Last month I wrote about addiction, a prime example of a bad habit. This probably seems obvious; if you are addicted to something, you are using it or doing it without control, often to the deficit of your well-being. But what about other habits? Are they always bad? The truth is that habits can be beneficial or harmful, depending on the situation, which means it would behoove us to take the time to develop good ones.
Let’s start by talking about how habits can be harmful. A person who struggles with an addiction feels compelled to engage in the same behavior over and over. Now the behavior in isolation might not be that big of a problem, but habitualizing it inevitably makes it harmful. We fall into a rut of doing the same thing, creating a fairy tale where we’re able to repeat our behavior and experience that sweet shot of dopamine while blissfully ignoring the negative ramifications wrought on ourselves and those around us. These behaviors become ingrained habits: you wake up, you have a cigarette; you have a spare afternoon, you smoke a joint; you have work to do, you gulp down your 5-hour energy; the hour approaches dinner, you pour a cocktail. None of these habits do you any favors, but you repeat them again and again on autopilot; you’re not even sure you like the effects, but you’re in too deep to see past the current moment of need.
These habits run deep. Anyone who has ventured deep into an addiction can speak of the desire to get away from it—the morning after morning after morning…after morning after morning after morning…after morning after morning after morning where you wake up, curse the previous night and the decision to engage in a bad habit, swear off the bad habit, but then slowly march right back into it by the end of the day. You might even second guess your actions while you’re in the thick of it, wondering as you crack that beer, hmm, do I really need this right now? Today wasn’t so bad, so I’m not too stressed…but you’ve already opened it, you already planned to get tipsy before going out. You’re about to do something and you just know that having that drink will make that something better. The movie you’re seeing won’t be that funny, and that drink will make you enjoy it more. You just bought a case and it’s taking up too much room in your fridge (yes this is an actual excuse, and yes I know from personal experience). There’s a million reasons to continue with a bad habit, and all you need to do is find one that passes your mind’s minimum standards for overriding a desire to stop, and boom you’re back on the train.
It seems obvious that these types of habits, that addictions in particular, are harmful to us. But are they always bad? Do unconscious acts invariably harm us? Should we always strive to have total control over our actions and decisions?
The answer to all of those questions is the same: Not at all. In fact, when habits are thoughtfully entrenched, they can be of great service to us in a variety of ways.
I recently watched an interview with Arnold Schwartzeneggar. I have a real admiration for Arnold. He’s a true self-made person, he came to this country with very little and worked and willed his way forward to achieve outstanding success as a bodybuilder, as a movie star, and even as a governor. It’s true, I haven’t always agreed with his politics, or his decisions, and it’s also true that I might be positively biased toward him because of his environmental work that includes messaging on reducing animal products and increasing natural whole foods…but there’s something about his spirit and his attitude that speaks to me.
In this latest interview, he starts off talking about the value of establishing what he calls routines. By establishing a routine filled with positive, life-affirming activities, one can meaningfully better their life. He uses an example of his early morning routine of waking up at 5, having some coffee, feeding his animals, reading the paper, looking for important messages on his ipad, driving his bike to a path and riding his bike to the gym, then working out at the gym for 45 minutes to an hour (on different areas each day), and how at night, he does some extra cardio work before dinner so then he doesn’t have to worry about calories at dinner or gaining weight due to his slower metabolism.
These are all things he does on a daily schedule without even having to think about them. He notes that the best part of having a routine is that you don’t waste time second guessing, you don’t say “should I or shouldn’t I” to yourself. You just do them. And when the “them” is a set of positive, life-improving, life-organizing actions, then you’re ahead of the game every single day without even thinking about it.
Arnold goes on to note that the reason that establishing these routines is so important is because, as he puts it, the brain plays tricks on you—this is what I was referencing earlier when citing our internal monologue of justification. You might go on a diet but then the brain sees a comforting pie, and it tells us that one pie isn’t going to make or break you, no big deal…but this is how it tricks you. The brain is an incredibly savvy negotiator, and it finds ways to justify all sorts of decisions that ultimately you will regret. And if you do travel down that path of regretful actions, later on you will say to yourself, oh gosh, why did I make that decision, it made me feel so horrible physically, mentally, spiritually—and all of this will be perceived internally as a failure, which can cause discouragement and result in you losing sight of your original goals. But, if you have strong routines built in, then you just automatically do the “right” behavior, as it just happens without thinking about it. And by “right” behavior, I’m referring to the one that is consistent with who you actually are as a person, with what you actually want to achieve in life.
I found this early part of the interview to be incredibly refreshing, in that it presents what can sometimes be a complex and confusing assessment of why we make good and bad decisions in a way that is extremely simple and intuitive to understand. Build good habits, do them unconsciously, avoid building bad habits, live a happier life.
