Post written by Zen Family Habits contributor Corey Allan. Follow him on Twitter.
As you go through family and married life, it’s fairly common that you’ll fall victim to routine.
As a couple you have your chores, they have theirs. You sit the same places in the living room, at the dinner table, and you even have “your side of the bed.”
Have you ever stopped to wonder how routine and schedule take over so easily?
While Zen Family Habits is all about simplifying things in order to create room for more happiness, this post is not intended to give you ideas on how to do that. Instead, I want to examine one of the hurdles to simplifying and trying something new with your family.
To do so, I’m using a story that’s been around a while in the business world, but it applies to family and married life as well.
Start with a cage containing five monkeys … Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result – all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.
Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana.
Why not?
Because as far as they know that’s the way it’s always been done around here.
Routine and schedules serve a good purpose in life. It creates order and provides a system for things to operate within. At the same time however, routine can create monotony and apathy.
As you seek to create simple happiness with your family, realize that you’ll run up against this principle. But at the same time, recognizing this as a barrier brings you one step closer to conquering it and creating the marriage and family you desire.
I love this example of how we can become creatures of habit, even to a fault. I totally agree that a healthy marriage and family life requires some “spice” and some activity that gives us a new perspective. I have found that if we let our kids decide what we should do for the afternoon, we’ll often break our routine and do something a big crazy…and very rewarding!
That’s a wonderful comment. I know that when I’m “in the moment” with our son I learn how to get back to simple pleasures. As an adult, we layer our lives with so much productivity that we forget that in rushing towards a goal, we miss life.
I like to call these “rules that don’t exist.” Sometimes we can get so programmed by our parents, teachers, society, the media, whoever, that we stop asking questions like, “Why do we do things this way?”
When the answer comes back, “Because weve always done them this way” you know you’re on to something.
Great article. Great example. I’ve been trying to break from routine for awhile now, but every time I do I quickly find myself, somehow, sucked back into the same routine I just broke out of. Society has a funny way of making me feel like I need to do this or that when what I really need to do is listen to my mind and body. They tell me what I need to do, but I often choose not to listen to them because it goes against my routine or it’s hard. Mixing things up can be very rewarding, but so can a little bit of order or “routine”. Too much chaos can be disruptive for one cannot find purpose. I suppose that is why we must find balance in everything we do.
I am sorry, i found this example truly disturbing about the poor tortured monkeys.
We as a human, I am not surprised we would do same thing to other humans in same cage and same experiment.
Hi P,
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment on our site. It was not my intent to offend you or anyone in anyway by publishing this article and if I have I apologize.
I think what Corey writes is merely a story used to illustrate how we can become stuck in routines, not because they necessarily make us happy, but because “that’s the way it’s always been done”. We sometimes need a nudge to question why we’re even doing what we’re doing.
I’ve looked for a reference to a scientific article outlining this study and I haven’t found one yet, which is why I believe that this particular story is just that, a story. I hope you are able to take away the message that Corey was trying to get across in this article even if the story used to illustrate it didn’t sit well with you.
Sincerely,
Sherri