Personal essays
On the importance of habits
Uh oh
There are sounds that take me back and sounds that instantly freeze me in my tracks.
Thursday I had that latter kind.
I finished up Yoga, lifted some weights, and headed down to the locker room to sit in the steam room for a while.
I usually leave my eyeglasses in the car.
When I forget, I leave them in my locker in one of my shoes.
This time I forgot.
As I turned to go to the steam room I realized I was still wearing my glasses.
So I did something stupid.
I opened my locker and slipped the glasses into my pants pocket.
This would have been ok if I’d slipped them into a front pocket but I didn’t want to scratch them on the keys in my left pocket or crush them against my phone in my right pocket.
I put them in my back pocket.
If I were a real author I’d call this foreshadowing except that what’s coming is so obvious I can’t even call it an example of Checkov’s gun.
Habit
You might remember that my second word for this year is “Habit”.
I’ve done pretty well with it.
I’ve continued to do Yoga and lift several times a week, meditate nearly every day, and practice sketching more days than I don’t.
I don’t walk or bike enough and I haven’t kept up with my Tai Chi.
Those, along with eat healthier, are on the list of things I’ll try to do when I get back home.
Today, I’d like to self-indulgently celebrate a habit I’ve kept for six years.
Six years ago today I wrote my first newsletter and I’ve written and sent one out every Tuesday since.
I worried that I’d run out of things to say - and you may nod and say “oh Daniel, you have.”
I continue to write mainly for me. There is something about connecting thoughts to fingers and getting them out of my head onto the page that helps me understand the world around me.
My views on things change. I see some of the changes over the years and some of the changes between the moment I sit down to write something and when I watch something else appear.
I love being surprised by what I’m thinking.
I also love seeing the consistency in some views over time.
Most of all, I love when you take a moment to reply with your thoughts and reactions.
Today is the first post in my seventh year.
I’m in Tokyo writing thirteen hours ahead of my local time and thousands of miles away - and yet I think it’s important to pause and capture the moment.
The cost
So what’s the big deal if I skip a week?
There isn’t one.
But once a streak is broken it feels different.
It doesn’t feel like something you do - it feels like something you aspire to do.
Not all habits are streaks and should be continued for that reason.
Kim got me to leave my keys in the key drawer when I walked in the house.
Suddenly I didn’t have to ask where my keys were. Such a simple habit meant that I had one less thing to worry about.
And, of course, putting my glasses in the same place in the gym would have saved me a lot of stress.
I got out of the steam room, showered, toweled off, and headed back to my locker.
“Come on, Daniel,” you say, “we really didn’t need all of the details.”
I put on my underwear, t-shirt, and pants and sat down to put on my socks.
That’s when I heard and felt my glasses crack in my back pocket.
I never put them there.
I also always put them on as I’m getting dressed.
I felt them crack before they finished cracking and there was nothing I could do.
I took them out of my pocket and looked. The frame around the left lens had cracked and the lens wouldn’t stay in.
There wasn’t enough time to get a new frame before we left for Tokyo.
I bought an overpriced pair of cheaters and asked my sister if she had super glue.
Maggie repaired them that night while we were visiting my mom.
They’re fine, I’m wearing them now, but man did I feel stupid.
There are so many reasons to create and maintain habits.
And so begins my seventh year of this newsletter.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 314. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe