Mind it! Start changing small actions and create new habits to conquer oneself.- 5 November 2014

[3] Start changing small actions and create new habits to conquer oneself.

Mind it! a diary of vagrant journeys within the mind.

Our immediate environment around us has been chosen or created by ourselves. Sometimes we do this selection mindlessly, and on most other times, we choose our action-initiators or inhibitors deliberately. Let us examine a simple example. We choose to watch TV at night. This is done mindlessly because others are doing so, and that seems like the only time to watch TV during the day as you are busy through the day. But, we also choose to watch some specific TV programmes, and we choose specifically the late hour until when we would watch TV. This is done specifically.

These choices stop us from doing our work in time, or if activated with proper deliberation, our initiators can help us in completing our tasks well in time. My elderly professor used to speak proudly of his students and his team to others and would acclaim that his students or his team members would never make it to a meeting or complete an activity in time. He would pause and then exclaim that his students and his team would always be at a meeting or complete their activity well before time.

I heard another professor explain to adult trainees that being able to complete tasks in time leads to a stress-free life. And, on the converse, not being able to complete actions in time creates stress, ill-health and also gets passed on to members of the family or colleagues and friends. I used to wonder if he was merely bluffing and trying to frighten the adult trainees to be serious about completing their tasks. It was not so. Immediately after he spoke, one after the other, each trainee stood up and recounted their personal experiences and agreed with the professor’s perceptions.

Most of the time, and with some friends that I know, all the time, we perceive ourselves as perfect individuals. We assume that we can do no wrong. We perceive ourselves as being a very objective individual, always able to judge what is correct and what is wrong, choose the right actions and deny ourselves wrongful actions. We feel that we have self-determination and that we can decide our plan of action for the day and go about and achieve it. Our short-term and long-term plans and actions are always completed to the best of our satisfaction, we claim to our friends and colleagues and family. We assume that all our actions are independent of compromise or judgement of others. We are wrong in all these assumptions. We are usually not able to achieve objective action, and we are never independent of the opinions and suggestions of others.

Let us examine a very popular and most familiar example that repeats itself every day around us. How many people we know who are chain-smokers or boozards? They know that they are wrong in their actions and habits. They attempt to break their habits and go for counselling and are also sometimes forcibly committed by their family or friends. They stop smoking and boozing, and after a while, they are back to their habits. What is the actual problem? We keep looking at others, at our environment, at our family and our friends and colleagues and compromise on our habits by judging others or learning from others.

The secret is that the source initiator for all our wrongful actions or non-actions or laziness or procrastination, the source is within our minds. We are responsible for not wanting to do something in the right time, in the correct manner and with the proper actions. We bring up some internal deep-down-in-the-mind thoughts that make it absolutely rightful and reasonable to avoid taking up actions that are necessary. We create a logical framework to postpone our actions.

How does it happen? When you reach your home after a strenuous 12 hour day, you find that the most comfortable place is the couch that is placed directly in front of the TV. I did a small experiment at my house. I removed the couch and other chairs placed in front of the TV and replaced them with a workout machine and exercising equipment and a yoga mat. I presumed that it would be the perfect change inducing innovation. It was not to be. My mind rebelled against doing exercise while watching TV, and similarly I could not sit on the couch and do nothing. After a day, the seating arrangement came back to the earlier positions, with the couch in front of the TV.

One should not choose drastic changes. Our mind rebels against us and creates a very strong inhibitor. Establish small and gradual changes. Remember, it takes about twenty-one days for our mind to accept a new habit, and it is usually about forty days for us to assimilate the new action as a normal behaviour. Place a potted plant next to the couch, and remove the side table where you would keep snacks, drinks or ice-cream. Is there a centre table in front of the couch? Remove it and place some bean bags and allow children and others to relax on them. Therefore, you have removed all options to eat snacks and also dinner while sitting in front of the TV.

This deliberate choice of making small changes should be extended to the office space also. Do you choose to drink a milky-extra sugar tea or coffee at the same time every day in the office? Make small changes. Walk to the canteen where they make the tea or coffee. Go alone. Talk to the attendant or canteen manager and change the manner in which you would have tea or coffee. Replace the sugar with sugar-free, or replace the milk with milk powder before choosing black or green tea with a slice of lemon without sugar or milk. Why? It is better to choose these life-saving habits much before you are forced to do so due to poor health.

