Being A Creature Of Habit Can Be Awesome, Really. I Swear We Are Not All Boring.

Flying by the seat of my pants has never been my style; I prefer to stick to a schedule. I’m a creature of habit, doing pretty much the same things at pretty much the same time every day, or at least as often as I can. This doesn’t mean I’m incapable of being spontaneous or rolling with the punches. It’s just that, given the choice, I like the predictable familiarity of a routine.

The problem with this is society’s tendency to label people like me with the B-word: boring. Nobody likes boring people, or aspires to be one, or makes a New Year’s resolution to “be more boring.” You never see them as the main character in a movie — or if you do, they’re trying to change their monotonous, humdrum ways. But look. Just because I like to eat my bowl of Special K at 7:36 every weekday morning and then take an immediate poop doesn’t make me boring, asshole. It makes me steady, dependable, grounded, regular (pun intended). Sticking to a similar daily schedule gets a bad rap, and unfairly so because those people you consider unexciting are actually awesome. Think about it.

We’re efficient.

When you’ve got a set routine, you know exactly how long it takes you to do each thing, which means you can maximize your time (another thing we “boring” types value) and get the most out of each minute.

We’re reliable.

We aren’t the kind of people to leave you hanging. I mean, we don’t even break our daily date with our 3 o’clock cup of coffee, so you know we won’t let you down. Plus, if we’ve fit you into our schedule, we may have even rearranged it (minimally, of course) just for you. That means you are pretty important.

We’re predictable.

Have you ever wanted to call someone or drop by to pay them a visit, but weren’t sure if you were catching them at a bad time? You don’t have to worry about that with schedule-oriented people. You know exactly what we’re doing when, because we always do it that way. Every single day. No surprises here! So swing on by…as long as it’s during our scheduled downtime, I mean.

We’re responsible.

You know what else we prefer to do on a schedule? Everything. Paying our bills, getting our oil changed, returning our library books. Due dates and deadlines mean something to us, because we don’t fit broken-down cars or calls from collection agencies into our structured agendas.

We’re easy to buy for.

If ever you have to get a creature of habit a gift, you’re in luck — because we’re not the type of people who are into something this week and over it the next. We’re sure of our preferences, and if you’re close enough to us to be buying us a present, chances are you’re sure of them too. If all else fails, buy us a gift certificate to download some kind of scheduling app for our smartphone. We love those things.

We make kick-ass parents.

Any expert will tell you that kids do better when they have a familiar routine firmly in place. And since their schedule is part of ours, you bet your ass that we’ve got it down to a science. Because if they’re not in bed by 8:30 that throws us off, and well, we have a glass of red to be sipping by 8:45.

Our level of spontaneity may not exactly take your breath away, but our routines allow us to navigate the world without wasting a lot of time on trial and error. So let people laugh at our regimented ways. Let them say we’re unexciting and stodgy. We don’t care. We haven’t penciled the haters into our calendars anyway, so bye.