Habits

Boy am I a creature of habit.  I discovered that this morning when I was putting my socks on.  I always put on the right one first.  Rain, hail or shine it is just what I do.
One of the first things I do on awakening, is put the kettle on.  It is not like it is exceptional.  It is a habit.
No doubt I have numerous other habits.  Mowing the lawn is probably another habit, though it is one I would have not liked to have needed to form.    I could make all the lawn cement but I am not sure that would be as pleasing on the eye or the feet.  Besides a ball would go too far.  Merril feeding the birds of a morning is a habit.  Feeding Errol the crow an egg or something he can eat is a habit we are enjoying forming.  We laugh at the way he casually walks by what is on offer before consuming it.
Some habits are good and some are bad.  It is interesting to me that mostly the good habits are over looked, and the bad habits emphasised.  I have developed many of what I consider are good habits over time.  Like washing my hands. Putting on deodorant. Caring the place looks good.  It was discovered washing hands prevented innumerable diseases.  Putting on deodorant is a social thing.  Caring the place looks good, is just us.  At a house down the road, the lawn is never mowed.  Merril and I have been here over six years now, and we have never seen it happen.  The grass is really long.  As Jack Newton would say “elephants go there to die.”  That is just not us, or it seems, most people.
Forming good habits is what practice seems to be all about.  It doesn’t matter the sport, participants work on doing it right.  The object seems to be, that if confronted with a situation in competition, they have been there before and know what to do.  In cricket batsmen do not practice their snicks, lbw’s or being bowled.  They practice everything that will help them avoid those scenarios.  They form good habits.   The same applies in all situations.  Good habits crowd out bad ones.
I read it takes 30 days to form a habit.  Then I read it was 60.  I prefer to go with the 30.  It seems often New Year’s resolutions do not work, because it requires forming a habit.  To work, it has to be done whether I feel like it or not.
I ask myself why is it that bad habits are so often hard to break?  I think the reward has to be seen as worth much more than the habit.  Without a worthwhile goal what is the point?  Also it seems the nature of habits is they are controlling.  I don’t like to be controlled by anything I don’t want to be controlled by.  It does not mean I am not, it is just I don’t like it.  Some things need more than will power to break.
Some habits are good and definitely worth keeping.  Others are bad and need to be broken.  To me, that is an on-going thing.  Rome wasn’t built in a day.  The best I think I can do is soldier on, and get the help I need where I can.