I just read an amazing book, "The Power of Habit", by Charless Duhigg.
It's been out and on my shelf for a couple of years. I knew it would be good. I knew I'd love it. And, it took me a little time to get to it.
Endless thoughts and immeasurable value in this book... I encourage you to read it.
From the very many things to take away, a few of which I may write about... this was possibly the most powerful...
The whole concept of habits is that they are made up of three parts...
CUE - BEHAVIOR - REWARD
The majority of things we do during the day, we do out of habit. Have you ever been driving home and wondered, "Where have I been the past 10 minutes?" It happens to me often...
"How did I get here?"... crosses my mind... not in the esoteric way... but physically... how did I actually just drive for 10 minutes being so UNAWARE...
The book talks about many studies (which I always love) and tests done to understand the human mind. And, one stuck with me.
They put a rat through a maze. A sound goes off (CUE), the rat starts to run through the maze looking for a way out but smells chocolate. The rat starts to sniff actively every corner, every nook and cranny. It runs and turns, and tries to push down walls or chew threw them, tries something, if it doesn't work, tries something else... (BEHAVIOR). Then eventually it finds the chocolate (REWARD).
They measure the rats mind and heart through this process. Initially, when the sound goes off, the rat's heart is racing, it's adrenaline is pumping. It's mind is fully active looking for options, LEARNING, picking up clues, WORKING, TRYING... and then when the chocolate is finally found there is PLEASURE. Not surprising. (I hope it was dark chocolate ;-)
But, after the rats do this OVER and OVER and OVER again, they notice that as soon as the sound goes off, the RATS minds go straight to the feeling of PLEASURE. They KNOW they will get the reward. The adrenaline level is LOW, or non existent. The mind is less and less active, and becomes passive as the rats go through the BEHAVIOR... that becomes HABIT or ROUTINE... until they find the CHOCOLATE?
I read this and sighed...
I saw the entire human species as rats running through a maze... looking down at our phones... adrenaline down.... mind activity down... FEEDING OFF of our digital REWARD...
I saw the entire human race... and not just the POWER but the JOY of MINDFULNESS.
This whole craze about MINDFULNESS is simply the ACTIVE attempt at not taking our journey for granted..
It's about NOT living simply for the pleasure of CHOCOLATE... but rather for the PLEASURE of LIVING... of SEARCHING, of LEARNING, of BEING CURIOUS... of DISCOVERY...
How much of our lives are LOST in our habits? With our minds and hearts wandering... about... and we find ourselves asking "How did I get here?"
At work...
In parenting...
In our health...
In love...
ARE YOU STILL ACTIVELY LOOKING FOR YOUR CHOCOLATE? Or, do you get it everyday without even enjoying the day?
In today's world when more and more things are handed to us... where hard boiled eggs are boiled, put in little bags of two and put in the convenience store in the lobby of our offices... in a world where we don't have to raise our own chickens, harvest our own eggs, fetch our own wood, boil and peel our own eggs, clean up our own mess... Do we appreciate it all the same...
OR ARE WE MINDLESSLY looking at our phones as we pull the pre-hard boiled eggs out of the fridge and stuff them down our mouths...
I am GUILTY!
We as humans are HABIT formers... our brains do that not to be LAZY, but to be EFFICIENT.
But, EFFICIENCY makes life AUTOMATIC... and AUTOMATIC makes life BORING and it makes us UNGRATEFUL.
If there is no perceived effort...
If there is no curiosity required...
If there is no learning and discovery...
If there is no sense of growth or accomplishment...
THERE IS NO JOY... and THERE IS ALSO NO GROWTH...
TELL ME THIS STUFF ISN'T CRAZY SIMPLE and CRAZY MIND BLOWING...
HABITS are important... it's how great athletes achieve greatness... it is what makes our military arguably unbeatable... it is what makes companies great....
AND... it is what allows us to SLEEP WALK through our days...
HABIT is what takes JOY out of our lives, what limits our options, what dulls our mind, what makes life move faster and faster with less and less of our consideration or PARTICIPATION.
And, there are good habits. For me, two of the most important habits are weighing myself daily (which I need to keep doing) and writing these conversations...
BOTH of those habits force me to consider my life differently... They are HABITS that actually GIVE ME MINDFULNESS instead of taking it away...
Knowing that our minds and beings REQUIRE, DEMAND habits... We MUST... WE MUST... if we want to live a live of harmony... STAY MINDFUL TO IT...
If I can be DELIBERATE about my habits, I can work to minimize the BAD ones and create more and more good ones...
It's why I sometimes HATE using the GPS... or looking at YELP....
If I am not in a hurry... maybe I should just find my own chocolate...
It's why I sometimes take the back roads to work, or simply take a turn I've never been on...
It's WHY I READ... and try to consume content... because NEW CONTENT creates NEW THOUGHTS... in my mind... READING... is possibly my most JOYFUL habit... I am not trying to consume books... I LOVE what it does for my mind and my heart...
When I lived in CHINA... MY mind was so awake... EVERYTHING registered in my mind. When we would visit the United States (or any western country) EVERYTHING registered in our minds... the freedom and joy of driving a car... the smoothness of the roads... the respect of the fellow drivers... the size of the portions... the freshness of the vegetables... the selection on the menus... the blueness of the sky... the selection at the grocery store... the ease of communication... the options for entertainment... the lack of smog... the COLORS of EVERYTHING... the beauty of the trees... the number of channels on the TV... the comfortable temperature in every home... the plentifulness in the stores... the lack of poverty... the availability of everything delicious... the opportunity... the familiarity... EVERYTHING...
I love the sense of wonderment that living some place so FOREIGN gave me...
As human beings we so very often RESIST change, IGNORE change, REJECT change...
And yet, CHANGE is a GIFT... CHANGE is an opportunity for new and greater joy... change is an opportunity to LEARN... to be FULLY ALIVE and ENGAGED...
RESIST efficiency... RESIST routine... RESIST MINDLESS LIVING...
And, maybe don't resist it - just STAY AWAKE to it - AND REALIZE the difference...
Don't limit these comments to our PHYSICAL behaviors... think about our MENTAL behaviors... how I think? how we think? how YOU think? To what extent are your thoughts themselves HABITS... Do you consider NEW ideas with curiosity? OR do you reject new ideas because our old ideas are so ingrained in our behavior? How often do we simply STOP thinking... because WE ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER?
Harmony is acting on your WANT... If you aren't acting on your WANT deliberately... mindfully... there is no harmony... there is no joy...
If you are simply going through the motions... you are not moving toward your WANT... you are just moving... And, there is no harmony in purposeless motion... mindless living...
What are your good habits?
What are your bad habits?
Seriously... think about them... write them down...
Can you see yourself in the maze?
Are you looking up or are you looking down at your phone?
Do you smell the chocolate?
Are you still looking for it?
Or are you stuffing your face with it not knowing how you got here?
STAY AWAKE....
Where is your chocolate?
Seeking it mindfully...
is harmony,
Nestor
p.s. PART 2 TO THIS TOMORROW... How Habit creates Craving... and why Craving is disharmony...