Cobweb, Cord, and Cable

I’ve read that a habit is first a cobweb, then a cord, and finally a cable.

It’s important to be thoughtful about the habits we develop.  They can control us for a lifetime.

In my life I have changed several basic habits.

At an early age I developed an eating routine which I found difficult to modify.

I hung out in the kitchen every afternoon.  While my mom cooked dinner I separately devoured a two-hour snack.  My favorites were melted cheese sandwiches, sour cream dip with potato chips, and peanut butter and jelly on sour dough French bread.

At dinner, Mom’s salads were far too healthy.  The salad dressing was either vinegar straight from the bottle or lemon juice.  Yuck!  I learned to dislike salad.  I also disliked vegetables because they were always overcooked, limp, and unappetizing.  Worst of all, I was required to eat everything on my plate even if I wasn’t hungry.

At a restaurant I would immediately consume four or five slices of bread and butter, even before ordering real food.  After all, it was free.  (More accurately, Daveen would say it was “included.”)  Lunch and dinner were three or four courses.  After all, a meal isn’t complete without desert.

In short, my eating habits were undisciplined, like the old joke – “I’m on a seafood diet.  I see food, I eat it.”  For most of my life my weight reflected a conspicuous lack of self-control.

I’m happy to report that yesterday evening I enjoyed a dinner that years ago would have been unthinkable – a salad.  No bread.  No meat.  Just a salad with blue cheese lite and balsamic vinegar dressing.  It was delicious, and I wasn’t hungry afterward.

The transformation of my eating habits has been gradual but complete.  I learned that for lunch I was satisfied with a single open-faced sandwich, one-half at noon and the other half in the afternoon.  No potato chips.  No French fries.  No weight gain.

Another habit I’ve changed for the better is not aiming to work too fast.

In the third grade I took a sixteen-problem math test.  As always, I was the first to finish and proudly took my answers to the teacher.  A few minutes later she returned my paper.

“Alan, this is a quiz in subtraction, not addition.”

Oops.  In my haste I had failed to read the instructions.  I again answered all the problems and was still the first to finish.  Thank goodness she gave me a second chance.

But working quickly was a habit that became entrenched. In business I always tried to finish everything as fast as I could. The problem was that if I didn’t immediately know what to do, i.e. respond to a letter, then I would put it aside for later.  Over a period of weeks I would pick up the same letter many times, read it, then put it back on the pile.  That habit kept my in-box filled to overflowing.

I might never be perfect about this, but today I usually respond to an email immediately, or forward it to someone else who can.  I might be a little slower than I was, but I’m definitely more efficient.

Last week I began to change another stressful habit – watching three or four hours of TV news each day.  I’ll write more about that next week.

You might consider your own habits, those cables to which you are tethered.  Perhaps you can detach yourself from one or two, and enjoy your life even more than you thought possible.

Alan