Tuesday, October 14, 2008

"Bad habits are impossible to break"

Wether it’s biting your fingernails, gossiping about coworkers or eating an entire tub of ice cream whenever you’re angry, everyone has bad habits. Some are harmless (procrastination isn’t a quality many people take pride in, but it’s unlikely to kill anyone) while others, such as smoking, can cause serious problems for you and your family. People say that " bad habits are impossible to break". But what are habits? A habit is any action that we have performed so often that it becomes almost an involuntary response. It's something that we habituate in our daily lives and becomes repetitive. There are two types of habits: the good ones and the bad ones. The good habits are processes that are done in a regular manner that promote positivity in life. For example brushing your teeth three times a day or doing exercise. The bad habits are the totally opposite. These are the ones that are done on a regular basis that do not improve upon or prove to be detrimental to forward movement in life. Can be called the "undesiables". For example, a bad habit can be smoking or drinking too much.
The bad ones are the ones that are given more importance. This is because they can cause an illness or death. They are causing a controversy in the world. People are becoming more worried about them. People spend countless hours and dollars each year attempting to break these bad habits and often do not have any success. Why? Because there is no magic bullet. Change is hard work and there is no short cut to achieving it. But it's certainly not impossible.
How do habits form? Are we the ones thhat make them habits or they become habits by themselfs? The whole reason you formed your habits in the first place is that they filled a need. You had tension that needed relief or you had a desire to surf the net. As you break the old patterns you still need a way to fulfill these needs. You will be not only making an active choice to not do the old action you will also be making a choice to perform a better, alternative action in its place.
Are you agreedable to stop a bad habit? Doctors say that is all in people's mind. They will stop when they are actually willing to do it. There are so many ways to stop a bad habit these days. There are organizations that can help, or even your family well be eager to help you.
Breaking bad habits is like breaking up with a girlfriend; you'll be bored and lonely at first but you'll cherish the long-term benefits. Will it bring you more benefits or it will cause you more stress? People have different points of view. Some think that ending a bad habit will make their life miserable are more stressfull and some others think that ending it will be the best thing that could ever happen to them. Habits make you who you are. People also say that breaking bad habits is like breaking up with a relationship; you'll be bored and lonely at first but you'll cherish the long-term benefits.
People can say things but they will first have to live the moment in order to talk with expirience.
So do you think that it is impossible to break a habit?







How can you define a bad habit?
Do you think everybody has a bad habit?
-Think at least one bad habit that you have (it could be eating too much, smoking, drinking, driving too fast, etc.). Now respond:
-Do you think that bad habit will bring you something positive in the future?
-Are you willing to break that habit?
-Would you try to quit by yourself or would you want to get some help? (it could be organizations, friend, family, etc.)

1 comment:

dr.mason said...

I think the topic of habits is actually kind of interesting, partially because it's not the type of thing one would expect to read about. And i think it makes sense to try to categorize them, but you may want to consider other ways of categorizing them beyond just good or bad (see comment below). For instance, can habits be divided into categories based on how you acquire them? the reasons you keep them? or how hard they are to give up?

here are some questions to consider:

- At what point does a bad habit become an addiction? what are the implications of choosing to call something like smoking an addiction rather than a habit? Once you become addicted, is it no longer a habit?

- are all habits either good or bad? are some a little bit of both? how do we decide or draw the line? how about superstitious habits like not stepping on sidewak cracks? Is this really that bad?

- what sort of statement do you want to make about habits? Is there any disagreeement as towhether certain activities are bad or good habits?

- would it make sense to focus on a specific habit? what sort of habits does our school system encourage, for instance? what sort of habits does our culture encourage? how would we change these things?

I look forward to your revised draft.