My dears, it’s been almost a month and a half since I’ve started building up a new habit. So what happened?
In the 28 days of February I’ve been creaming my hands in the bus every morning on my way to work. Because I’m weirdly conscientious – every morning I was thinking “O wait, you HAVE TO cream you hands, because you’ve decided to try this habit thing – remember?”.
After the first week it became easier to remember it, as soon as I was out of home I was thinking “wait, do you have your hand cream with?”. And that’s it, at day 28th creaming my hands wasn’t a habit, I didn’t do it automatically, I didn’t feel badly if I don’t do it – I just have learned to think about doing it regularly. It’s kind of “Ow, you should cream your hands, don’t you?”. And that’s it, I can say “O yeah, I should” and do it or “Meh, I don’t feel like it” and don’t do it – I don’t do either automatically, I still have to consciously make that choice.
So, nothing really interesting so far.
More important for me is, that now I really understand why I don’t have habits. I don’t let myself keep such, because I hate the feeling of “I have to” and I imagine having a habit being a state of unconscious “I have to”, where you don’t even get to decide if you feel like doing it right now or not – you just do it, because you have to, because it’s a habit, you have to do it because you’ve done it so many times before. That terrifies me.
I know that this is kind of stupid, but it is like it is. I feel happy with the illusion of being free in my actions and I’m not hurting anyone. I literally spend the 12 days of march mentally celebrating my freedom of that potential habit that I’ve chosen as good for myself.
So my dears – happy habit freedom to me, what have you been doing ❓
Tags: free will, Freedom, habit, habits, illusion, life without habits
little coping koala 
March 12, 2011 at 13:33 |
I feel the same way about habits–I am utterly resistant to the idea that I *have* to do something. Any habits I have, I keep because I want to 😉
March 12, 2011 at 14:06 |
Good for you, I’ll try to do the same 🙂
March 12, 2011 at 15:30 |
Okay 🙂 Take the suggestion. Try developing a habit of doing something you want to do.
“Have to do that nice thing” isn’t exactly the same as “have to do something”.
March 13, 2011 at 22:58 |
That’s exactly what I’ve tried – doesn’t really work.
E. g. as I’ve moved to my new place a week ago I’ve went jogging 4 times in 2 days, because I was so eager to go jogging and so happy to be living next to the park. After that I’ve thought to myself “hey, that really rocks – you should do that every day or at least an regularly terms” – since then I haven’t been jogging… So now I’m taking this mental “rule” out and accepting the “rule” of “just doing what you like when you like” (which is actually my default and as it seems for a reason) and going jogging tomorrow, if I feel like it 😉
March 13, 2011 at 23:41 |
Nahh. Choose something real nice. Like morning sex. Or eating a chocolate before sleep. Or eating ice cream 2 times a day 🙂
Just for the fun of completing the self-study project 🙂
March 13, 2011 at 23:56 |
It’s completed already – I’m not choosing anything, if I feel like eating chocolate or having morning sex, I will, but I’ve seen enough to assure myself that creating any kind of habits is simply counterproductive for me 🙂
March 14, 2011 at 08:52 |
Трябва да гледаш повече Myth Busters 🙂 Опитът ти изобщо не важи – пробвала си само да си наложиш нещо, което е много различно от ежедневието ти преди това, пък и нещо, което не обичаш. Докато не изчерпаш вариантите, никой извод не е валиден 🙂 Може накрая да се окаже, че просто 28 дни не са достатъчни 🙂
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You have to watch Myth Busters more 🙂 Your experience doesn’t count – you’ve tried to make something into a habit, that is very different then your everyday life before that point and above that something, that you don’t like. Until all the possibilities are checked, none of the conclusions is valid 🙂 At the end it can turn out, that 28 days are simply not enough 🙂
March 15, 2011 at 17:52 |
You’re partly right of course 🙂
Partly simply because I’m not attending to make a scientific study (which Myth Busters don’t actually do either), but a subjective realization for my own personal life, which can be based on everything I decide is enough to base it on 😉