The Nature of Routine

In examining our lives it is often good to simply step away from your everyday routines and look at them from a different perspective. The ever questioning human mind makes it a simple excercise. Recently I went on vacation, on a cruise to the caribbean. Tough, I know. :) In that though, it provided the opportunity to step away from my daily life, to examine, to reflect. To see the forest through the trees, if you will. What is it that I do day in and day out? What routines do I follow that will afford me the way to break free? What are those things that hold sway over me, that are inescapable, that chain me to these groundless forms of being? Life in its myriad forms, in its own ways, the way we structure our lives, the "daily grind", are all forms of conditioning. I have seen it in the mirror, in my thoughts, in the faces of the thousands I encountered on this trip. Strong currents, we face strong currents rush by us and through in our practice. So we sit, like a rock in the tumult of this rushing water of life. What happens to that rock? Does it crack and slowly erode away? Or is it polished?