in habit, a day

20 days, 20 habits, one life

[inhabitaday]

Mobile post yay!

This is the first time I have written something on the tumblr through the app! So exciting. I apologize for the brief interlude in my habit project but I kinda of realized it was really helping me all that well to change my habits. I wrote in my paper journal today about something new I’m trying starting today. I will update ypu when I am not about to pass out tho. :) love, courtney

[inhabitaday]

Habit 8: Excuses

It is interesting how after the fact, you can so clearly see, with a little self reflection, how to change your habits. The difficult part is making those tiny decisions in the moment that result in changing them.

I seem to have lost track of this habit exercise lately. I blame it is the pain and I lay in bed all day watching movies (albeit educational ones) but what I forget is that real life is not ideal, and everyone has pains and struggles they must overcome.

Even if I didn't get my wisdom teeth out and have this downtime, I feel like I still might find excuses for why I can't do this or that or most importantly get this paper I have to write finished. The stress of it all makes me antsy even when I am just sitting trying to enjoy myself.

I realized today and so many other times that there is a moment, that crucial moment, that seems so easy now, but difficult then, when we make the decision to cop out.

For me, I say "f*** it" to myself in my head. I used to justify some of my larger mistakes by thinking of it as saying "carpe diem."

But the phrases f*** it and carpe diem are two completely separate things. When you say f*** it, you are resigning yourself to the situation and releasing both your control over it and your accountability to it. You give up.

When you say carpe diem, you are actively making the best of your situation, and while you may be releasing some control over your body, you are actively choosing to do this. You are pushing yourself from not doing to doing. You give out.

Tomorrow is Saturday and I plan to go camera shopping with my dad and hang out with my bff Paige. Anytime I want to say f*** it, I will take a deep breath an relax in the moment.

Suspended judgment will be my two words for the day.

[inhabitaday]

Habit 7: Living in pain

I was in so much pain today! But I managed to get  a few things I needed to get done and even work on my thesis mostly in my bed.

I have an appreciation for how difficult it is to focus on completing something when you are in pain. Then you take pain killers and all you want to do is sleep. I am happy though that I at least attempted for an hour or so to brainstorm and write, even if it was somewhat halfheartedly.

I also blame the caffeine withdraw I am suffering, which is probably good for me as well. But hey, I'll make the best of it. I mean, when else do you get to lie around and get all these odds and ends done that you never would have finished otherwise. I have realized though that I could be making more of my time if I just stopped making excuses of why I couldn't do things. I realize I am recovering so I won't kill myself, but tomorrow my goal is to tell myself something positive every time I try and make an excuse. Then I might get to the root of why there are certain things I avoid and certain things I cling to in life. I apologize for the short post, but I am pretty tired even though I slept all day.

#Prayingtobelessofachipmunktomorrow

[inhabitaday]

Habit 6: Execution and following through

I don't seem to want to start this thesis paper, even though I promised myself yesterday I would work for two hours on it. Maybe I was being a little ambitious, maybe I am just lazy. I cleaned and organized my room like mad to avoid the paper. I slept, nommed on some fro-yo, I pretty much did everything today but what I hoped to accomplish. It is just difficult for me to start on it at the end of the day you know?

I did lay out everything I must do by the end of February to prepare to go abroad however, which is a good thing considering I have a lot to do.

I feel like I would feel better if I worked on my thesis some but I am so tired I can't bring myself to do it. Perhaps a fresh start tomorrow morning is in order now that I am somewhat organized.

Repeat: Tomorrow equals: Shower, smoothie, bank, walmart (for picture hangers), lunch, and then a dedicated afternoon of writing. Maybe I will treat myself to a coffee if I am good. Maybe I will write and treat myself to coffee simultaneously. I always seem to get work done at Starbucks.

Today I got into the habit of planning - tomorrow is execution.

