A friend recently told me to read this wildly popular book by James Clear, titled Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. It’s a great book that presents a more philosophical and scientific lens behind habit formation. It also talks about other factors that influence this particular type of decision making, like genes and nuance. Needless to say that how the author explores the ways small, continuous changes produce bigger results in your life have been on my mind a lot recently.
I’ve thought a lot about a moment where he states that habits become your life. On one hand, it could simply be his succinct way of pointing to how habits form. On another, it could also imply something radically reductive in terms of who we are, while also inflating the influence of habits. When you’re making a decision to do something, habits you’ve already formed may influence your decision, but they’re almost never the only influential factor. In this sense, habits don’t “become your life,” but the way we choose to face and act every day does.
Furthermore, it’s important to note that the things that really change our lives aren’t solely habits themselves. What about the connections we share? The willingness we inhibit to take a risk? The moods we experience? The experiences we’ve lived through that influence current thought processes outside of habits? Habits will only ever be a fraction of who we are, even if they maintain their relevance for a while in our lives. This reminds me of how certain aspects of someone like their orientation and gender are extremely fundamental, but they’re just that in the larger scheme of things: aspects (which may be subject to change).
He also said that habits compliment the serendipity of life, but I disagree. When you form a routine, you assign time slots for habits. As those slots fill up, you have less space to do things that are out of routine, especially since the resource of time in a day is finite and you can only wake up so early. You could also try spicing up a habit for a day or a week (or longer), but you’d essentially still be doing the same thing. This restrictive nature of routines contrasts with how the media likes to portray routines, especially morning routines, as stabilizers for your life. A life that sticks to regimens can absolutely provide comfort and success to someone, but it isn’t the only path that’s able to achieve that. Sometimes, the slots of time where we allow “distracting” stimuli to take over are the ones that let us reflect on ourselves and ideate better options for our lives.
Outside of what was discussed in James’s book, I’ve also been thinking about a particular habit that’s not even individual. It’s a societal habit where certain parts of life are typically masked with deceit. The guy at the job interview almost certainly will lie to you about the bad days at work, the high turnover rate, and how the role may involve tasks outside your job description. Your friend will likely lie to you about how “perfectly fine” they’re feeling. Family members might just conceal problems or negative emotions (like mental health struggles, relationship issues, or financial troubles) to protect each other from worry or to uphold a façade of family unity. Workplace relationships may focus on feigning interest, exaggerating compliments, or downplaying concerns. Portrayals of wealth, ingratiation… the list goes on.
I think it’s important to remember how we all have the power to change, to choose differently, to break free from the cyclical patterns that tend to bind us. We have the power to enhance our personal and communal well-being by forming habits we actually want to embrace, allowing chance and spontaneity to unfold, fostering genuine connections, and furthering the spread of societal habits that promote positive values. Every decision we choose to make can be a step toward a life that encourages authenticity instead of the prevalence of little white lies made for everyone, including ourselves.
It all really comes down to how, when we first wake up, the first question is the same, but the choices we make that follow could start to envelop themselves into something familiar… or not. ■