“Change” of Habit
On my dresser in my bedroom sits a ceramic plate. It was made for me by my mother and sisters many years ago when they were participating in a ceramics class in the town where I grew up. The plate has been with me from my family home, to where I lived with my first wife, to now where I live with my current wife.
The plate when I go to bed at night is filled with items I have emptied from my pants pockets. Usually that is my wallet, a separate billfold for credit cards, my telephone and my keys. Also, in the plate is my pocket change. Until March of 2020, while I did pay for larger purchases with credit cards, it was common for me to pay for most purchases by cash. I usually carried around not only cash in my wallet, but the change from the transactions. There were times I would accumulate perhaps so much pocket change it would weigh down my pocket. Why did I do this? It just was the habit I had gotten into as to how I lived my life.
As a coach, I had heard often about if you are unhappy about how you are living your life or about what is happening in your life, then “Change Your Habits.” There are several books on this topic. However, since March of 2020 I have not carried any change in my pocket, not even a few pennies. What caused this sudden change in me? The COVID19 pandemic, and the early reactions to it, caused a change in habits that had been a part of my life for years.
If one remembers back to the initial days of the pandemic becoming a part of our lives, one of the concerns was the passing of the virus through the touching of different surfaces and objects. So, anything involving touch was both sensitized and minimized for me. For example, in addition to paying for just about everything by credit card or ordering it online and having it sent to my home, no longer did my wife and I worry about newspaper delivery. For the longest time we were cleaning down the doorknobs at our house anytime we went out and came back from somewhere. Even further, when we went for our walks on weekends, we changed the route we took, to minimize our contact with others as much as possible.
While much of this has subsided in our life 21 months after the initial outbreak, some of the changes are still very much engrained. I do admittedly pay for more things with cash now then I did those many months ago, but I often will not even accept back the change and leave it as a tip for the service staff at the store. The walking route has stayed the same, since the previous walking route took us through the center of town, which has become far busier curbside due to outdoor dining that did not exist pre-pandemic. And, we have not missed the newspaper in the least. If we want to hear news, we have online, we have the radio or television. The word or number puzzles we did from the newspaper have been replaced by online versions of similar puzzles, or complete volume books that we could order online, or get from the local bookstore.
The changes in my life, (and perhaps for several others of you), may have been triggered through a health crisis that urged a response if one wanted to stay as healthy as possible. However, have they led to changes in your life that have now become your current way of doing things, which you don’t see changing back? Or, were the changes so uncomfortable for you, that you chose either never to change, or immediately went back to the way you did things previously, once you either felt safe or were able to do so?
If you are unhappy in some aspect of your life or another, what is the “habit” or “trait” which has you either doing it or dealing with it the way that you do? Could you do it differently? Could you do without it in your life? What are the consequences, (both favorable and unfavorable), in any changes you would choose to make? While you may feel you are trapped with the causes and effects going on around you or in your life, ask yourself a question? Do I have to do things the way I am doing them? Are there other alternatives? What would be the consequences of change? If the change makes you feel contented, comfortable and happy with how you are living your life on a go forward basis, it may be worth the effort to “make the change.”
