Every day I follow the same routine.
It’s not a compulsion, I just see no need to change it.
I wake at 7:30, am showered and dressed by 8, and I’ve eaten and left by 8:15am. I arrive at my job at 8:50 and work from 9 to 1, when I break for lunch. I eat in the break room and make small talk with my co-workers. At 2 I resume my work, taking a 3:30 tea break. I leave the office at 5:10 and am home at 6. My work isn’t rewarding, but it is steady and my co-workers are nice enough. At the end of each day I return to my home where I live alone, with no one to interrupt my preferred way of doing things.
This routine was followed precisely for years before I noticed that I was even doing it. One morning as I was leaving the house, I was struck by a feeling of absolute panic. It was as though my stomach was at once hollow and filled with immense weight.
It was 8:16 and I have never run faster in my life than I did to catch that bus.
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