“It takes 21 days to form a habit..”
Does it?
I feel it to be on lines with Einstein’s relativity theory i.e., I cannot deny the co-relation even if I try my hardest enough.. I have been trying to inculcate exercising since 3 years now.. but it’s been approximately 52- 21 day sets.. and I still dread it in the manner I had dreaded it the first day.. On the other hand, I took hardly one-third of a 21 day set to order take-out on a daily basis..
This I can still control somehow...I mean 21 days give or take.. ain’t that much right?
But what about the habits which are formed slowly and slowly over the years.. by watching and observing everything around us... Habits which we don’t even know we have yet.. habits which make and break relations.. habits.. which make and break us.
It can be as small as fidgeting with your pen or leg constantly.. to as big as screwing up or screwing around.. anything..
In hindsight, it doesn’t even matter whether we noticed it.. liked it.. or hated it.. the presence was there... and that’s enough.. for instance... my parents are opposite of each other... one is dominating, the other is submissive.. both extremes... I never really cared for it.. but taking up on the cues... you can find the most dominating as well as the biggest pushover in me now...
My dad is a chain smoker.... I had hated it throughout my childhood.. but looks like I’m Daddy’s lil girl after all.
Similarly, there are so many other things when I think about it.. habits which formed so gradually.. their daily contribution is so minuscule that you wouldn’t think of them to matter in any way.. but 29 years later and Bam! This is who I am now. These habits make me, Me.
But I don’t like all of them.. In fact I feel I can do without some of them. The question is.. Can I change them... and if yes... How?
Because believe me, I have tried. The question I get stuck at is.. what’s the benchmark for each. How much is too much of everything? I’ve always been a ‘go big or go home’ person... so anything else just does not cut it for me. Even if it try... My wiring is stuck that way.
I try to be cautious at first.. but at one or other point of time, I find it so easy to glide back into the old habits.. falling in the same pit.. over and over again.. it’s like I never left.
Primitive men knew no such thing... for them only survival mattered.. Talk about ‘straight priorities’.
Things were just black and white.
As time evolved, so did the science and so did men. But contrary to the belief, there is so much gray area in between those lines now..
And it’s not just that..
In addition to not being clear about so many things.. I feel there’s a lot of hypocrisy hidden.. for instance, I often find myself chiding someone for what they’re doing/not doing.. and funnily enough when I face similar situations.. I don’t pay heed.. to my own advice.. Even when I know I am in the wrong..
The gut is literally howling..
But I ignore it.. at the cost of my own peace of mind, I turn a blind eye.. simply because I know the other way.. I’m familiar with it.. I’ve been on it.. It was not a pretty sight the first time or the million times after.. but there’s a comfort.. And yet again I choose it.. Time after time... this little ruthless comfort birthed a habit out of it. And even though I’m not happy.. I’m fine with it.. because it’s a habit.. It’s a pattern.. It’s textbook..
It’s familiar.
In this scenario, other person is not being considered even.. they have their own battles.. this is mine. Whenever I find myself in a soup I promise, ”Never Again”. Yet, the next time.. I know I’ll be willing to dive in the same soup among the same old skeletons.. hoping it’d be different this time. And yet it’s not.
It’s so frustrating.. to not be able to blame anyone else but myself for the mess. I should know better.. I consider myself as a smart person but when it comes to such things... I’m as dumb as a rock.. throwing myself at the same wall again and again waiting for it to break.. without realizing.. it’s the rock whose edges are getting bruised.
Who’s to break this cycle.. Because if I find it so hard to give up my habits.. then why shouldn’t they? It is a struggle for me.. then it can be a struggle for everyone else right.. It is because of me that I find myself in similar situations repeatedly.. It can be safely said that
I suffer not at someone else’s but my own peril.
“It takes 21 days to form a habit.. and 90 days to make a lifestyle.”
But what’s after 90 days? What about 10585 days.. what does that account for? Does that mean that there is no way out now? I’m pretty sure it’s in my character now..That makes the problem and the problem of getting rid of it that many times harder. And I know for sure I can’t change my character, the very essence of being me.. in 21 days.. give or take.. It isn’t much still.!!
What about the stomach churning that happens every time I try to stray from my habitual path.. I feel guilty doing it.. like I’m doing something so horrendous and unforgivable.. the ways have been carved so well, that the water just flows through it.. swiftly, smoothly.. only to be splashed by the big boulder of realization that yes, it’s another screw-up.. a big fat one too.
Be it anger management, or being agreeable or dominant or any other way to deal.. I promise myself to not repeat it. Yet I do it hopping around like it’s no one’s business, being fully aware of the repercussions as well, meanwhile hurting myself and my loved ones in the process.. what does it say about me.. that there is something seriously irreparable in me...? or it’s normal maybe because everyone is going through a similar battle... more or less..
What is this conundrum where I have the key but I just don’t have the strength to unlock.. which will only save me from myself.. my old habits.. my same sorrows..
I feel tempted.. to change.. my habits, lifestyle, character.. but at the same time I have half the urge to throw the key away...
The comfort that habits provide seemingly gives me a safe space where it’s so convenient for me to say that people like me for me.. but why do even I like this me.. it looks easy but it’s hard to find the line between privilege and right as to why anybody tolerates it. My intentions don’t matter if I keep falling on the lines of my old habits, where it hurts people..and myself..
It’s similar to being stuck like a caterpillar. The cocoon provides all the warmth and nourishment but unless the caterpillar comes out of it, it dies inside.. with the all the warmth and nourishment but no life to make use of it... Is this what’s gonna happen to me if I don’t change? *shudders*
Does anybody else face all of this or it’s just me who doesn’t want to come out of the cocoon and
Become a freaking butterfly.!
I cannot die like the caterpillar.. floating in my own shit just because I was too lazy or too scared to break the pattern.. or just because I was too habitual..
Man is a creature of habit after all.
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