I’ve thought a lot about this recently. Of course when I think of it, it’s a needlessly complex interwoven web of decision matrices, not because I’m so smart and therefore can make all of these connections, but rather because I have a tendency to fall deep down the rabbit hole. That’s why Arnold analysis brings such comfort, because he makes it simple. But, like many things in life, it can be beneficial to dissect the simple and understand how it applies to our lives. We might find that it applies in ways that are not so obvious.
If you’re a regular reader, then you know that this blog features several posts on the benefits of mindfulness, on how changing your outlook on life, individual decisions, and the things that happen around you and to you, can really and truly change your life for the better. Breaking them down further, really, those posts have been talking about how to build good habits.
Let’s think through some examples. I am particularly fond of this classic story:
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There was once a farmer in ancient China who owned a horse. “You are so lucky!” his neighbours told him, “to have a horse to pull the cart for you.” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.
One day he didn’t latch the gate properly and the horse ran off. “Oh no! This is terrible news!” his neighbours cried. “Such terrible misfortune!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.
A few days later the horse returned, bringing with it six wild horses. “How fantastic! You are so lucky,” his neighbours told him. “Now you are rich!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.
The following week the farmer’s son was breaking-in one of the wild horses when it kicked out and broke his leg. “Oh no!” the neighbours cried, “such bad luck, all over again!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.
The next day soldiers came and took away all the young men to fight in the war. The farmer’s son was left behind. “You are so lucky!” his neighbours cried. “Maybe,” the farmer replied.
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You might say to yourself, ok, I get the point, look at things half full. But that is only part of the story. The story is also about acceptance, about accepting that change is the law of life, and that most change can be seen as good or bad, depending on how you look at it. And ultimately, regardless of how you view it, of how you initially react with anger or disappointment or joy, the end result can be completely independent of your preconceived view of it. One can moderate the negative effects that misfortune may bring by simply accepting that things both good and bad occur in life. This acceptance only comes through practice, through remembering to view situations in that light, to the point where it comes naturally to you without thinking. Until it becomes a habit. A good habit.
Let’s look at an example that might resonate more with today’s readers. Say a friend has just received a promotion to a position you were hoping to attain yourself at some point. It is natural to experience a mix of emotions—you are probably genuinely happy for the person, but you also might feel some jealousy or resentment, since you were passed over for that role. Now which of these emotions do you think you should cultivate in order to establish good habits?
Now we can’t just up and say to ourselves, do not react with jealousy. Not only does suggesting a concept cause us to think of the concept (pink elephants, anyone?), but it wouldn’t be natural for us to squash a feeling that we have. Doing so would only give rise to other problems, as we experience anger at ourselves for slipping up and having a negative thought, or sadness at losing what we feel is a genuine and natural aspect of our being, or any number of other unpleasant emotions. Because of this, we shouldn’t seek to eliminate those types of feelings, but we can choose not to dwell on them. And the way we do this is through acceptance.
Jealousy, anger, resentment; these feelings will occur. They are a natural part of the human condition, and we would do ourselves some harm if we tried to eliminate them altogether. Instead, we should acknowledge that they exist—hmm, I am feeling anger right now—and then make a decision not to ruminate on them. One way to do this is to ask yourself the “Why” question that I’ve written about in a previous post. Asking why we feel anger or jealousy will help us understand that many times, those emotions are not rooted in our actual experience, but in how we’ve been conditioned to think we should feel about a given situation. And by defaulting to this past conditioning, which we’ve built through television, movies, books, and sensationalized news stories, we ritually respond to situations in poor ways. The more we react in that way, the more we build bad habits that at some point we come to believe actually define our true selves, when in fact they are just residue from stories we’ve heard. This is why it’s tremendously important to develop strong positive habits, to condition ourselves to react in a way that is more in accordance with who we truly are.
Developing these habits can be difficult, but don’t let that stop you because the payoff is worth it. You can be the person that overcomes their challenges rather than surrenders to them; you just need to keep your end goal in mind. One way to do this is through repetition—as Arnold would say, it’s all about the reps—as by regularly working to react in positive ways (or whatever your goal may be), positivity will eventually become the norm. Another way to expedite this process—broadly speaking—is through meditation, through which you can literally strengthen your mind and develop the capacity to make choices that you never even knew you had. So many of us go through life on autopilot—and that includes ambitious, successful people—and rarely spend time actually existing in the current moment, instead simply interacting with the world through a veil of associations. Meditation can help people in all walks of life come to an understanding about the amount of ownership they truly have over the choices that they make.
If someone has greatly wronged us, we can react with anger, and seek revenge. Or, we can react with understanding, with empathy, in trying to understand why a given situation has arisen in the first place. By making the latter reaction our default, we can avoid ruminating on unpleasant thoughts ad nauseum, which is otherwise so often our tendency. Like Arnold says, don’t give yourself the chance to dig into the negative emotion; if you’ve got a habit to react to a situation with positivity and love and compassion, then that will happen without thought, then those feelings will override the negative emotions. This will ultimately lead to a happier you.