Creatures of Habit – We All Have Our Routines… Don’t We?

However it happens, we all tend to fall into our own comfortable and familiar routines over time.  And are these routines the result of any conscious planning or deliberation?  Not typically; certainly not in my case.  They just tend to gradually develop, and before I’ve even realized it, I have some new thing in my normal daily pattern.

For example: A few years ago, my wife and I were introduced to a daily, online, word-puzzle game, called, Wordle.  You get six tries to identify a 5-letter word.  We work together to solve this daily puzzle (having discovered that domestic harmony is better maintained when we cooperate with each other, rather than compete), and we feel a great sense of mutual satisfaction and accomplishment when we get it right.  

Because this online app keeps track of consecutive wins, we are loath to break our streak of 646 days of successfully solving this puzzle; which also motivated us to continued playing this game every single day of our recent five-week European vacation, rather than allowing our streak to be broken.  

Is this silly?  Possibly.  Is it obsessive?  Probably.  And yet, nothing short of Armageddon will keep us from playing this game again tomorrow, in the fervent hope of extending our streak of consecutive wins to 647.

We do this every morning, as a rule, during breakfast, and have even added a couple more word games to the routine: a mini-crossword puzzle, and a ‘Connections’ game, where you’re given 16 words, and must discern which ones are connected, putting them into associative groups of four.

It’s just the way we now begin every day; and on those days when one of us needs to leave the house early, then we’ll do it whenever we’re both back together, sometime later in the day.  But this upsets our regular routine, and that particular day never feels like it quite got off to the right start.

It’s inevitable that someday our impressive Wordle streak will end; and when it does, we know that we’ll receive condolences (or taunts?) from our friend across town, who also attempts to solve this same word puzzle everyday (typically during his breakfast).  We are in the habit of texting our results to each other, which has the tendency of turning our fun little word game into a serious competition.  Only yesterday, I happened to be riding my bike when he drove past; whereupon, he pulled over, rolled down his window, and inquired, rather cheekily, why it had taken us five guesses to get that day’s word, when he’d managed it in only three.

We tell ourselves that these daily puzzles are a good cognitive exercise—a nice workout for our brains—which they probably are; but it’s also our way of avoiding the admission that we all seem to be somewhat addicted to this daily puzzle routine.

I chuckled while talking on the phone with a friend in Seattle, who also plays these same three word games every day, and also over his breakfast.  Is he obsessed?  A bit; yes.  And competitive, too, since he wanted to know what was our fastest time for solving the mini-crossword, thinking his best time was probably better than ours.  (It was; and he did gloat.)

Something will eventually alter our familiar morning routine, though that’s hard to imagine, after having done it so faithfully for several years now; and this well engrained habit will someday be replaced with something else.

I heard once that you’ll create a habit—good or bad—if you consistently repeat a particular behavior every day for three weeks.  I could put this theory to the test by replacing our daily word puzzles with something else (like yoga, or morning calisthenics) for three solid weeks to see what would happen.

I could try this.  It might be interesting, and even empowering, to determine just how much influence I could exert over my own habits and routines.

Yes; I could do this.  And perhaps I should do this. 
But, break my ongoing Wordle streak of 646 days?
Oh, please!  We all know I am absolutely not going to do that.