Good habits seem to be rare, and when they do pop up they tend to get in the way when you least want them there, like habitually checking the time.

The problem is that while the universe wants to tell you how to get rid of your bad habits, no one wants to help you make good ones. No one talks about what a habit really is, or how it really affects you. No one is an expert in HabitCraft.

HabitCraft: A series

This post is the first in a series that will explain the mechanics of habits, along with some suggestions on how to control them. Hopefully together we can take all the bad habits we’ve gathered over time and mold them to our advantage.

First, lets get some background info.

How habits work.

Most of the time when you do a thing (whatever that thing might be) you preform a tiny little self-assessment of it. That’s the voice in your head that tells you spilling ketchup on your new dress is dumb or going for a walk at 4am might be a little strange. Your brain does this in order to facilitate self-awareness, which helps keeps you on top of the consequence for everything you do.

A habit is simply a thing you do over and over that you don’t assess every time you do it. This is very useful because it means you don’t have to run your brain a ba-gillion times a second just to keep on top of everything. There are almost infinite examples of habits you have that are not “good” or “bad” but simply exist.

Habits, like all behaviors, form over time based on the reaction you get from doing it the first time. Generally speaking if it’s a good reaction you run with it and if not you cut that shit out. The difference between habits and normal behaviors is that you do habits all the time instead of just when you need to be doing them. Most habits you want to change have stem from a behavior that you started doing a whole lot for one reason or another.

Behaviors are brought on by fairly obvious stuff.

Your mom calls you for dinner and you sit at the table. Everyday, garden variety behaviors are the direct result of you noticing x happening in the world and you and your brain coming to the conclusion that you should do y about it. Normally this decision is based on previous experience.

Habits are brought on by fairly unobvious stuff.

You sit still for too long and start to fidget. Whenever you display your habit, x goes ahead and bypasses the whole ‘discussion’ faze of the operation and heads straight to making you do y.

The problem with habits.

In general, habits are not half bad. Because they allow you to do something without having to decide to do it, they save you and your brain a lot of effort and time that would otherwise be wasted.

The catch of course is that by completely disregarding the decision half of the deal it can make it complicated to create or destroy them.

Until next time

In Part 2 we’ll talk about the effect habits have on us and our lives, and ways we strive to control them.

My mother was very keen on taking me to fancy restaurants and stuff for my birthday and such. Party out of guilt but mostly because I refused to ask for anything. The last time I made a real birthday gift request is far out of my memory. Whenever we would go on one of these escapades, I would scan the menu relentlessly for the cheapest thing. I would often get appetizers or lunch items, just to avoid spending more of my moms money.

This was supposed to be my birthday gift.

Eventually both my parents gave up on me, and I started to get soap every year because I would just never even behave like I was interested in anything.

In the end, I learned how not to want.

As my situation deteriorated over the last few years, my standard for how I want to live has kind of gone down the tubes. I don’t really care how shit my apartment is anymore. Eating nothing but ramen noodles doesn’t really bother me. It’s gotten to the point where I’m truly scared to want things.

All of us broke shmucks have had that kind of moment. Where you’re 90% sure you won’t be able to pay rent this month, and you see something. An xBox, a cook book, a pair of shoes. Anything really. And you look at that thing, and you start to want it. You start to really, really want it. But you stop yourself dead, because you tell yourself that if you decide you want it, you’ll just disappoint yourself. Because you can never have it. Cause your broke.

You give up before you even think of trying to try to start to try trying.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve conditioned yourself not to get emotionally attached to anything. You decide you can’t have it before you even start to like it. Nearly everything becomes an unattainable goal, even if it’s just an ice cream cone. You don’t really, really want it because you don’t really, really need it. And that’s that. You settle for what you have, because if you want what you have, then you have what you want.

Your brain started to protect you from the hurt of not having what you want.

What in your mind should be the line between reasonable (“I need new sneakers anyway… fffttt”) and unreasonable (“I’m going to buy this even though its $600 because I LOVE MJ THAT MUCH”) has become a full on habitual defense mechanism. The same way your body overreacts when you have an allergy, your mind is overreacting to anything that may compromise what might be or might become a fragile emotional balance. It works, and it keeps you safe.

But this protection comes at a price.

Unfortunately, greed is something that makes successful people. No one is going to say that Donald Trump’s sin is sloth. He has lust, gluttony, and greed. He wants. He really, really wants. And instead of worrying about not getting it, he goes out and forces to universe to warp in the direction that leads to him having it. Fuck you Universe, gimme my  fucking lollipop.

Thus, to be successful, you and I need to teach ourselves to want again.

If we ever plan to get out of this trap, we need to start really, really wanting again. In order to force ourselves to get off our lazy asses, we need to have a proper consequence, and not getting what we want is it. We need our material goals back.

Now tell me what you want. What you really, really want.

Go out today, and find something. Something amazing. Something mind blowingly cool. Something expensive. Something lavish.