Create small and effective changes in behaviour and habits. Ensure that you know your habits and addictions. Do you start the day with the morning newspaper? Junk that behaviour. It is the most threatening moment of the day when you are hijacking nearly sixty minutes of crucial get-up-and-go time in the morning. Read the newspaper later during the day, page by page at different times. Check the amount of time you need at the breakfast table and the cutlery that you use. Choose a smaller plate, and a smaller portion, perhaps taking more portions. It will force you to change your breakfast menu from an oil-driven omelette to a more healthy choice. Make these small changes for change is the only constant in your life, as the cliché goes. Mind it! 

Published earlier at - http://intellectualpost.com/mind-it-a-diary-of-vagrant-journeys-within-the-mind-3/

What are habits and addictions? Can one win over habits and addictions? - 14 January 2009

What are habits and addictions? Can one win over habits and addictions? How should one go about winning over oneself? 
Bharat Bhushan - 14 January 2009

Not all habits and addictions are about smoking or drinking or indulging in adultery or gambling. There are several more, regular, day-to-day, very normal activities that we get accustomed to that become our habits and grow into our addictions. And when we are challenged with a break in the routine, we get irritated, angry, upset and determined to achieve that addiction. In order to do so, we have many reasonable and rational arguments, or so it seems, and we are suddenly a victim to our own logic and escape routes.

My father had unique habits and addictions. In our 320 square feet - one bedroom kitchen ground floor apartment at Wadala, Mumbai, the kitchen flowed into the bedroom, and it converted into a living room when everyone had woken up. My father would wake up the earliest, and go into the kitchen, which could be seen by everyone who was sleeping in the living room. He would start washing the dirty leftover utensils from the previous nights' dinner, and he would do it very quietly. No noise. I know that is impossible, but he would do it, nevertheless. After that, he would boil the milk and make coffee for everyone, and a bottle of warm milk for my elder daughter, Harini.

She would have woken up, 2-3 years old, and would be watching him quietly, patiently. He would know that she was watching him, and would keep turning back and would mime the work that he was doing, that he was boiling milk, and now he was waiting for it to cool down, and that he was washing the drinking bottle and now he was pouring the milk into it, and then he would carefully step over one person at a time and bend down and give the bottle of milk to Harini, without waking me or my wife. My mother would have woken up and would be moving about, eager to take over her kitchen.

I once asked him. Why did he do this? Was he not the 'Master' of the house? And like most traditional Indian households, should he not have the women do all the work? Why did he have to wake up the earliest, and clean and wash all the dirty utensils and make coffee for everyone, even if my wife and sister were asleep, why would he make coffee for them? Was it not demeaning to him? He replied, without hesitation, and explained, that - "Washing dirty utensils is the best form of meditation and prayer to God, that there could ever be. Why should I allow anyone else to take away that opportunity from me? This way, I get to do my prayers and meditation at the very early hour, and I get to be happy even if I am selfish."

I never gave it much thought, but after having many escapades in my own life within the family, I have begun to understand what he meant by it. My mother had a different take on the entire situation. She said that he was just joking about meditation and prayer, but that he washed up on all the utensils because he wanted to make sure that my mother would be able to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner without any hassles. He just wanted to make sure that he put her to work before she left for school. These habits and addictions that they had - point out to me now, after so many long long years, how much they loved each other and cared for each other. This love, of wanting to do the dirty work, of having to slog it out in the early hours of the day, is a wonderful habit and addiction in life.

My mother would be sick and of ill-health most of the time. She would find it difficult to get to sleep and she would find it difficult to wake up and get ready. She would find it difficult to lift heavy objects because of the third operation that she had, for her hernia. She would find it difficult to keep standing at the kitchen and work on all the cooking. The heat would bother her, the water would be irritating and the confined premises of the kitchen, only about 24 square feet, with only 10 square feet of standing space, was very bothersome. But, she never ever complained about it. This ability to adjust, and the ability to accept ones' situation, and yet to be disciplined and time-bound, was also an addiction and a major troublesome habit for her. But, she never stopped until the day she retired.

Prayer and worship was another amazing habit and addiction for both my parents. They worshipped every day. My father would clean the prayer place, every day, morning and evening. This is something that I am never able to do so. I should get about to doing so. They had a routine, and it began with the first boiled milk of the day, and the first pouring of drinking water. They took the water and the milk to the deities, and without fail, every day, in the morning, the first thing in the morning, they would convey their thanks to the gods. This habit and persistent repetition, and the humility, is also a habit and addiction that my parents taught me, and unfortunately, something that I am yet to practice.