Tag Archives: Habits

What are my good habits?

After my last post, I started thinking about what my good habits were. I could also write about my bad habits, but I find that bad habits are harder to think about because they can tend to be more subconscious. Also, I want to like writing, so I think I’ll write about my good habits instead.

Below, I’ve compiled some of what I think of as good habits. These are changes that I’ve made in my life that I hope have a net gain. How do I judge this? Well… …It’s completely subjective. It’s whether I think it’s a net gain, and that’s what matters to me right now. Feel free to disagree in the comments.

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Habits

I’ve been thinking a lot about good habits lately. Over the last few years, I’ve been trying to cultivate more good habits. I know I’m getting older (not old yet), so I have felt the need to make myself a better person. However, it seems like the more good habits that I try to squeeze in, other things drop off, like it’s some sort of zero sum game.

For instance, I recently started taking the bus to and from work every day. This takes about twice as long as driving (-) but I save on gas (+), I get time to read while I’m on the bus (+), and get more exercise walking to/from the bus stop (+). However, it also has ripple effects – I haven’t been cooking at home as much, so we have been eating out more (-). Also the bus is on a fixed schedule, so I tend to stay late at work more often (-).

This isn’t so much an expression of frustration, so much as a recognition of where I am when I say to myself, “I want to make time to write.” This is an experiment – can I make time to write without giving up too much else? In this case, I’m giving up some of my reading time on the bus in the hope that I will be able to update my blog more often. The tradeoff, of course, is that it will take me longer to finish anything that I’m reading…