I wonder why the execution part is so difficult for me - maybe it is because I don't know where to start, but I know I will be happy once it is over with and done. So tomorrow I will get my coffee buzz on and do this paper. I promise myself :)

[inhabitaday]

Habit 5: Rest and Recovery

        Not surprisingly, It wasn't difficult for me post surgery to start to want to do things in my dreamlike stumble to the car. I don't like being out of commission - especially when there is some much I could be doing.

      Thankfully, I had quite a fitful sleep last night in anticipation of going under for the first time and fell right asleep for about 4 hours (I think) once I got home. I think I may have had some Gatorade and jello with some ibuprofen before taking the nap, but in the fog of anesthesia  it is difficult to remember. After I woke, I attempted to search for Spanish radio stations to listen to and face-booked with my sister in order to pass the time.

    It snowed outside like I had wished before my surgery, but cruely I could not play in it, After becoming tired with Internet surfing I popped an oxycoton and continued A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. What stands out for me in this book are the little details the reader might miss, but that add so much more to the characterization of the main character Francie, a bright and imaginative young girl who uses her writing as a way of coloring her sad and humdrum life in New York City's tenements. She reminds me of the girl I used to be, although I can only imagine what it was like to live in the early 20th century in desolate poverty.

 About halfway through the book, when Francie turns 13, she seems to lose the childlike wonder that once drove her decisions. She decides to keep a diary because all the great heroines she has read about keep one.  But it seems that each entry becomes more sparse and frank as she realizes how dull her live is in comparison to theirs.

   Writing in a diary has always been an outlet for me, like Francie, but more as a way to understand my confused feelings during trials I happened to be going through at the time. It has always been more a sporadic urge, rather than a planned exercise. My handwriting  is illegible even to me in my journals because it is isn't the final product I am interested in reading. It is the frantic process of therapeutically making sense of thoughts in my head by scribbling them onto a page as quickly as they come to me. I know the page will not judge me.

   This blog is different than my diaries because I feel like I need  to uphold its purpose by both writing each day and writing coherently. Even though no one is probably reading this, I'd like to start seeing my writing as something others might connect with.

 But I more concerned about realizing how I live day by day to find other ways to live more fully than others reading this project. If people happen to find enjoyment in reading it, so be it.

   I certainty don't copyright this exercise of daily self reflection. Other artists, writers and thinkers have taken more novel approaches to self reflection than.

Recently, an artist in Brooklyn named Cesar Kuriyama started videoing 1 second of each day of his life.

He said that the process of filming and watching  what was essentially his own documentary, gave him access to the emotional, exciting, and most importantly, the forgettable and mundane moments of his everyday life.

When we forgetting the hours of time spent doing the mundane we ignore many habits we may see in flashes and wish to change. But by recording the mundane, like Cesar and Francie, we can at least have a hope of overcoming them and changing ourselves or situation.

Tomorrow it is Habit 6: Prioritizing instead of procrastinating. There are several things that have caused me anxiety when I should be relaxing that falter my other habits, namely working on my thesis. So I resolve tomorrow to spend at least two hours writing a paper I need to hand into my professor. I realized as much as I dread doing the work, what is more painful is to have it hang over me.

Tales on writing a boring paper with chipmunk cheeks to come tomorrow.

[inhabitaday]

Habit 4: Awareness

I struggled with directing my scattered attention today. It is like, as soon as I get stressed I want to simultaneously pace around and/or eat everything in the house.

Today I watched some Spanish videos for BBC, went to the gym, wrote on this blog, and wrote an article for the Jetset Times. It was productive, but I felt like I was on the computer a whole lot.

I didn't really go on Facebook except to grab a couple pictures for my article for Jetset. But I definitely ate mindlessly while at the computer - not a whole lot of anything, but a lot more peanut butter and chocolate than I needed to.

Maybe I am anxious because I  didn't get a good nights rest and I am nervous for my surgery tomorrow. Also, I am probably stressed out that I haven't exactly started my thesis. I don't even know how I will feel tomorrow, but sometimes I feel like I am better at writing things I don't enjoy when I have either had a ton of coffee and little sleep or a strong drug.  Then I don't have to be a perfectionist and I can actually just write. Well see how it goes and I how I feel tomorrow.

