer, but he felt his life was too disordered.
I need to get it together, he thought.
One day, he stumbled across some videos on Youtube talking about “millionaire morning
routines”.
These people are successful, he thought, let me see how they do it.
And each video showed a lot of the same actions: wake up at 5AM, make your bed, exercise, take
a cold shower, meditate, journal, and make a to-do list for the day.
Every video said it was important to generate positive momentum early on in the day that
would carry forward.
And each video made the subtle implication that the right routines lead to success.
So Jagar began executing a routine each morning, leading him to feel more productive.
And after making his to-do list each day, he wrote for an hour.
And subconsciously, because he believed in the power of routines and formulas, Jagar
worked on a three-act story which faithfully followed The Hero’s Journey—a supposed
formula for crafting a great story.
After several months of this routine, Jagar finished his book and sent it off to his friend
Tony, a literary agent.
He wanted honest feedback, and a few weeks later, he received an e-mail from Tony.
“Jagar, I’m going to be brutally honest with you because you’re my friend.
Sorry to say this, but your story is derivative and painfully mediocre.
It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.
I can tell you worked hard on this.
Your good at the craft, but I think you need to take a break from writing.
Live life.
Find something you care for deeply and write about that.
It takes more than craft, routine, and habit to be a great storyteller Jagar.
You need something that feels alive, that resonates, that feels like you and only you
could write it.
This feels like a mechanical formula, a pale imitation of everything else that exists.
We can talk about it in detail over some drinks.
Your friend, Tony.
”
Meanwhile, Rubi lived in a multi-generational, 12-person household with only three bed rooms.
Her mom and dad in one, her grandma and grandpa in another, and her and her seven siblings
in the other.
Her family lived on a farm which was an hour drive from the nearest major city.
They had no TV, and so Rubi, the oldest of all her siblings, wrote stories to keep her
family entertained in the evenings.
There was no room for routine in Rubi’s life.
She’s constantly cycled between working on the farm, taking her grandparents into
the city for medical visits, cooking dinner, doing laundry, playing with her siblings,
and resolving family conflicts.
Rubi loved taking care of her family, and she felt like telling stories was a good way
to help them bond and relax in the evenings.
So whenever she heard an interesting exchange between her family members, saw an interesting
event, or someone told her an interesting story about their day, she found a little
bit of time to capture it in words.
Over time, she built up journals full of material which she decided to condense into a collection
of short stories.
One day, while hearing some of her newer work, her dad was stunned by their beauty and insightfulness.
Secretly, he took her collection and went to the city to meet a literary agent.
The agent turned out to be Tony—Jagar’s friend.
He told Rubi’s dad to leave the collection on his desk, and that he’d review it when
he had time.
“But to be honest with you,” he said, “don’t expect to hear back from me.”
A few days later, a white car pulled up to Rubi’s farm.
It was Tony.
He asked to speak with Rubi.
“I’ve never read anything like this.
Your voice is distinctive, your stories are unique, and your insight into the human condition
is unparalleled.
I even cried a few times.
Your grammar and sentence structure need some work, but we can help you with that.
Your exactly what the world needs right now.
We’d love to offer you a publishing deal.”
The greatest difference between Jagar and Rubi was routine.
Jagar worshipped routines.
Not only were his mornings filled with routines, but his writing was too.
His life was a mechanical formula.
He wanted to paint by numbers his way to excellence, but routine was the quickest way to mediocrity.
Rubi, on the other hand, was inventive, adaptive, and alive, in real life and in her work.
Morning routines, like all routines, are great for solving repetitive, mundane problems,
like pooping, hygiene, eating, drinking coffee, exercising, or taking medications, but they’ll
never lead to the excellence they often promise.
People engage in new routines with the hopes of inventing a new life for themselves, but
invention comes from breaking routine.
Horse-drawn carriages allowed us to break the routine of walking, cars allowed us to
break the routine of horse-drawn carriages, and e-mail broke the routine of sending physical
letters.
Each invention gave us new freedoms, but each invention simultaneously became a new routine,
a new trap.
Even when working out or dieting, it’s the subtle breaking and overcoming of routine
that leads to results.
One has to lift a little heavier or eat a littler more to reinvent their body.
The greatest fighter isn’t one who has a routine in the ring, but one who is completely
free of all routines.
One who is completely unpredictable, free, and capable of fighting in any way necessary.
The greatest artists haven’t mastered a single style of creating, but rather, they’ve
transcended all style, so that they can freely and fully express themselves.
One might look to Picasso or Joyce as examples.
The greatest lovers don’t fall into routine and complacency.
They keep the flame alive in new and interesting ways.
We put routine breakers on pedestals.
We worship the inventor who brings us a new way of living, the painter who shows us a
new form, the musician who captures sounds we’ve never heard, or the writer who tells
us a new story.
We worship the routine breakers, but ironically, we try to be them by imitating their routines.
But what made them them was the breaking of routines in the first place.
We try to imitate people whose greatest strength is that they don’t imitate others.
If one is looking to solve repetitive, mundane problems, a routine is helpful.
But if one is looking to reinvent one’s life, then a routine is the greatest trap.
They say necessity is the mother of all invention because only when one becomes truly fed up
with a routine, when one can no longer live with the old way of doing things, when change
becomes absolutely necessary, does one have hope of inventing a completely new life
for themselves.