Habit
image: denis collette
What is clear, clearer than anything is that we are conditioned and programmed by what we are exposed to. Over the years, perhaps the greatest cry I have heard from individuals is that they want to change.
What makes change so difficult? It is habit, or more specifically ‘bad habits’. In reality there are no such things as bad habits or good habits, there are simply those that locate you where you want to be and those that don’t.
The older you get the more difficult it becomes. Why? Well, the saying “It’s in my blood” is actually not so far from the truth. If we consider that a human starts, as Descartes put it, as a tabla raisa or blank slate then it is going to be filled by something. Nature abhors a vacuum and will fill any empty space. This is where the element of engineering becomes critical, the prudent individual will create or engineer circumstances that are favourable to themselves or specifically to the most propitious developmental opportunity that their life can muster.
What is being referred to here is the development of habits or ways that are beneficial in a positive way. So we learn social etiquette and those things that enable us to function within society and not become an outcast or a pariah. We learn skills that enable us to ply a trade or practice a profession, which establishes a reciprocity between ourselves and the society in which we live; we become useful to society and society remunerates us.
The problem or the flaw is that we learn just about everything, from the moment we are born we take in huge amounts of data and store it away. This is all persuading upon the character that we develop and influences powerfully the person that we become. So far so good, the knotty issues arise in the development of those things that we don’t want, the so called ‘bad habits’, and eradicating or overlaying those is a tall order.
It is a tall order because each time you walk or read or write or get in a car and drive you don’t have to learn it anew, the skill or the art is stored in you, they become habitual things. The more you do something the more it is strengthened or confirmed. Doctors and psychologists use the term ‘chronic’ which describes an affliction or a disorder that becomes so established that it is no longer an occasional or arbitrary visitor but takes up permanent residence within an individual’s constitution.
In a curious way what I am saying here is that we live our lives and become chronically programmed, hopefully in a positive and beneficial way, so that things enter our ‘blood’ and we don’t have to re-learn them every time we engage with, say, walking or reading.
The $64,000.00 question is, how do we change habits that we don’t want? How do we superimpose those things that are ‘in my blood’ with alternative programmings or habits that bring positives and benefits to our lives? I’ll address that in other postings, to follow, and, as ever, if people send individual questions and I have the time I will respond in private.