Can Rituals Be the Key to a Better Life and Good Habits? Here's What I Learned From Confucius

“To learn and then at the appropriate time put into practice what you have learned: is this not a pleasure?  To have friends arrive from afar: is this not a joy?  To be patient even when others do not understand: is this not the way of an accomplished person?”-Confucius

Are we merely a reflection of the things we observe and encounter? If so, how can we ever become truly ‘good?’ I recently took a Harvard course on Happiness and what Chinese philosophy teaches about it. Most of the course was based on the teachings of Confucius.

A favorite quote of mine from the class was, “To become good, you must overcome the self by submitting yourself to ritual.”-Confusious

So what does this mean? For starters, as humans we are born a bit of a mess. We have to be taught everything for the most part. We must be fed longer than most animals. We can’t readily walk. We are, in a word, helpless. We are also highly shaped by our environment and the norms of said environment.

This doesn’t stop with our speech, gross motor skills or fine motor skills. We are also completely vulnerable to that which is our inherent nature and that of the outside world. So what do we do? 

Well, let me ask you a question. Why do you not put your elbows on the table? Why do you pray at a meal? Why do some of you go to church twice a year? You know, the Christmas and Easter crowd? I’m not judging. Why don’t you yell and scream at a funeral even though you might be utterly distraught? It’s because you are confined by ritual. The ritual is a space where habits are formed. They are space to behave against our natural instincts and actually work to be a little if not a lot better human.

Rituals make us better by breaking normative patterns. Let’s go back to the funeral example. The funeral ritual can break a number of patterns. It can put people in a room who would otherwise avoid each other. It can cause the rowdiest of children to be calm for a moment. Have you noticed this? You can take the most rambunctious five year old and plop him in a funeral, and he will be quiet. Why? He looks around and recognizes there’s something different taking place. All the adults are speaking very quietly. Some are crying. Few are smiling.  

It can create space for us to reflect on life by slowing down and facing our own immortality. The funeral is nothing but a ritual. 

It is a ritual that gives us space to be better by breaking our normal routines. Rituals cause us to be a better person for a time. We dress better. We speak softer. We refrain from insulting someone we might otherwise let have it. 

I once had an uncle named Larry Crabb. I know it sounds like a character out of a western. Larry was a trollish little man with the tact and manners of a savage. He prided himself on being an ass. However, when his sister’s husband passed he showed up to the funeral behaving like a kind and decent person. His habit of being a loud mouthed jackass was broken for a moment.

So how can rituals make us better people and form better habits? Let’s say you have a daughter, maybe her name is Rylan…just hypothetically speaking of course. Let’s say Rylan is a senior at The University of Alabama, and she is struggling. You want to help her. You want her to create better life habits such as eating better, getting more rest, adopting better study habits. What do you do?

Well, what if you created a ritual of connecting with Rylan on Zoom once per week. This was a sacred time for the two of you to visit and discuss what’s going on. Left to chance, this conversation may never take place. Creating a ritual of meeting with Rylan by Zoom would create space to come prepared to discuss real life issues. Talk about things that generally bet buried in casual conversation and start finding ways to solve some of the problems.

I remember as a teenager my Dad and I had what we called our “Sunday Night Ritual.” It involved a huge steak and he and I partaking together in something special to us. To this day no matter what is happening we can look back on our Sunday ritual with fondness. 

Author of “The Hero With a Thousand Faces” Joseph Campbell said, “The function of ritual, as I understand it, is to give form to human life, not in the way of a mere surface arrangement, but in depth.”

How very true this is. It’s the damming of a lake. It’s the taming of the wild west. It’s bringing order to where there is none. Within the order are norms and habits that become part of the ritual. 

I once had a coaching client who was frustrated for not working out as much as he wanted. He wanted to workout in the afternoon. However, each time he came home in the afternoon he would hit the couch and turn on Netflix. I suggested he create a ritual. The ritual was to immediately go to his room and change clothes upon entering his house. He was to put on his workout clothes right away. Once he had changed, he could then sit on the couch.

This ritual would get him in clothes that were reminders of the habit he wanted to form. It’s like wearing a suit to a wedding or a baseball uniform on the field. We act differently given the ritual of uniform. The same principle applies here. I did not suggest he force himself by willpower to workout after he came home. Instead I suggested a ritual be created by which the workout would neatly fit. 

It feels odd to be in workout clothes and sitting on the couch watching T.V. The two don’t mix very well. If you wear workout clothes on the couch, you’re probably one of those people who orders a Diet Coke with your Big Mac. I’ve got nothing for you.

The bottom line is this. Rituals cause sacrifice. We may not want to celebrate an anniversary, but it’s a ritual. If we are willing to succumb to it fully, we will be kinder to our spouse and use the space as a sacred time to show our love and affection for them. The ritual becomes a prompt, a trigger for a better kind of behavior. 

One of my favorite rituals was laying down with my daughters at night when they were young. This ritual gave me the opportunity to build memories, tell them stories and create a bond with them. It was a well defined space to show them they were loved, safe and adored. It was a time they could look forward to each and every night. There would always be the ritual that allowed space for time with their Dad.

Don’t underestimate the power of ritual. Much of society is defined purely on ritual. With so much subjectivity in the world today we need rituals more than ever. Create space to be a better person than you are normally. Find ways such as fasting, reading, writing letters, doing charity work on a certain day and make them ritual. In doing so I can almost guarantee you will form some great habits, find happiness and become an overall better person.