Creatures of Habit

Habits

The vast majority of us fall into habits of all kinds. We take the same route to work, eat familiar foods, gamble on the same games, etc. The term ‘Creatures of Habit’ means that we find comfort in all things familiar: we enjoy the company of familiar souls, we rest easier in our own beds, and nothing beats a shower in your own bathroom.

But why?

Sure, eating sugar is akin to a drug addiction so when we stop eating our favorite treat we crave it more than anything. But why does it matter where we use the bathroom? Or feel loss when we don’t watch our favorite TV show? Ever stop to wonder why we feel anxious and uncomfortable in a new home for the first few weeks?

Going Against the Grain

The answer is surprisingly simple. When all of the infinite “yous” are doing one thing, and you do something else. You are causing a mild disruption. Of course, there is never just one of you doing or not doing a thing, but when the majority of the “yous” in your  Local Consciousness Group are happily doing something and a small portion of you decide to do something unusual it feels…odd. You miss the familiarity because the rest of the “yous” had already enjoyed it.

The effect is magnified the larger and more unusual the change. If you decide to have pepperoni instead of your regular ham and pineapple on your pizza not much has really changed. It’s a such a simple thing that the number of “yous”, as a percentage, that changed was probably quite large.

Yet if you have lived in the same town happily all your life, married, same job, everything. Even the mere thought of dropping everything to move to another country and abandon all you find familiar fills you with dread… Some of you have done just that and you didn’t feel at all like yourself (for good or bad). What you did is veered so far off course from the rest of the “yous” that your connection to your own self is extremely weakened.

It takes time to feel right again after any major change, as each new choice you make and those around you make involving yourself, directly or indirectly, means that overtime your Local Consciousness Group grows and your connection to your self reinforces itself.

This is part of why the old saying, “It takes 20 times to make a habit” is more or less true. Do it enough and enough of your Local Consciousness Group does it and it just becomes the normal way. But remember, this is true for good as well as the bad.