On Habits - A Friday Five
Aug. 17th, 2018 03:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
danieldwilliam1. What bad habits bother you the most?
In myself, the bad habits that bother me the most are drinking too much coffee and the assumption that if something ought to do be done then I, or someone in my family, are the people who ought to do it.
In other people, stopping in door ways or other points of access and egresss to have conversations or look at maps and not being able to follow the logic or rhetoric of an argument and therefore making bad political choices.
2. What good habits do you most admire?
In myself, going to the gym, because it has taken years of self-knowledge to understand how to turn my desire in to better physical health in to a sustained programme of work.
In others, either asking good questions or having an instinctive care for other people.
3. What unusual habits do you observe in your family members? Do they bother you?
Quite a lot of my family have a distinctive little cough we do at the back of our throats. It doesn't bother me much, even when I do it. My Lovely Wife, whenever she returns home after any sustained absence *must* tidy something. At first it used to irritate me as I took it as both a condemnation of my housekeeping and a denial of her need for some rest - but really she just needs to physically re-establish herself in her home. So I never mention it. Except now.
4. Which bad habit do you think would be the most difficult to get rid of? Why?
For myself, eating too much, which is linked to eating breakfast. I don't feel hungry first thing in the morning so tend not to have breakfast. This in turns leads to me being hungry at lunch time and buying too much lunch. And then eating too much lunch.
For other people - a nicotine addiction seems to be really hard to shake off, worse than heroin apparantly. I think this is because nicotine is really addictive, has bad effects which are contingent, probabillistic and far in the future and people are bad at dealling with that sort of thing and smoking is still more or less socially acceptable in a way that shooting up is not.
5. Which good habit do you think would be the most difficult to develop? Why?
For myself, allowing my immediate moral outrage to be a spur to immediate action. I am too ready to delay action until all the facts and my own calculations are in. I wish I were more ready to express my disapproval more instinctively.
For others, being able to think in different ways depending on the situation. In particular, like an economist. Most people are not aware that they have habits of thought and these things can be challenged and changed and made a servant rather than a master.
In myself, the bad habits that bother me the most are drinking too much coffee and the assumption that if something ought to do be done then I, or someone in my family, are the people who ought to do it.
In other people, stopping in door ways or other points of access and egresss to have conversations or look at maps and not being able to follow the logic or rhetoric of an argument and therefore making bad political choices.
2. What good habits do you most admire?
In myself, going to the gym, because it has taken years of self-knowledge to understand how to turn my desire in to better physical health in to a sustained programme of work.
In others, either asking good questions or having an instinctive care for other people.
3. What unusual habits do you observe in your family members? Do they bother you?
Quite a lot of my family have a distinctive little cough we do at the back of our throats. It doesn't bother me much, even when I do it. My Lovely Wife, whenever she returns home after any sustained absence *must* tidy something. At first it used to irritate me as I took it as both a condemnation of my housekeeping and a denial of her need for some rest - but really she just needs to physically re-establish herself in her home. So I never mention it. Except now.
4. Which bad habit do you think would be the most difficult to get rid of? Why?
For myself, eating too much, which is linked to eating breakfast. I don't feel hungry first thing in the morning so tend not to have breakfast. This in turns leads to me being hungry at lunch time and buying too much lunch. And then eating too much lunch.
For other people - a nicotine addiction seems to be really hard to shake off, worse than heroin apparantly. I think this is because nicotine is really addictive, has bad effects which are contingent, probabillistic and far in the future and people are bad at dealling with that sort of thing and smoking is still more or less socially acceptable in a way that shooting up is not.
5. Which good habit do you think would be the most difficult to develop? Why?
For myself, allowing my immediate moral outrage to be a spur to immediate action. I am too ready to delay action until all the facts and my own calculations are in. I wish I were more ready to express my disapproval more instinctively.
For others, being able to think in different ways depending on the situation. In particular, like an economist. Most people are not aware that they have habits of thought and these things can be challenged and changed and made a servant rather than a master.