If it’s a pair of shoes, put them on. If it’s an xBox, go buy Assassins Creed (PS3, Red Dead Redemption, Wii, Smashbrothers). If it’s a cook book, make dinner from it (I’m sure they won’t mind if you “borrow” one of the recipes with the intent of buying).

Feel it. Get to know it. Take it out on a date.

Want it.

And once you have something. Something you really, really want. Something that fits you so perfectly you could cry. Something $200 more expensive than what you could possibly hope to pay.

Go and bloody well get it. Warp the universe in whatever direction leads to you having it.

What exactly do I mean here?

There isn’t a magic bullet for “ass fucked by life”, but what I’m saying is that you can fake it in order to achieve the illusion of a normal existence where there isn’t one.

Once you start to ignore the things that make you throw up, your brain will start to put them in storage. This means that every time you go to buy a cookie at Starbucks you don’t automatically hear your brain screaming at you that you “JUST DON’T HAVE THAT MONEY OH GOD”. Your brain, wonderful thing that it is, will start to re-imagine your situation as not all that bad. Once the overwhelm is gone, your brain can do what it was meant to do; protect you.

As a bonus, if your emotionally stable and in a chaotic situation, your decisions will be much more reasonable. Just plain forgetting about everything but one or two attainable goals can be best course of action. You can stay focused until your ready to pick another one. Or at least until you know what you’re having for dinner tomorrow.

Last night, I had a panic attack.

Maybe not a huge one, but a panic attack none the less. I had, without really paying attention to the fact that I was doing it, started completely ignoring most of my debt in order to focus on looking for a place to live and a job so that I could eat. The debt it pretty harrowing – I could potentially be very, very fucked for a very, very long time. But someplace between the devil and the deep blue sea I decided to shut the part of my brain that works on that kind of stuff off completely, and everything started to get better.

I’m not really known for my exquisite handle on my moods, but as soon as I could just pretend that everything was fine and going to be fine and was always fine, I was magically fixed. I still got my chemically induced mood swings, but I could identify them and get a hold of them because I didn’t go into insane little rants in my head about how FUCKED I was.

Interestingly enough, the moment someone else brought it up, I died a little. I started to hold my breath. My mind started to race. What on earth was I doing ignoring this huge issue? How on earth was I going to deal with this? What could I possibly do to fix it?

But in reality, there isn’t anything I can do about it right now. Not a thing. I’m dead broke. I’m gonna be homeless in a month and a half. I need a new job. Reasonably speaking, there isn’t a damn thing I can do to unfuck myself.

So I set a clear goal.

Nice, simple achievable. Get a new job. Get a place to live. Make enough money to eat and keep the lights on. Then think about the debt.

Stop your downward spiral.

All it really comes down to is the fact that you can’t control most of the shit that happens in your life, and you sure as hell can’t keep yourself from flying off the handle while dealing with all of the stuff you can control at the same time. Strategic, self-imposed ignorance may just be the thing that keeps you from seeing shooting yourself in the face as a viable, rational, logical solution to your situation.

And that, dear friends, is a very good thing… BUT

You didn’t think that was it, did you? There is most definitely a catch.

When does it stop being Strategic Temporary Self-Imposed Ignorance(tm) and start becoming Flat-Out Three Rum-And-Cokes Denial?

If you haven’t got clear-cut goals and a plan to deal with them , you’ll never get from step one to step two. If you just ignore everything suddenly everything will turn really horrid for a reason you can’t remember why.

Set your goals, make them attainable, and laser focus on that shit. Don’t distract yourself with anything else. Do that, finish that, then set another one. Steps, increments, plans, whatever you call them.

The difference is direction. Your lost in the forest, making your own path. I don’t care if you use a machete or a Flammenwerfer.

Noodles to me represent a lifestyle. It sounds kind of stupid, but it could be so much worse. I could be talking about boxes of chocolate. Instead I bring you a tale of apathy. A story of giving up. A chronicle of what life was to me.

For two months, all I ate was noodles

All I could afford was noodles. Ramen, Penne, Speggis. They made up my one meal a day. My life revolved around keeping the noodles coming.

I gave in

Instead of trying to find out how to afford more then noodles, I found new ways to cook them. Recipes for what I already had, I allowed myself to get comfortable with noodles. I got to know them. I learned to understand them. I studied them and they became just they way it was. The way it had to be. What I had to accept in order to live my life.

One day, it all changed

I went out for sushi. I had just a tiny bit, just a taste. It was was more than I had ever dreamed of.  Sushi was more than noodles could ever be. It was more then noodles could aspire to. I lifted my head and looked to the sky for the first time. No more.

I’ll no longer eat nothing but noodles

I’ll no longer stand idle in my own world

I’ll do whatever it takes to get out out of here, because it can’t get any worse than this

I want to be free

I’m Aislyn, and this is my blog. It’s the story of my journey out of the noodle bowl.