[goblin89]

One can think of rituals vs. “thinking through each step” in life as using high-level vs. low-level programming languages, or abstractions.

Abstracting out doing things that are good for you into a “habit layer” seems unlikely to turn you into a robot or inhibit emotions (as rfugger suggests). Instead, it may allow to focus on higher-level activities and decisions. You can still switch abstractions and go low-level anytime if you have to, if benefit-cost ratio is high enough.

Also, there's probably a lot of unexpected and interesting things happening around that you can notice even as you do your ritual thing. (Important though is not to contemplate on them, at least for me it can destroy the ritual very quickly.)

PS. Thank you for your posts!

[rfugger]

Well put. My focus on the robotic aspect probably only reflects my personal struggles, not the poster's reality :)

[goblin89]

Yeah, you've explicitly mentioned it was your experience, so I shouldn't have said that you “suggest” it.

I should also admit that, although grandparent expresses the idea I had after reading Joel's comment, myself I don't have that orderly life and many good habits. More of the opposite, actually, and I also often enjoy making decisions on-the-fly.

I find the abstraction analogy appealing and inspiring, though. It probably could help people like me, whose stumbling point in forming and following habits and rituals is the lack of motivation.