I was walking down the main road in Mile End the other night. Some cars were leisurely driving past, then there were cars that were unnecessarily speeding down a 40 mph road. The pitch black night sky looked even darker against the bright orange headlights of the traffic. But the black and orange contrast was strangely harmonious. This made me think of the days when I used to drive.
Back in Cardiff, I was extremely dependent on my car. Cardiff is different to London; you cannot walk to get to places. I mean you could if you wanted to but it will take forever to get from A to B. Anyway, I had just moved to a different flat. It was dark at night and I was driving back home. The roads were vacant and somewhat eery, and I was tempted to drive through all the red traffic lights. Be a rebel. I didn't though. I should have - it would have been fun. I reached home, parked my car, got out of the car... only to realise I had driven back to my old house. Yikes. My old house and the new flat were at two complete opposite ends of the city. I was so used to driving to my old house that I just drove there automatically without thinking about it.
Habits are funny things. We involuntarily do things as if we were on auto-mode. They are actually quite scary, if you think about it. Something in our brain is telling us to do certain things in a certain way and we do not even realise we are doing it. I have the habit of humming constantly. It is something that I find hard to control. I would be humming before I can even register that I am. Anything will get me going. A word from a conversation. A strange manner of somebody's walk. Even a dog's walk. The smell in the air. Most of the times, somebody would have sung something to me and I will be humming that song all day long.
There are habits that we can control; we do them even though we are aware of doing them. Just because we like it that way. I have to follow certain steps when getting dressed. I like tying my shoelaces in a particular way. I feel awkward when somebody takes photos of me and end up pulling strange faces. I feel lost when I do not talk to the people I would normally talk to every day. I have to arrange things on the dinner table, and the cushions on the sofas, in a mannerly order otherwise I feel uncomfortable (yes, slight signs of OCD, you don't have to point it out). I am very aware of all these habits, yet I choose not to change them.
There are also habits that we wish we didn't have - the naughty ones. I have the tendency to daydream and stare in to space, when actually I should be listening to the lecturer speaking about something or another. I tend to bite my bottom lip, I'm not quite sure why though. I think I play with my hair a lot, only because it gets in my way. I have to eat a whole tub of ice cream in one sitting, however big the tub may be. Same goes for crisps. And how could I forget - I have the habit of accumulating clothes. I love clothes. I really do. I know that my greed for clothes is nothing but a bad case of materialism but it is something that I find really hard to control. It seems involuntary, but truthfully, it is a voluntary habit.
Familiarity and comfort may be the main reasons why we have habits. We find ways that best suit us and our lifestyles. We stick to them because it has been proven that they are foolproof methods through trial and error. We repeat them over and over again that some of these habits are uncontrollable as our brain automatically does them for us. Clever things. I guess habits are what makes us individual. We are creatures of habit, after all. We all have them, however good or bad they are.
