We all have our routines," he said softly."But they must have a purpose and provide an outcome that we can see and take some comfort from, or else they have no use at all. Without that, they are like the endless pacings of a caged animal. If they are not madness itself, then they are a prelude to it.
Interpretation
Routines are essential, but they must serve a purpose to be beneficial; otherwise, they lead to frustration.
John Connolly emphasizes the importance of having meaningful routines in our lives. He suggests that routines should not be mindless or aimless, as they can lead to a feeling of confinement similar to a caged animal. Instead, they should have a defined purpose that yields comfort and tangible outcomes, or they risk becoming a source of madness or despair.
In practice
During a motivational speech about the importance of having meaningful daily habits.
Without a human voice to read them aloud, or a pair of wide eyes following them by flashlight beneath a blanket, they had no real existence in our world. They were like seeds in the beak of a bird, waiting to fall to earth, or the notes of a song laid out on a sheet, yearning for an instrument to bring their music into being.
It was an overcast late November morning, the grass splintered by hoarfrost, and winter grinning through the gaps in the clouds like a bad clown peering through the curtains before the show begins.
For in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be.
He would talk to them of stories and books, and explain to them how stories wanted to be told and books wanted to be read, and how everything that they ever needed to know about life and the land of which he wrote, or about any land or realm that they could imagine, was contained in books. And some of the children understood, and some did not.
Pray to God that your attachment to such transitory things as wealth, name, and creature comforts may become less and less every day.
Failure is an opportunity. If you blame someone else, there is no end to the blame. Therefore the Master fulfills her own obligations and corrects her own mistakes. She does what she needs to do and demands nothing of others.
Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.
A thousand fearful images and dire suggestions glance along the mind when it is moody and discontented with itself. Command them to stand and show themselves, and you presently assert the power of reason over imagination.
The dead hold in their hands only what they have given away.
No greater thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.
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