“…and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all”

That quote taken from the short story “The Masque of Red Death” by Edgar Allen Poe describes the terrible ,omniscient, power that a plague known as the “red death” had over the land in Poe’s story.

But there is another force present in everyone that holds dominion over us.

That force is the power of habitual behaviour or “habits”.

Have you ever stopped to think about how you interact with the world on a daily basis?

Try to think about the number of genuinely new and unique experiences that you have everyday and then think about the number of experiences that are mainly experiences that are repeated from the day before.

If you are anything like me you will come to the conclusion that we are living out a similar pattern of behaviours each day with very little deviation from this set pattern.

We all tend to rise at the same time each day, and then throughout the rest of the day – we will travel to the same places, meet the same people, interact with them in the same ways and perform the same set of actions that we did the day before.

Now you may argue that much of this repeated behaviour is grounded in the fact that we are attached to certain possessions, people and resources which have to be revisited in order for us to maintain a healthy continuity in our lives.

We can’t just change our cars, jobs, houses, or spouses on a daily basis without some difficulty!

But, within the range of activities that we are obliged to repeat everyday, there is a lot of scope to vary our approach when carrying out these activities.

The key thing is to take notice of is WHY you are repeating these behaviours, by asking yourself questions such as:

1. Do I need to carry out this action?

2. What would be the consequences of not doing it?

3. Can I carry out this action at a different time?

4. Can I carry out this action in a different way?

Any actions that you repeat on a daily basis are likely to be driven by habit and although habitual behaviour in itself is not a bad thing, the problem lies in the fact that you are carrying them out on “auto pilot” without giving any thought to your behaviour.

The actions that you repeat or the behaviours that you exhibit when faced with a particular set of circumstances may have been the most appropriate at one time but may not be now.

Habits are capable of making people repeat destructive behaviours and sustain these over the course of many years (smoking and alcohol consumption are two obvious examples).

People will repeat behaviours that they know are bad for them and justify this position because the activity at the time was pleasurable e.g. smoking, drinking , gambling, etc . But people will also repeat behaviours that do not even provide any pleasure and may even result in pain.

The German writer and polymath Goethe observed that -

“Habit is a man’s sole comfort.  We dislike doing without even unpleasant things to which we have become accustomed.”

So why would a person repeat an action that not only was harmful to them but may also be painful as well?

The reason is that when an action is repeated, neural pathways begin to become established in the brain and with more repetitions these pathways become stronger and less prone to be broken.

The reason why these pathways are established is probably so that the brain has a “short cut” route to carrying out the action again if fit is required to do so and with more repetitions the more established the pathway becomes and the more likely that this pathway will be followed.

Habits are completely amoral and do not care if the consequences of the behaviour that they make you repeat is good or bad.

Given the tremendous power that a habit has to direct us in our life and that it is completely neutral in terms of policing the consequences of it’s actions make habits seem like quite a bad idea!

But the fact that they are so powerful and neutral can make them your greatest allies!

Having a mechanism inside you that can make you execute behaviours that you have already established will help you lead a better life can only be construed as a good thing.

But the problem remains as to how to control this powerful mechanism.

The electrical and chemical agencies in the brain that control the formation and eradication of neural pathways and the associated behaviours that follow when these pathways are activated is complex and not fully understood. It is certainly outside the scope of this short article.

Although a detailed understanding of anything is always a good idea, enough is understood about habits that a “black box” or systems approach can be taken in order to gain some control over them.

My purpose in this article is merely to explore the ubiquity and power of habits in controlling almost every aspect of our behaviour.

In a future article I will detail some methods by which you can take control of your habits – creating new positive habits and destroying old negative ones in order to achieve the your desired behaviours.

It has been said that, “time is the new money”.

In a modern society where people seem to be working even longer hours and there are more and more things that make demands on the little free time that is available to us it is easy to see how time can be viewed as a more valuable resource than even money.

