Ritual jordanmarsh6, February 15, 2021April 5, 2023 Read this quote and try to guess who it comes from (emphasis is my own): “I noticed that ritual is solemn. It serves, not only to be remembered, but to leave a moral impress. A coronation or a ring as giver in marriage, as a miniature drama intended to produce an effect upon the feeling of the person who receives it. What can we conclude to be the overall concept of ritual? It serves to stimulate the imagination by certain picturesque, dramatic actions, and words which calls up the conception of something larger in power…” I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t know because I definitely wouldn’t. This comes from Martin Luther King Jr. As a college student at Morehouse College, he wrote an essay entitled, “Ritual”. Fun fact: He actually got an A- on the essay. I read the whole thing and thought he probably deserved more than an A-, but I digress. Ritual (or ceremonies) are all around us. The most recognizable one may perhaps be a wedding ceremony. We have graduation ceremonies. We have ground-breaking ceremonies. We have ribbon-cutting ceremonies. The list goes on and on. Some of them in particular can sure seem like a waste of time; for example, everyone that has ever been to a graduation ceremony knows the reason you are there lasts about five seconds when you actually have to sit there for one to two hours. Dr. King’s words help me understand much better why we even bother: rituals are like a miniature drama. They are meant to be an outward expression of an inward impression we want to make on ourselves. Almost like the way a stamp seals its place in wax. Here’s a radical idea to help ourselves stay motivated to accomplish our goals: perform a ritual. Do you want to lose weight? Get some of your favorite fatty foods and burn them in a campfire. Do you want to get a promotion? Buy a new suit/dress that you can’t wear until you get the promotion but display it prominently in your room. Do you want to quit social media? Write the words “social media” on a rock and throw the rock into the deepest body of water you can find. I think you get the idea. Figure out what inspires you (boomerang inspiration to be sure!) and think about a symbolic gesture you can do to make an internal mark. Did you like that last idea? Here’s a funny story: that is something my wife and I actually did once. We both wanted to quit social media. We got ourselves a couple of rocks, wrote “social media” on them, and then filmed each other throwing the rocks into the Potamac River. It was actually really cool. I felt a rush of motivation to accomplish something that meant a lot to me and I think my wife did too. And guess what? We basically forgot about it two weeks later and kept using social media. No lie. Don’t you feel the power of this revolutionary idea after it completely worked to help my wife and I quit social media? I tell you this story for two reasons: first, the ritual alone won’t be enough to completely change our behavior; but second, it can certainly help us feel a surge of motivation. I want to explore in my next few posts how we can use ritual to our advantage. We should understand its limitations, certainly, but we should also consider its unique power. Self Improvement