I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer to life is hidden in plain sight in the clichés that we groan at every time we hear them. It’s a bit like getting the same advice over and over but choosing to ignore it because you’ve heard it all before and you still have no intention of taking it.
There are many clichés that point in the same direction, yet seem unrelated. Maybe that’s just a matter of interpretation. What about ‘old habits die hard’, and ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’? How do we customize old fashioned advice to work in a modern world?
Old habits die hard is truer than gravity. Ask anyone who has tried to quit sugar or smoking and they’ll dislocate their heads nodding in agreement, while munching that smoked cupcake. The feel-good factor of destructive habits is hard to argue with. There’s nothing quite like an icing-laden cupcake when you’re having a shit day or a cigarette to take the edge off a stressful situation. There’s a pile of science behind why we choose things we know aren’t good for us, but I’m not a scientist and not in the mood to paste someone else’s research into this spot. Trust me, there’s science and it’s legit.
Humans are generally creatures of habit. There are opposing arguments on whether that’s a good thing or not. It’s good in the sense that in a world of endless options, having a routine or habit eliminates the need to make decisions and as a result, it saves time in our increasingly busy lives. Not having to decide what’s for breakfast out of the endless options out there saves time in the mornings while trying to juggle getting ready for work, feeding the cat and getting kids ready for school. That’s the plus side.
The flip side of the argument is that we live on auto-pilot and miss out on new experiences for the sake of convenience. Life is boring when you eat the same thing every time you look at a menu. It takes the spice out of life. Not to mention, if your habit includes a bottle of whisky a day, that shit will eventually kill you.
The question is, are you willing to look at your habits? Driving the same route to work, or sitting in the same seat on the train every day are hardly life-altering habits but what about the rest of it? The habits that hold you back in life and the habits that take you in the opposite direction to the life you wish you were living; what about those? You envision a life of serenity where you do yoga all day but you’re sitting on the sofa watching endless reruns of the news showcasing the world’s misery and mayhem.
Before we go down that rabbit hole, think about this: everything in life is a choice. Seriously. Everything. I can already hear the collective groan of everyone disagreeing with that but think about it. Yes, you hate your job and you apparently have no choice, you have to do it. No, Buttercup, you don’t have to do anything of the sort. You have to eat, you have to sleep, you have to poop; everything else is optional. You CHOOSE your prison, every single day. You could just as easily choose to never work another day in your life but the consequence of that choice isn’t something you can live with. What you’re choosing every day is a consequence. The consequence is the money you’re earning doing what you do, or not earning money. Plain and simple. So you do have a choice. You can choose a healthy meal or you can choose a quadruple bacon deep fried cheeseburger with cheesy fries, a super-sized soda and a dozen cupcakes. Good health or a heart attack on a plate with side order of diabetes. Your choice.
The trouble with our default choices is that they’re familiar. We know what they feel like and know what to expect. Yes, we feel like a sack of poo after inhaling a monster-sized, grease-laden meal but at least that’s familiar, right? It’s an acceptable trade-off for the dopamine hit we got when we ate it. Sure, we’ll regret it later when our clothes no longer fit and we’re out of breath walking up 10 stairs but that’s ok because cuppycakes will make us feel happy again.
Choosing something familiar doesn’t involve risk or effort. We’ve chosen the same thing so often, our brains no longer look for other options and our train stops at the same station every time. Picking something else requires effort and maybe a small amount of risk. What if we don’t like the lemon and herb chicken?? What then? We know we like lasagna so why mess with a good thing? No-one likes change. Sure, the first time you had lasagna was a risk. You were brave and it paid off but what if your luck runs out this time and the new option is awful? I mean, luck has to run out sometime, right? This could be that time!
Anyone living in the United States knows that something as simple as ordering breakfast is a complete mine-field involving 18 decisions in a single transaction. Successfully navigating that mine-field once means that’s going to be the go-to map for that decision forevermore. That’s how we are.
Most of us know what we don’t want so let’s start there. If you know you hate your job, then what habits do you have that keep you doing it? Is there something small that could become a habit that could get you moving in a different direction? You come home and park in front of the TV every night. Could you maybe join a group or take a free online class in something you’re interested in? Maybe you hate working in finance and would rather be a chef. Could you teach yourself to cook? There are enough tutorials on YouTube covering every conceivable topic known to man.
You hate being overweight but you stay indoors all day. Go outside, walk around the block, then pick up your mail on the way back in. You have to go to the grocery store, so how about grabbing items on opposite sides of the store? Grab one item in the veg section, then head across to the meat section way over on the other side. Then pick up the next item next to the veg section then the next item from the aisle closest to the meat, etc. Take the most circuitous route around a place you have to go to. 2 birds, one stone and all that clichéd junk.
It takes a level of toughness to break a limiting habit. To change your life, you need to break the habits that hold you back. A life you don’t want is a tough life, so when that life gets tough, GET GOING. The only people who change their lives are the ones who can muster up the guts to try something different. A habit doesn’t have to be huge to be life-altering; it simply needs to be in line with the life you’re trying to create. Small steps in the right direction get you to where you need to go. Yes, the journey of a 1,000 miles begins with a single step blah blah. One thing to remember is starting a new empowering habit is all good and well, but if you’re maintaining an opposing bad habit, then you’re just going 1 step forward and 2 steps back, which is the equivalent of farting against thunder. Totally pointless. You cannot break a bad habit if you keep going back to it.
Look at any highway on the planet and you’ll notice that any attraction worth seeing has multiple signs pointing the way to it. If something is worth a detour, the signs will start popping up miles before the turn-off comes up. When there are that many clichés pointing in the same direction it’s time to take notice. Your dream life is that upcoming attraction so look at the old faded clichéd sign and decide. Are you taking the exit or not?
