Everything is ritual

Habits (good and bad) are effortless and cultivated through repetition. But habits are hard to change.

A ritual is more like improvising music or an athletic performance. It means adjusting to different conditions. Confucian ritual is similarly flexible. It depends on the awareness of the relevant factors in a situation. For example, someone who submits to a ritual does not shake hands out of habit but because it is the proper thing to do in that context at that time.