<mehhh> I'm nervous :/

[inhabitaday]

I just watched this TED talk given by Sherry Turkle on how our digital lives are changing our relationships. In it, she says that we navigate our increasingly meshed online and offline social lives "alone together."

The talk reminded me of habit 2, where I hope to look for more opportunities for genuine connection with people. This doesn't necessarily mean I would abdicated social networks, but use them for opportunities to connect with people offline and not to simply anonymously judge or covenant their lives, clothes or looks.   

[inhabitaday]

Habit 3: Listening

Ever since I was a little girl, my dad yelled at me for "zoning out." I used justify my "zoning out" by seeing it as a form of intelligence - I was an analytical person who was always inside my own head. This was just who I was - there was no avoiding it.

My recent problem with my scattered attention is that, I often drift and revert back to old habits that help me cope with this restless energy- aka snacking, going on my phone simultaneously, etc. These are things that end up hurting both by attention span and overall health in the long run.

Plus while being inside you head can make you more analytical, this quality is only valuable if you are also tuned into things happening outside of you.

Yesterday, to fulfill Habit 2: Offline for Online social interaction, I jabbered with Jourdan at the gym, and tried my hardest to let her get some words in.

She told me about some recent article she read about an MIT professor who invented an algorithm that writes news stories.

[Apparently, the Big 10 already uses this to write stories, which newspapers then pick up unbeknownst to readers. There is no byline nor disclaimer that the stories are written by computers. Scary that journalists are already  competing with computers for jobs!]

I went looking for the article last night, but could not find it. Only year old articles appeared on my Google search. Obviously, algorithms are not yet omniscient.  

I was directed to MIT's free courses online called MIT open courseware. I listened to a lecture on search algorithms, but halfway through, when the teacher started explaining how to create an algorithm to solve a complicated block game in the software Python, I lost interest. I had heard of Python but I didn't know its language. I kept thinking,

"I will learn this one day textbook style, but not now."

Why not now?

I shut my mind off once I struggled to make sense of the material, instead of listening more closely to the professor or rewinding the video. I ignored the best thing about video lectures,which is that you can repeat what the teacher says over and over again until you understand. So why didn't I rewind the video to try and understand? Maybe because usually when I miss what the teacher is saying in the classroom, I put my head down and hope I might understand it at a later date.

So I skipped to a Philosophy of Creativity class on the site - a subject more my forte. A video of a small conference room full of seven or eight  students and an intimidatingly intelligent and curt professor appeared. The professor  was having the students explain their paper topics on creativity. It was obvious some of the students were more prepared than others and the bull-shiting tactics of those less prepared  were all too reminiscent for me.

At Penn State and especially in high school, I could get by, and even get A's, by playing the game of school. For the classes I wasn't interested in or less comfortable with (science classes), I would play school. For those more interesting to me I actually engaged with the material. The problem with learning this game however, is that the post-graduation game is much different.

A rubric laid out neatly in front of you with boxes to check off each expectation is not always provided in life. If you have always been reliant on these to make decisions for things you find uninteresting or difficult, and it is suddenly taken away, you become lost. What is important? What do I do first?

This is where listening and being aware is important. If you are more aware of your surroundings you tend to pick up on the opportunities that will help you achieve your goals. You, like a search algorithm, can see better the multitude of paths you might take from a single node and select the best and clearest route to your goal.

But unlike a computer, your judgement of the best and clearest route is more advanced and takes in more nuances of context. Your creativity will always be greater than the machine because you can reprogram yourself, while a machine needs someone else to do that for them. At least to my knowledge of modern technology. Maybe not for long.

But first you must be aware of different options and seek them out.

That is why today's habit is awareness - slightly ironic considering it is my last lucid day for awhile. Tomorrow, I get my wisdom teeth out and praying there are no complications will be on Vicodin and other painkillers for the next couple days.

