Pros and Cons of Being in a Rut
In the mountains where I live there are mostly dirt roads. When it’s raining and traffic flows ruts are carved into the roads. When they dry out you can drive down those roads and not have to touch your steering wheel because your wheels will be moving in the ruts.
Being in a rut can be good or a bad. It’s good if you are going down a positive path. The positive habits you create in your life form a rut that guides you in positive and productive ways without much conscious thought. It’s like an autopilot steering you to the destination of your choice. It’s bad if you enable a pattern of destructive or counter productive habits. The rut which forms causes you to follow that lower path without conscious thought. It keeps getting deeper and deeper.
Developing a habit of any kind is a rut. Whether it’s good or bad depends upon whether the direction it leads is good or bad.
If it’s bad, you can change your life and get out of the rut, but you have to consciously guard your life from falling back into those old habits. The ruts have been carved and don’t go away easily. The best way to keep out of bad ruts is to get on a completely different path so you’re not even close to your old rut.
If it’s good, you can use the rut to keep you pointed in the right direction leading to the destination you’ve chosen. You can consciously carve the rut (path) for yourself with positive daily habits that you get used to and become easier the more you follow through.
Choose which ruts you follow. Our lives inherently create them. Use them, don’t let them use you.
