Breaking Habits

Until quite recently I had thought that the concept of bad habits was a load of bogus; however my opinions have begun to change recently as I grow up.

We as humans are pattern driven by nature, and while I realize that patterns can have their benefits I can confidently say that I have experienced the negative aspects of the human desire for consistency and patterns. One of the major battles I’ve been fighting lately has been with procrastination and general laziness. Every day, it feels like a little more of my work ethic and motivation is being chipped away by my laziness as it begins to take over my life and mind. Like a parasite it spreads to all my thoughts during daily activities and responsibilities, corrupting my mind to the point where on some days I just feel like a vegetable.

I think that the most dangerous word in our vocabulary is “tomorrow” I catch myself saying “tomorrow” so often that I’ve decided to completely wipe the word from my vocabulary. Instead of thinking “tomorrow” we have to think “now”. Unfortunately, this mindset is not as easy to achieve as it sounds. Being someone who has personally been struggling with this issue lately; the habitual ritual that I’ve gotten wrapped up in is extremely difficult to break. Yet the mindset I need to have is no matter how deep I am in the hole, just remember that there’s still a chance. “Just keep pushing forward.” I tell myself. No matter how tired you are or how bored you feel, you need to trick yourself into believing that “tomorrow” isn’t good enough. Once you believe that, you will be rewarded, amd lately I have been seeing the benefits of this. I generally feel better about myself, more accomplished, and even more energetic surprisingly. What played a big part in this was scheduling, I find that its easer and more fulfilling when I plan out my day and check off all the tasks when I complete them. This gives me personally a huge sense of accomplishment and drives me to work harder in order to chase that good feeling.

One of the more prominent habits I see many struggling with is finding distractions when work needs to get done. People will do ANYTHING to avoid putting any type of effort into something that they don’t want to do. No wonder everyone’s house is so damn clean when tax season rolls around. I get it; I’m guilty of this too. When professors are assigning useless projects or when I just need to run some simple errands; suddenly, I become a super-hero. For that brief period of calm before crunch time I am willing to put myself through anything and everything; willingly throwing obstacles in front of myself for me to trip over in a desperate attempt to delay the inevitable. Cleaning, inspecting, “supervising” and just genuinely meandering around just to avoid wretched work.

I’ve realized recently that I’m not alone in these circumstances. Everyone is suffering in their own way, doing things that they hate just to live on, make money, and build a future. But why can they deal with it whereas I can’t? The conclusion I drew is that they are thinking about “now” instead of “tomorrow” and that is something that not just I, but everyone who feels the same must think. I’ve been a true procrastinator and I know it, yet this phase is coming to an end. It’s time to wake up and face the music. As an older teen quickly blossoming into young adulthood, responsibility is knocking on my door; and like my mother, it is not something I want to keep waiting.