Shedding habits is a habit I’ve picked up in the last decade. Things that I thought I could never do without have so far been fairly easy to give up. It all started about 7 years ago with soft drinks.
Whenever we have some big holiday the local supermarkets and retail stores put out their food specials. They lower prices on things that they know that everyone will buy and will stock extra supplies to avoid running out.
Soft drinks are the first thing that they stock up on and advertise. Seeing the low, low prices reminded me of when I was in high school and working at the local grocery. It was 4th of July weekend and the local grocery had put out 6 packs of soft drinks for 50 cents. For reasons I can’t really fathom my family and I decided to build “a tower of soft drinks”. we bought day and night till we created an 8 foot tall tower of soft drinks. Who knows how many sodas that was. I think we had sodas on hand till September.
How could I give up a habit so deeply ingrained? Soda drinks, particularly cola drinks were an integral part of my life for years. Upwards of 5 or 6 sodas per day. With meals, by themselves, morning, noon, and night. Warm or cold, bubbly or flat, didn’t matter.
Yet I did it. One lent season about 7 years ago I decided to give up sodas for lent and never looked back. I feared I would get withdrawals or that my willpower would falter but the days went by surprisingly fast and after lent I just kept going and never looked back. So it was with many other habits I had picked up over time.
I count myself lucky and don’t for a moment imagine that it’s this easy for other folks. I suspect that for many people these habits have a deeper psychological root that can’t so easily be removed.
On the one hand I’m not really sorry that I developed these habits. I think it has helped to broaden my perspective and that kicking these habits has helped me understand people who have to kick addictions and bad habits, if even just a little. On the other hand I do think I could have spent my time, money, and health in better ways.
Maybe those were the price I had to pay to gain perspective.
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