The value of ritual is profound and underappreciated. Mostly, I think, it’s because we live in a time-starved culture in which ritual is time-indulgent. We have even lost the sense of ritual, presence, and intimacy of the meal; we no longer sit down to meals in the old way.
Who can afford the luxury of doing one thing at a time? Who has the patience to pause and honor an activity before and after we do it? We certainly all should.
Religions understand and leverage the power of ritual. In most religions, blessings are as plentiful as iPhone apps. Waking up? There’s a blessing for that. Washing your hands? Experiencing something new? Eating a meal? There’s a blessing for each one. Every religion I know has similar practices to make our experience of the world sacred.
But ritual doesn’t have to be religious; it’s just a tool used in religions. Rituals are about paying attention. They’re about stopping for a moment and noticing what you’re about to do, what you’ve just done, or both. They’re about making the most of a particular moment. And that’s something we could use a lot more of in the business world.
Imagine if we started each meeting by recognizing the power of collaboration, and then dedicated ourselves without distractions to the meeting’s area of focus. Perhaps we even pause and acknowledge that each person’s views, ambitions, and priorities are important and need to be heard.
What if every performance review began with a short thought about the importance of clear and open communication? If every time we worked on a spreadsheet someone else created for us, we paused to acknowledge the complexity of the work he or she did and the attention to detail she or he brought to it? If at the beginning of the day we paused to honor the work we are about to do and the people with whom we are about to do it?
Start with just yourself. Sit at your desk in the morning, pause before booting up your computer, and mark the moment. Do this by taking a deep breath. Or by arranging your pens. Whatever it is, do it with the intention of creating respect for what you’re about to begin. Do the same before you make a phone call. Or receive one. Or before you meet with a colleague or friend.
Each time we pause, notice, and offer respect for an activity, it reminds us to appreciate and focus on what we’re about to do. And by elevating each activity, we’ll take it more seriously. We’ll get more pleasure from it. The people with whom we live and work will feel more respected. And we’ll feel more self-respect, too, which means we’ll work better with each other and produce better results.
That focus will help us accomplish our tasks more carefully, more proficiently, and more productively. And all the research shows that that kind of singular focus will make us far more efficient.
We need our rituals. It might just be the perfect antidote to a time-starved world.
By Bishop Bob Mueller of the United Catholic Church. Connect with him at bobmueller.org
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