The point of structure is to enforce the inconvenient option. This is the one conclusion I reached from reading Lisa Zeidner's Who Says?, a book I mentioned in last week's June 2022 summary. There was a note from my reading which made a similar point in the context of writing fiction (it's a lengthy note so hang in there with me) - departures from POV structure should serve a specific purpose, ensuring that the author is responding to the needs of the story rather than merely catering to convenience. I'm sure there is plenty more to be said on this point as it relates to writing fiction, but I figure I'd be better off sticking to my lane and commenting instead on its broader application.
Most of the things we do have at least a semblance of structure, whether that be in a routine, a process, or even just a mentality. There is a simple logic in adding structure - defining the sequence, rhythm, or reasoning for certain steps increases the likelihood of the desired outcome. You'd think this would be enough to ensure a full commitment to the structure but, alas, as inevitably as night follows dusk, those pesky deviations eventually come around to disrupt the structure. One thing I notice whenever I find myself drifting away from structure is echoed in Zeidner's point about fiction - convenience. Structure is constantly challenged by the convenience of doing things another way - you plan your morning around waking up early, but it's convenient to hit the snooze; you designate the time after lunch for working on long-term projects, but it's convenient to check email; you bring back groceries for your meal plan, but it's convenient to order delivery. If you put this idea into reverse, you see that inconvenience drives the necessity of structure. When things are inconvenient there is always the chance that we choose to do something else, so the structure helps us stick to the plan. The things required of us to reach any goal often include a host of inconvenient tasks or responsibilities. With structure, we gain a helping hand in committing to the inconvenient, which we see both initially as well as over time - at first structure commits us to the inconvenient steps, then it serves as a deterrent against the allure of the more convenient alternatives that eventually come along.
Let's return momentarily to Zeidner's point. For a fiction writer, perhaps an upcoming scene feels too challenging to write in the existing POV. Making the effort to stick with the original POV is inconvenient, so the author craters to convenience and shifts perspective to simplify the work. You may suspect that I believe such a decision is unambiguously poor, but that's not exactly how I see it. What I like about Zeidner's note is her refusal to dismiss such a decision out of hand, and this is also my perspective - absolutes should be avoided (most of the time). The question becomes how to identify those rare moments where we know to break an ironclad rule, a question which is complicated by the tendency to create such rules with a finality that offers no consideration of deviation. In Zeidner's note from Who Says?, she offers "the need of the story" as the prevailing consideration - it's OK to make the shift if it serves the story. What is left unstated here is an assumption obvious to fiction writers - all decisions regarding form and structure are made to serve the need of the story. Translating this example into a broader framework suggests that we can deviate from the structures in our lives so long as we keep in mind what we'd hoped our structures enabled in the first place, evaluating potential deviations to ensure they continue to serve that original need.
Of course, examples tend to fall short of being perfect comparisons to everyday life. With Zeidner's point, the challenge for me is how she refers to a decision which is often made while the original draft is still in progress. By contrast, in the everyday context we rarely work with anything at such an early stage of creation. The main distinction that comes to mind is between creation and replication - the writer in Zeidner's example requires structure to create the draft while in everyday situations structure more likely helps us replicate a previously achieved outcome. This means we must understand that the lessons on structure come with the caveat that using a structure for creation is different from using it for replication. One difference that immediately comes to mind is that for the creator structure discourages shortcuts while for the replicator it protects against incompletion. I suppose it's easy enough to understand the former - for the creator, there's always an opportunity in revision to notice errors and strengthen the final product. The latter is a bit more of a stretch to me. Since structure exists to get something done, why deviate from it in any way given how this puts the outcome at risk?
The fact that abandoning structure puts the outcome at risk sounds alarming enough to ensure commitment to the process, but from both observation as well as personal experience I know this isn't strictly the case. I think what's going on most of the time is that some aspect of the structure, initially unknown to (or unacknowledged by) those involved, makes the entire thing unsustainable. The decision to indulge convenience is the first hint of an unsustainable feature in the structure, implying that it's not strong enough to enforce the inconvenient option on the way to completing a goal. I suspect at this point that most people resort to a natural response - calling on their willpower to bring them back on course. Using willpower might work, but leaving it at willpower alone overlooks the lesson from that first hint. If your workout plan is structured around waking up early and then one morning you decide to skip the workout to sleep in, the logical response would be to analyze the situation and determine that the root cause of the issue was being too tired in the morning to get out of bed. If you instead decide that tomorrow you are going to try twice as hard to get out of bed, then maybe you'll get up or maybe you won't but either way the structure will carry that design flaw for as long as you do nothing about it.
The way to solve the issue would be to improve your rest so that you can wake up in the morning without being tempted to sleep in. This style of thinking is the only truthful way to deviate from structure, using real-life feedback to identify where you are struggling with commitment to the inconvenient steps in the plan and then adjusting appropriately to address the root cause. The reason this is difficult is because it requires a significant degree of honest self-reflection, which I don't think is a quality we possess in abundance. Far too often, we instead remain loyal to our original plan and try to force ourselves to stick with it through sheer willpower. The problem with this approach is that it throws away the moment where you could have learned, regardless of your initial good intent, that your plan remained prone to the temptations of convenience. If you accept my premise that structure exists to enforce the inconvenient steps toward a goal, then you can see why such moments should never be ignored. When it comes to structure, each moment where we consider a convenient alternative is like a drop of water coming through the roof during the rain - nothing about the situation will permanently improve without taking some kind of action.
As usual, writing about any problem makes the difficult sound absurdly simple - analyze the problem! identify the root cause!! make the necessary changes!!! The way we navigate each day, which of course is driven by the sometimes unstoppable force known as human nature, is rarely influenced by such a simple set of rational commands. We are, for better or for worse, creatures of convenience, so perhaps the truth of the matter is that I should just drop it, admitting that no structure can overcome destiny. But I still think it's worth thinking about structure - why we need it, how it fails, and what to do when it requires repair. It's worth thinking about how to make ourselves more likely to do the inconvenient things. The fact is that we don't always have the strength to turn away from convenience, which means we don't have the strength do the things we want to do, to take the steps we need to take, to reach the goals we hope to reach. Structure is one of the things we can use to borrow this strength when it is lacking within us so that we can serve the most important consideration of all - to live the life we wish to live.
