After All, Did History End?

 Why do we do it?

I mean, we keep on doing it. Is it for pleasure? Is it for safety, for fun? Why? We keep repeating ourselves over and over. We like it, I think. There's the expectation, the relief. Job done. That's it.

Routine can be a realm of comfort. Is it the same as the trendy term 'comfort zone'? Maybe. Truth is, some jobs seem to have an appeal for it, while some people hate everything about it.

I've been a teacher for over fifteen years, and teaching seems to be one of those jobs quite attached to everything about routine. We keep repeating to ourselves teaching should be creative, innovative, fostering students' self-awareness, students' independent thinking, and so on. But, are we acheiving these goals?

I'm not in a mood for preaching anything right now. This is just a reflection, just trying to ask some questions, maybe they trigger the same curiosity in the reader as they are on me.

Just think about it. We wake up every day, and what's the motivation. Let's agree it''s the pleasure of doing our job, doing it as good as it gets. That's alright. I don't see anything wrong with that. I'm not even saying we do it for positive reinforcement, but just for the reward we get from our inner selves by accomplishing our immediate goals.

We have that as a daily goal, acheiving it, waiting for the next little moment of pleasure for doing it again, maybe having lunch, having a little rest, going back home, seeing our loved kids, relatives, pets, plants, or just our beloved shelter, our stuff, screens, meals, drinks, bed.

The next day is here, more rewards, back home. If that's not the definition of a routine, please tell me what is it. Mind I'm not saying it's a bad thing. Nothing further from what I'm trying to express here. I'm quite a routine guy myself. Actually, I love my little rewards and starting everything over and over again.

Wait a second, I just can't remember if I have been like this all my life. I guess, a little bit, yes. After all, one doesn't change that much over time. But is it possible that some jobs amplify being like that? Just maybe.

I mean, it has to be. We go every day to the same place, and little by little we tend to do the exact same things over and over. Isn't it like a training exercise for routine behaviour? Just maybe. Should we change it? I don't know. What would we replace it with?

I guess any alternative should be completely structure-free if it wants to succeed as an alternative to the carrot and stick process. But can people cope with total liberation? Well, experiments have taken place throughout History. What about the successful ones?

Alright, let's start with the first of them:

Have you already guessed it?

Honestly, I'm asking you because I don't know it? And that's the problem with changing the paradigm. We don't have an alternative. Maybe Francis Fukuyama was right and the world faced The End of History in 1991. By then I quite believed it. I was just finishing my 7th grade when the events that inspired Fukuyama's masterpiece happened. Some years later, the world seemed to change, and some people started to make it all look as it History hadn't finished, but then some of those people made it very, very clear that Francis Fukuyama was very, very right.

There's no alternative to living in this world and following certain pre-established rules. Yes, previously set rules. Previously agreed-on rules. You can work for improving those rules, but the alternative to following pre-established rules is not "a new world order", it's just bullying, and that's not what keeps History from ending.