Yesterday Michael Dougherty of The Week tweeted what I am assuming is his version of a “new year’s resolution,” and I like it a lot.

Process setting. System setting. Ritual setting.

Not goal setting.

Don’t get me wrong.  I have some goals that I’m working on finalizing.  But I like his approach to process, systems, and rituals.  It’s a good echo of Smith and You Are What You Love.

I think a lot of us spent a large amount of 2016 realizing that our settings were off.  Maybe not all of them, maybe not by much, but at least enough to reconsider how to go about moving through the year 2017.  One some level, the process-system-ritual distinction almost feels redundant.  Process, though, is how you do a particular thing.  Example: this is how I make this particular decision.  System, on the other hand, is how your collection of processes work together (or don’t work together, even).  System implies a certain kind of checks-and-balances that keeps total equilibrium in mind.  Ritual feels a little different, the third but ancient jewel in the beautiful ring.  Ritual speaks of action rooted in something deeper, more significant, than  process and system.  Perhaps it even points to greater purpose.

(image from TheConTech.com)