This post is a repost of this substack post: https://open.substack.com/pub/fabiowrites/p/the-strange-comfort-of-rituals
Some people start their day by checking emails. Others scroll through social media before they even get out of bed.
I have a different system.
Most mornings look almost exactly the same. I get up, take my medication — currently Elvanse and an antihistamine — take a shower, get dressed in clothes I prepared the night before, make a coffee and sit down for a few minutes with the New York Times Games. Wordle is usually first.
It is not a particularly exciting routine. If anything, it sounds almost boring when written down. But over time, I have realised that these small rituals play a much bigger role in my life than I once thought.
There is something comforting about knowing what comes next.
The world is full of uncertainty. Plans change. Projects fail. People surprise us. News headlines rarely make us feel calmer. A morning ritual does not solve any of that, but it creates a small island of predictability at the beginning of the day.
For me, these rituals are not about productivity. They are not designed to optimise my performance or help me squeeze more work into a day. Their purpose is much simpler: they help me arrive.
The shower wakes me up. The prepared clothes remove one decision from the morning. The coffee creates a pause. And the games give my brain something gentle to focus on before the rest of the day begins.
I think many people underestimate the value of rituals because they look so ordinary. We tend to celebrate big changes, major achievements and dramatic transformations. But most of life is not made up of those moments. Most of life happens in the small, repeated actions that quietly shape our days.
Perhaps that is why rituals feel so comforting. They remind us that not everything needs to be new. Not everything needs to be improved. Some things are valuable simply because they are familiar.
My morning ritual is not remarkable. It will probably never change the world.
But it helps me start my day with a little more calm, a little more focus and a little less friction.
And sometimes, that is more than enough.