Habits vs Rituals

Puett and Gros-Loh say: “Our patterned behaviours and rote habits – not rituals – are what really dictate our lives and get in the way of our caring for other people.

But through life spent doing as-if rituals that break these patterns, we gain the ability to sense how to be good to those around us.”

To deliberately engage in ritual is not to behave like an automaton. On the contrary, it can bring about a recognition of how many of our everyday, unexamined patterns of behaviour truly are the places where we act like automatons.