pattern illusion

“Here I go again,” you might say as you see yourself following a familiar repeating pattern in your life. The pattern of repeating behavior might be comforting or vexing, but often the repetition you think you see is entirely illusory. The pattern you think you are observing might not exist except in your imagination, or your current actions might not fit the pattern you think you are observing, or the pattern might not have any meaningful connection to what you are trying to do. Looking back it can be useful to understand your life in terms of habits, practices, and tendencies, but in the moment it is more valuable to consider that what you are currently doing might be something new and different.