Understanding and Letting Go of Habits

The Development of Bad Habits

The type of habits we'll be looking at here are those that we formed by way of bad data. Bad data can be anything that we receive from any number of sources. The main qualifier for bad data is "something not real, passed off as real". Included would be "something unknowable, passed off as fact". If you've been following along from the beginning you understand the concepts pretty well. This is a continuation of the fourth step process. So far we've identified the most obvious negative aspects of our characters. We have been able to see them clearly and so we are not in immediate danger of falling prey to them. But as mentioned earlier this self examination, this inventory process, is not as yet complete. If we were to stop now we will fall short of complete freedom. We don't want to be another, "I was doing good, until...", statistic. The fact is we are not doing as good as we could be.

I can say this, because to say we are, is to say we're done growing. Done finding things out. Done making progress. A big mistake people make, due to bad data, is thinking that if they can get to a certain place then they will be happy. Doesn't matter what that place is. It's always a conceptual place. I believed that if I could get my brain to stop thinking stupid thoughts I would be happy. It was more like I'd be satisfied, but it's all the same. If I get this, get to there, understand this: then I'll be OK. There is a lot of different ways we can word this. We can put different words into places like "Be OK". We can say, well it's not that I'm not "OK", it's just that I "want to do better". Isn't that what people are "supposed to do"? "Improve" themselves? Is it? Most people, most of us meet, in our every day lives would say so. Is it real? Has any one made improvements on themselves?

Neediness

The very idea, that we need to get somewhere, or be better, sets up the state of neediness. Do we see that? How could it not? It's automatic. So what's wrong with neediness? Especially if I just feel the need to do better? I just want to be all I can be, reach a goal. Establish a position for myself in the "real world".

Does this sound like war? A preparation for battle? Like most bad habits, once this neediness is formed it disappears into our subconscious environment. It becomes part of the invisible steering committee. We lose control over ourselves. We are no longer our selves but something trying to get something. We get things because we need too. We end up living with someone who represented a step along the path to a place. We sit at work in places the steering committee sat us. It's OK, it's all part of my plan, right? I'm doing this, so I can have that. Is this a sane and reasonable way to live? Is it reasonable to go to sleep when you don't really want to, so you won't be tired for work the next day? Everything we do we do because we've swallowed a lot of bad data. Now we are immersed, entrenched in ritualistic servitude to the power of "then".

Dependency

What this automatic formation of the neediness habit causes is the secondary condition of dependency. When we did our original inventory we saw that we were dependent on others for our emotional well being. This showed itself in our susceptibility to reactionary emotional states. We got depressed because, so an so did this or that. Or people couldn't be trusted. Or, they don't like me. On and on and on to infinity our imaginary causes for conditions held us prisoner. The root of which is data. Bad data. We wish for something better. Maybe we just need to meet better people. Kinder, gentler people. Maybe we need to change jobs, addresses, roommates, planets. We wish we knew the answer.

Wishing

Wishing is what beggars do. If wishes were horses? Here is what wishing translates into: I don't have it. I wish I was happy = I'm not happy. It's a habit. A really detrimental bad habit. Boy, I wish things like this wouldn't happen = things like this happen to me. We have become beggars. What is it we are begging at? Where is the source of these things we want? Who or what is in possession of our stuff. That stuff of happiness, fulfillment, completion. The fact is, we are. We do, we are, it's us. There isn't anything withholding anything it's just us. We have what we wish for. We are withholding what we want. We do this with self-doubt.

Self Doubt

This is maybe the pinnacle of the bad data, bad habit path. The big ol' granddaddy of Goofism. And guess what, I got it bad. It's been inside me festering like a cancer for about thirty years. I went through stages as it developed. From getting myself motivated with inspirational self talk. To desperate attempts to prove my lack of confidence through social and personal achievement. Petty little pathetic conquests. Depression. Chronic anxiety, fear and living in constant trepidation. Of course I had an act I put on so people wouldn't see how small and useless I was. Looking back at this whole history, this progression from normal human baby to confused hater, I see a lot of variables in the equation. I do see one that stands out and seems to be the source of all the various forms that confusion and self doubt took on. It is the idea that stuff comes from outside of me. That what I need is somewhere, out there. I have been taking in every bit of data I can get my hands on to reprogram my steering committee.

The Path Home

At some point I came to understand that I was not going to make myself better and then be happy. This was just another form of wishing. Dependency on a condition or state. It re-initializes the need thing. So it's a sort of loop that I was getting stuck in. I am now seeing it and recognizing it and so this page will be revised as I discover more, or uncover more. The bottom line with this whole deal is that happiness is here on the path. Happiness is what we get when we discard fantasy. Ideas we have about the world that are "not real". It's never a matter of getting, but getting rid of. I watched a video called "The joy of finding things out" I can't see the spelling of the scientists name on my little brain screen. Something with an Fey. Feynman? Richard Feynman? I'll just have to look it up. This whole site, and my entire effort, is to create a condition for self examination. A situation for understanding and prying in to underlying conditions. It really doesn't require that I am ever done with any of these pages. Where does progress stop. It's all a path. I think of it sometimes as creating a situation. If it had form it might be like a window frame. Like a window of opportunity. We design opportunity for ourselves with our ideas. We discard what keeps us from looking with open minds. This morning I'm happy just going along and looking at things. It's interesting. Fun...

"The best way to break a bad habit is to drop it.
Leo Aikman

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Aristotle

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.
Francis Bacon

Discipline is based on pride, on meticulous attention to details, and on mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of the goal or the fear of failure.
Gary Ryan Blair

Never permit failure to become a habit.
William Frederick Book

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.
Warren Buffett

We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. In that race which daily hastens us towards death, the body maintains its irreparable lead.
Albert Camus

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt. Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.
Buddha

The shortest and surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been taught, to mount the first principles, and take nobody's word about them.
Henry Bolingbroke