A while back I wrote about how I was going to be neat and tidy henceforth. I’d clean my RV twice a day, keep my travel stuff organized while on the road, and basically be the opposite of what I was before.
I stuck with it for a few weeks, but then, in a hurry to pack, I left my RV messy before leaving on a trip. When I got back I never got back into the groove.
It’s not like I didn’t realize that I had abandoned this habit. I was fully aware of it. If you had asked me about it, I might have expressed that it was too bad, but it just never stuck.
A couple days ago I went through that mental cycle and was ever so slightly appalled at myself. Oh, really? I decide that I’m going to make a change, and it doesn’t stick? And somehow that’s an explanation that excuses me from having to do the hard work of getting back on the habit?
What a toxic mechanism to allow to live in one’s brain. No, if something hasn’t stuck yet, that just means that I have more work to do. It doesn’t mean that I’m done and I failed.
The problem is that habits not sticking is commonplace in our society. If you tell someone that you intended to make some change, but that it didn’t stick, they won’t mock you or even register the event. Yeah, that’s the way it goes sometimes, they might think.
Not anymore for me. I’ll quit habits intentionally, but always with proper consideration and never just because it didn’t stick. Let’s see if I’m still neat and organized this time next year.
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Photo is my RV when it’s clean, like it is now.
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