(This is Part 25 of a series. Go back to Part 24.)
At the level where it appears that we make personal decisions, a very useful area to ponder is that of our habits.
Stephen Covey compared our habits to the pull of gravity on a spaceship leaving earth. Unless the spaceship reaches a speed of approximately 25,000 mph it cannot overcome the planet's gravity and leave earth's orbit. Our habits are like that, says Covey; they resist being changed unless we reach "escape velocity."
The implications of this, in my opinion, are vast. What it means is that we can look at our habits and more or less predict our life.
To take a simple example, if I'm eating a lot of meat and and animal food in general, I'm automatically taking in a lot of fat, probably 30- or 40% of calories. This excess of fat over what we actually need, which is approximately 7-10% of calories as measured on the healthiest peoples on earth, has been strongly correlated in statistical studies with premature advent of degenerative disease—whether in the form of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis or whatever.
Thus if we have a habit of eating a lot of animal food, and we want to just look down the road as clear-sightedly as possible, we can look to this habit and predict with a reasonable probabability that we'll fall ill with some form of the degenerative disease.
Recently I noticed a habit in myself of not taking enough sleep. When I looked, I noticed that I was going to bed around midnight and getting up about 6am, getting about 6 hours of sleep. And I noticed that I was a little bit zoned all through the day—duh! I wasn't getting enough sleep. But I had the habit; it was what I'd become habituated to.
This will probably seem rather simple-minded, but it became apparent to me that I needed to normally go to bed at 10pm most nights if I were going to get up at 6 each day, and get 8 hours each night. This has now become more true than not, and I do notice that I feel clearer and more lively during the day. The old habit is in process of shifting to the new habit.
The way in which we reach "escape velocity" in habits is by persistence. We keep on doing the new habit as regularly as possible, and the old habit eventually withers of neglect. We never set out to "give up" the old habit; we simply put our focus on the new one, the replacement.
For instance, if we're eating a lot of animal food, and we become aware of that at a level that matters, it might come to us that we formulate a habit instead of eating mostly fresh fruits and vegetables.
In this example, we never "give up" meat; rather, we gradually, persistently, surrender our attention to the desirability of fresh fruits and vegetables, and reinforce that vision by carrying it through each day—and enjoy them as an increasing proportion of our diet. It boils down to a conscious shift in attention, from which action naturally flows.
It pays to take a look at how we conduct life. As another example, I occasionally reward myself by going out for breakfast and having a cup of decaf. Lately I've been looking at this habit and asking if it's really the one that I feel in tune with.
This morning was one of those breakfasts. I was becoming aware of the decaf as a habit—a new distinction—and then wondering if it was the one I was most in tune with. And it became apparent that I wanted to order green tea from now on. Something clearer, lighter (or at least it has that feeling to me).
These may seem like almost trivial matters, but that addresses the very pebble of insight that came to me—that it was the accumulation of these seemingly little things, day-by-day and week-by-week, that more or less determines our life—at least as it appears in the dimension of life where we seem to make choices.
(This is the end of Part 25. Go to Part 26.)
—jim sloman, 3.10.03 for 7.4.03
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