Photo by Scott Webb
Bad habits are like bullies: they taunt you all day and you want nothing to do with them. In fact you will exhaust insurmountable effort to shed all dealings with them, like creating silly resolutions to help reinforce your desire to stay as far away from them as possible.
You hear them trying to talk to you all the time, how you use to be friends, how you use to hang out, and then you start naming off the things you use to do and just get pissed. Angry with yourself, like how could you be so foolish. And they keep egging you on, “come on you know you what to”—
They don’t change and neither would you if it wasn’t what you sought. It’s hard to break a routine— any routine—that you’re comfortable with; even if it holds you back. That restlessness you encounter when you see yourself moving further and further away from where you were, that’s fear.
You ask yourself “what are you afraid of”. A new routine. A harder routine. It’s intimidating as hell to continue something you know is hard. It’s not like there is some guarantee of something better waiting for you, right? Is there ever? You know that there are only so many ways to obtain the things you want and if you want to keep them it’s just a hard routine that seems easier over time.
Fortunately, bad habits do get old and like a math equation you can use one to check the other (implying your good habits). But you won’t see the reward until much later— when the bad habit is just a distant nagging no longer consuming all of your attention.