It is a fact of life that no one lives for ever. Even with modern developments in medicine that are gradually extending life expectancy, for most people living today their time on this planet is not going to deviate significantly from the biblical “three score years and ten”.

Despite this well known fact, most people tend to live their lives as though they were immortal and will carry on living forever. This is probably due to the fact that people do not like to think about their own mortality and therefore continue with the illusion that they have all the time in the world at their disposal.

This fear of death which is treated as a taboo subject in modern society makes us want to sideline any thoughts about our remaining time  and continue along the lines that whatever we want to achieve in life can be put off until tomorrow because we have the rest of our lives ahead of us and correspondingly there is no urgency or definiteness of purpose in our lives.

I rather like the philosophy regarding the concept of death taught by the old Mexican Indian sorcerer, “Don Juan” who is  the hero of several books by Carlos Castaneda. The following quote is taken from ” The Teachings of Don Juan” -

“Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm’s length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he’s about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, ‘I haven’t touched you yet.’”

Don Juan’s belief that “Death is the only wise adviser” is a concept that many of us could use to our advantage in order to put some perspective in our lives and ensure that we are always acting in our own best interests by maximising the time we have available.

A good way to get the most benefit from your time is by focusing on things that hold real meaning and add value to your life. Unfortunately, many of us lead lives that are filled with triviality and seem intent on frittering away our greatest resource in ways that will not add any value to our lives.

Many people spend great quantities of their most valuable asset (time) sitting in front of the television basically in a state of low level hypnotic trance being fed any sort of message that the TV companies want to feed them. This is not a good use of your time! The entertainment value presented by most TV shows is fairly poor and the educational value virtually non-existent and yet most of us persist in this unhealthy and unrewarding activity.

We spend a lot of time (and money) in searching for and then purchasing possessions that we distribute around our homes. This obsession with accumulating material possessions such as the latest consumer gadget  not only clutters up our homes but also clutters up our minds. We are actually paying twice for these possessions. We pay initially with the time that we have given to someone else in order to pay for the item and then we pay again with the time that we expend in maintaining or playing with our new possessions.

Another way in which we waste our time is in the pursuance of trivial domestic activities. Many people have a mania not just for excessive cleaning of their property but also in decorating and engaging in DIY projects. Although there is nothing intrinsically wrong with these activities it is further evidence of people using their most precious resource ( time) in the pursuance of activities that are not going to expand themselves as human beings. If you were told that you only had one week to live would you really spend it in redecorating your bathroom?

Now I know that living in a modern society we all need possessions and desire to live in a clean and comfortable house and be entertained from time to time, but it seems to me that many people are continually looking to be distracted and are using up their time with little overall benefit to themselves. We all probably know homes where the television set is left switched on continually and effectively holds dominion over the people in the household.

I believe that this continual need to be distracted that many people are afflicted with comes initially from a fear of being alone with their own thoughts but then goes on to become an habitual and comforting form of behaviour. Being alone and away from comforting  distractions is disquieting to many people and consequently they will avoid this condition. But putting yourself in a quite environment and being able to conduct an internal dialogue with yourself away from any distractions is a very good use of your time.

By spending more time in quite contemplation you are much better placed to ask some of the big questions in life that everyone should take time to ask of themselves. Questions such as:

Who am I?

In which direction is my life heading?

What do I want to achieve with my life?

What would I like to change in my life?

How can I bring about these changes?

You can probably think of your own list of questions, but when was the last time that you made the conscious decision to sit down in a quiet place and engage in a dialogue with your self concerning who you are where you are going?

By engaging in an internal dialogue where you can decide how you want your life to proceed  and formulating ideas for how this will happen, you will gradually begin to obtain mastery over your life instead of being manipulated by the various forces in your environment.

Use these occasions to make decisions regarding your future and run through courses of actions and strategies that you can implement in your day to day life including reducing the time spent on trivial activities and increasing the amount of time spent on life enhancing ones.

Your time is your most precious commodity, treat it wisely as though it was money.

You can always acquire more money, you can never acquire more time.

- Paul Reeve