Why We Fear Habits

Dedicated to the memory of Stephen R. Covey.

It all started with a toothache. Enjoying a lavish all-you-can-eat dinner in the middle of a vacation with my family, I happily chomped into some peel-and-eat shrimp—and discovered I had not peeled as thoroughly as I should have. The result was a sharp pain in one of my molars, that sudden and unexpected kind of pain that scares as much as it hurts, thanks to its uncertain origin.

But in this case, I knew the feeling all too well. This strange toothache likely meant the beginnings of a chipped tooth, a minor dental malady I’d experienced the year before.

My Mom suggested I see the dentist ASAP upon arriving home. I resignedly agreed, reflecting on my decided lack of flossing since my last visit. I have an excellent dentist, and I have made it a sort of personal tradition to try to buoy his faith in mankind by showing for appointments with impeccable flossing habits—the Holy Grail of dentistry. Having kept a dreadful routine of biweekly or—I shudder to admit it—monthly flossing, I felt in no condition to visit the dentist any time soon.

But my Mom replied—and note this well, dear reader, because it is the core of what I have to say here—“Don’t worry. You can accomplish a lot in a little time.” I resolved then and there to floss that very night—which I just did before writing this. I may wake up tomorrow with slightly sore and swollen gums. It will be up to me to work through the initial phase of discomfort and ready myself for my impending dental visit. And if I stick to it, I will be fine. My Mom was right—a lot can be accomplished in just a little time.

We are afraid to revive neglected habits. Why? Because we fear that we will not be able to surpass or even reach our prior achievements. Can the former runner still run that 6-minute mile? Can the high school clarinetist still hit those high notes? Has the history buff forgotten who the 18th President was? It would take a long time to remaster these skills or relearn these fields of information, and always with the looming uncertainty in the background, the question of creeping Doubt: “Could you still be any good?”

The question, though, is irrelevant. People pursue passions because they love them, not just because they are proficient at them. Generally the two go together anyway, but even a rank amateur is still, as G.K. Chesterton pointed out, a “lover” of the thing pursued, because the word “amateur” literally means “lover.”

So if this is your fear, cast it out for the irrelevancy that it is. Perhaps you will only run an 8-minute mile now—but the point is, you’ll be running a mile again! And the same could be said for any revived skill or hobby.

The other fear we often face in reviving an old ability is more absurd, but perhaps even more common: we avoid reviving a habit simply because we fear we might not keep up the habit. Let’s face it, we’ve all been there. We start a habit, it goes well for three days, or maybe a week—and then it all goes down the drain. Something comes up; life gets in the way, as it is wont to do. How is the busy working man or woman supposed to find time to pursue passions?

Hmm. This is a tough conundrum, isn’t it? Well, actually, no. It’s not. There’s a simple solution, and here it is.

Set aside a small amount of time each day (between 5 and 15 minutes) to devote to practicing/building/enhancing/expanding/exercising/refining/reviewing whatever it is that you want to improve. It’s not rocket science, but the two ingredients essential:

1. Small amount of time (5-15 minutes). Less than 5 minutes is so inconsequential as to be nearly pointless, and is easily overlooked or forgotten in a busy schedule. More than 15 minutes begins to be a serious problem for those same busy people. But 15 minutes or less is impossible to refuse. If someone can’t set aside 5 special minutes out of their day, they need to fix their schedule so that they can.

2. Everyday. Fitness guru Jack LaLanne, who died seriously ripped at the age of 96, always insisted that a healthy person work out every day—never miss a workout, even if it has to be a small one. Now for Jack LaLanne, this meant several hours of swimming and weightlifting. For us, it might be a 5 minute jump-rope session, 10 minutes of studying Spanish, or 15 minutes of noodling around on the piano. But the consistency is the point. In his excellent book The Rhythm of Life, Catholic author Matthew Kelly points out that coastlines are changed by daily, repetitive crashings of water against rock. One splash of water, no matter how large, will not reshape an entire coast. Only the reliable, regular waves, rolling in from the deep blue day after day, year after year, century after century, can change the shape of a continent. The force of habit, says Kelly, repeated day after day in a disciplined routine, can have the same effect by reshaping one’s life.

So why worry about dropping a newly-acquired habit? Set a modest goal, and go for it. If you don’t succeed with that, figure out why. If it was a problem of willpower, gather your spirit and try again. If it was a problem of circumstance, address the circumstance or alter the goal.

I believe that the world would be a much greater place if everyone was actively involved in some passionate pursuit of a hobby, skill, sport, art, craft, or otherwise that adds to the world in some way, even if it is just their own world or those the ones closest to them. The human being is a wondrous creation capable of many wondrous things.

So what are you going to start going today? Start a new hobby, or dust off an old one. Give yourself the opportunity you need to, in Stephen Covey’s memorable words, “sharpen the saw.”

Good luck, and God bless you!

Determinedly,

Joezilla

Sighting the Blind

What sort of sinner is more dangerous to society? He who sins knowingly, understanding the evil of his act, or he who sins and assumes his action is not sinful? Certainly it is the latter, because the former reflects an unchangeable fact about man—namely, that he always has and will continue to voluntarily do evil sometimes. The latter, on the other hand, is always more hazardous to a good society, because as the generations advance, certain attitudes can take hold and become dominant within a society. If an attitude takes hold which is permissive toward some sinful behavior, this sin will gradually become more widespread, until it is seen as reprehensible by only a small and ineffectual minority.

Such seems to be the present course of our society with regards to sexuality.

"Back in the day," premarital sex was, as they say, taboo. Single mothers were frowned upon by the societal eye, because their circumstances trumpeted an irresponsible and irrevocable choice. Now, it is true that choices are merely notches in the timeline of life, and the choice of one day can be regretted on the next. It is the present intentions and attitudes that count, not past ones. Thus, ostracism is not a just societal response to single motherhood. HOWEVER…we must not throw out the baby with the bathwater (please forgive my use of a metaphor that is quite confusing in this context). The ostracism, though wrong, came from a perfectly righteous and upright attitude, ingrained deeply in society's fabric: Premarital sex was simply unacceptable.

Over the course of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, this tectonic plate has all but disappeared from the crust of contemporary society (if I may switch to a completely different metaphor for society). Although premarital sex is not necessarily encouraged by media at large (although in certain public school sex-ed curricula, it certainly is), it is most definitely not discouraged like it used to be. While the act of premarital sex used to be prohibited on moral grounds (i.e. "The decision is just plain wrong"), with STDs seen as the unfortunate consequence of the sin, modern society instead focuses on STDs as the primary evil of premarital sex. As usual, society has sacrificed the eternal, spiritual concern in favor of the temporal and physical one.

Thus, the ideal of protection has replaced the ideal of chastity. St. Augustine says that a man can order his life wisely by adhering to three principles: subordinating the inferior to the superior, joining like to like, and giving everything its due. Modern society has failed on the first count. Rather than focus on the effect premarital sex has on the institution of marriage and the individual soul, we choose to focus on the lesser concern of physical well-being. And built without a foundation, the building will crumble. Our generation must get to work on transforming society's vision of sexuality, restoring to it the respect and discretion it rightly once had.

I would wager that those who misuse sex have no concept of what it really is, what they are really doing when they make that choice. And here we return to the opening sentiments: those who have no knowledge of their sin are far more dangerous to society than those who knowingly do evil. There will always be sinners; there always have been. But sinners are self-aware, and can repent. A sighted man can open his eyes any time he chooses. A blind man, on the other hand, can only rely on the guidance of those around him.

Hopefully,

Joezilla