That being said, I will be resting much of tomorrow, so I apologize to myself in advance if I miss a blog post.

Tomorrow's habit is relaxing in pain. I have noticed that pain often causes anxiety - it is something we want to escape from but can't. We either try to ignore it or complain about it, but never accept it as it is. Thirst, hunger and pain strongly structure impulsive decisions that, in the end may not be the best ones.

Stay tuned.

[inhabitaday]

Habit 2: Facebook and Twitter.

I didn't go on any social network once yesterday.

Despite Facebook notifications popping up on my phone.

I talked to Paige for two hours on the phone and we made plans to hang out next Saturday. During the day, I went to the Chocolate Lover's festival in Kennett Square and a restaurant called Padi. At night, I drank and hung out with Jourdan, her boyfriend Sam, and their friends Marcos, Jamie, and Eric.

These things are more social than sitting around on the computer, but are still not that exciting. It seems that being social is going to restaurants, sitting around playing kings and drinking Yuengling with friends, or talking on the phone.

Yesterday, I mostly talked and people listened. I guess I had a lot of news having been on vacation the past month. But I found that even though I listen to other people, if I don't find what they have to say resonates or makes sense to me, I don't care to really engage with them.

Like last night, Jamie mentioned that her work is taking everyone's fingerprints to enhance security at her plant because they have had some problems with felons or random people stealing things from their warehouses.

I immediately declared how over-killing it that was and why would a heating and fan company need to take everyone's fingerprints? When I worked at BBC in New York I said, we had ID cards and a security man, but no fingerprinting.

Instead of seeking to understand her story, I discounted it as stupid.

But you don't know what you don't know. Instead of making a judgment about it, I should have listened more - it was her story, not mine, to tell.

When other subjects failed to interest me, I took out my phone and being a little intoxicated, laughed slightly rudely when I received a funny text that I then forwarded to Jourdan.

I made it all about me that night. Later, with Jourdan in her room, I made a joke about all my failings with men. What I didn't realize until later was that this stuff actually really hurt me.

Today I resolve to really listen to people openly. This is easy to say - that you have taken the time to really listen to someone, without actually listening.

I will take early Ludwig Wittgenstein's advice on this own to help me accomplish my goal: "What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence"

[inhabitaday]

Habit 1: Mindless eating and TV watching

Tonight me and my dad watched the Dark Night Rises and I nommed on homemade pizza and yogurt for dinner. So technically I separated the two activities I vowed to avoid, I reason. We had planned to go see the Hobbit together in theaters, but none were playing it near us. You might say that my first bad habit was only half-broken today. The important thing was that I was thinking about changing the habit and only ate when I felt hungry instead of out of boredom or anxiety. More importantly, instead of abdicating the whole activity, I was forced to confront it, but to control myself - much more difficult in my opinion. I felt clarity and peace in these decisions. During the day, I was able to be pretty productive, despite rising at 12:45 (due to jetlag), I finished my first blog post, consoled my stepsister on the phone after her boyfriend broke up with her, walked the dog, worked out, cleaned and organized my room and did some laundry (So I'd say I was above Jersey Shore standards minus the tanning). You might be reading this and think I have a really boring life, but the only way I can hope to make it more interesting is to acknowledge what I am doing and then change it. People like to think they have interesting lifes when they self-stalk their own Facebook or Twitter, but they don't realize that the time they spend showing and telling people how awesome their life is is time they could spend making it more awesome. So my goal tomorrow is to be online less and offline more, enjoying the Saturday. No Facebook or Twitter for me tomorrow. To replace this I will either meet up with or call a friend! Time for tea and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

[inhabitaday]

