Breaking your routine. Freeing yourself from the ordinary.

This Japanese philosophy is one of the seven principles of Zen aesthetics. It means to escape from standard conventions and mundane things within your life. It’s about discovering and expanding your creativity while perceiving your surroundings in a new way.

Somewhat similar to shoshin and shu ha ri, datsuzoku is the practice of taking a break from your routine or breaking the rules. As we go through life, it’s so much easier for us to have a pattern and routine to keep us organized and avoid sudden disruptions that could cause uneasiness or additional work in our busy lives. This is especially the case for parents of young children. Every day is organized from the time the family wakes up—get breakfast on the table, pack the kids up for school, go to work or fulfill your responsibilities as CEO of your home, pick the kids up from school and take them to their afterschool activities, get home and prepare dinner while the kids wash up, make sure they get their homework done while you clean up after the dinner, get things ready for bed, take care of miscellaneous things that you couldn’t get to earlier, get some sleep, and it starts all over again.

Datsuzoku encourages you to step away from your daily routine to find new adventures that bring renewed fulfillment in your life. It also inspires creativity and innovation by transforming how you approach completing your daily tasks. While it’s difficult to do and often scary, as it’s human nature to avoid change, taking small steps by venturing off the beaten path or opening your mind and senses during the day can be helpful.

For example, if preparing meals takes up a significant portion of your daily routine, you could take a few minutes of your day to search YouTube for fun and easy meal preparation ideas that will give you more free time during the week. The additional time could open new opportunities for personal enrichment—hobbies, meditation, exercise, volunteering, or whatever you’ve been curious about but haven’t had the time.

Plow waits in the field —
I lie in rows of ripe grain,
adoring blue skies.