HABITS

I'm thinking about habits. 

Worrying is an exhausting, often depressing habit.

Saving things -- keeping an idea or a possession, even when you know you won't ever use it again, is a time wasting, depressing habit -- every time you bump into whatever it was that you saved, you mull it over, and do it again.

Eating too much after you know you're full, is a habit -- it causes discomfort, and affects the way you look.

Okay, habit is a manner of conducting oneself; a settled tendency, or usual manner of behavior, an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly, or completely, involuntary.

What about bad habits -- cheating, lying, stealing, taking drugs, daily boozing, smoking, hating blacks-Latinos-Jews-gays --  those are "mull" habits -- habits you've taken on because mentally you've figured out that's what you really want to think and do.

That's YOU, like your name. But wait a minute, it's possible to change your name -- it might involve legal stuff -- time, money -- you might have to promote your new name, but a name can be changed. So sure, you can change any of the "mull" habits if you want to.

The fact is,  anything you mull over and hang on to, you've sort of decided is good -- you're proud of it, or maybe deemed whatever it is, as a virtue.

So can you mull over lying, heating, stealing, and how you feel about blacks, jews, gays -- and label all that as "good?"

Sure.  Hey, worrying, which can exhaust you harm you, defeat you, is not good, but if it helps you plan, it's a good habit too. Can over-eating be a good habit? Hey, you can say to yourself it makes me happy, to eat and eat till I'm overly full.  So it's good (till you start fretting, worrying about the way you look.)


I think the habit to cultivate, is to periodically mull over your habits. Create a mull routine, that culminates in a take action mode.

It's easy. On a calendar page in a notebook -- list your bad habits.

 Read the list loudly aloud --include any habits that are sort of embarrassing, annoying. (You may find yourself frowning. feeling a bit disgusted.)

On the list print C-H-A-N-G-E next to each item on the list that bothers you. Having writ it, you'll do it, maybe immediately, maybe sooner or later.

Why does this work? Because you hear it, see-it-feel-it, have stated it and recorded it. It's no longer mullable -- it's indelible reality.

Maybe next week you'll start a new page and fix and nix other things about yourself that you don't like. It's fun --though you're never done -- there's always something new and interesting to do to improve you.