A not-so New Year's resolution

A month into 2013, and I am glad I did not make a New Years resolution, as I see guilt strike people settling back into their old habits, putting their heads down and muttering something akin to "...and then life happened" when I ask how goes the new workout regime, the book reading, or the not smoking. There is one person, however, who never fails to meet their new year's resolutions -- my stepfather Mike. Each year he gives up one aspect of his former unhealthy eating habits, not just for the year, but forever. He figures that if he can give up something for a year, he can give it up for life. This year he gave up french fries. Three years ago he gave up donuts and hasn't touched Dunkin's reason for brewing coffee since. But what you must understand about my step dad is that his willpower defeats any person that I know, besides perhaps Aron Ralston, the hiker played by James Franco in 127 hours, who cut of his own arm to free himself from Utah's BlueJohn slot canyons. It took Mike seven years, but he built his own house, piece by piece, paycheck by paycheck. During that time he was a volunteer firefighter and a drastically unappreciated husband, whose first wife was an alcoholic, spent all his money and had an  affair. After they divorced, he continued to support her financially in her darkest days so that his kids could grow up having a mom. I now look and see that I haven't even bothered to make any resolutions this year and my former cynicism melts into despair for not even trying. I feel like I have less than a tenth of the willpower Mike has.

My family and friends would say that I have had many successes in my life, that I am hardworking and disciplined, but as graduation approaches, I constantly feel directionless, a spinning compass toward forever shifting poles. My goals of north or south are only ever reached partially. My neck and shoulders tense and my teeth clench at the lack of satisfaction that comes from sloshing sloppily through a scattered to-do list that never seems to lead me to sustained happiness.

I had almost given up hope that I could change direction and increase both my passion and willpower toward life until meeting someone very special a couple days ago. A 2010 graduate from Penn State, he is an entrepreneur who lives in Marina del Rey, California. I met him at an event I covered for Penn State's student newspaper, the Daily Collegian and I instantly resonated with and respected him for his free-form and self-directed lifestyle. What I realized most from our conversations was that it wasn't exactly me that was holding me back from my immediate and long-term goals, but my lack of organization and focus stemming from my anxiety and low-self esteem. But these feelings started to change after he seemed to believe in me. I felt a new optimism and clarity most only feel in such short spurts in their life. But the problem with anxiety and low self-esteem is that they don't go away with one pep talk. Eventually, you need to start doing things that you want to pat yourself on the back for. I am not talking about things considered prestigious like winning an award or getting promoted, but the things you create simply for and from your heart, even if it is just a simple meal or a pretty poem. My whole life, I have been trained to think of success as something others define for me. And despite knowing in my heart this is not true, I have started to see I this logic in the motivation for my everyday actions that I am programmed this way. In the "hurly-burly," to borrow communication's scholar John Shotter's words, of everyday life, I only see  this logic in the rear view mirror. I make a mistake, lament and make excuses, make the mistake again, lament some more in a cycle that makes me unhappy. But no longer. I have decided to reprogram myself. I will change the habits, "cognitive heuristics," or whatever you might call the things you seem to be comfortable repeatedly doing. Rapidly. Experts say it takes around 20 days to break a bad habit for life.

For the next twenty days, I will break 20 bad habits and replace them with positive habits. I will start today, with the first habit, and continue breaking and adding habits until I have 20 new habits. If I cement all the habits with at least 20 days of practice this project should take me 40 days.(my own mini lent, I suppose).

Each day I will blog about my experiences, trials, and tribulations to keep myself accountable to these goals. I will try to keep posts brief for both of our sakes.

You might say that it is impossible to change 20 habits in such a short time. But I say why does it have to be? There are no reasons you cannot do something, just reasons you are uncomfortable or unwilling to do something. 

Today  I will start small, replacing my nightly regiment of mindless eating/watching TV that seemed to at first get me off track from my goals. I will substitute the practice with tea-drinking and reading. Stay tuned for tales of juicy antioxidant drinking and synapse strengthening.

I credit some of the fine ideas surrounding habits to Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits for Highly Effective People and Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher of language and author of the Philosophical Investigations.

"Reading your writing is seeing your soul, often times it is ugly and painful, but necessary for growth and improvement" - me.