The Power of Habit

This post is dedicated to my lovely hobby of reading. I'm always reading something. These days though, it has been mostly academic material, however, I try to get some non-academic literary nourishment as often as I can. Most times that means short stories and / or short romance novels. Today, however, was not one of those days. Today I completed an extremely powerful book called 'THE POWER OF HABIT: Why we do what we do and how to change' by Charles Duhigg.

On October 16, 2014 I had a conversation with a high school friend on Facebook. We hadn't seen each other in years and just did a bit of catching up. We were both students pursuing post graduate degrees at the time, albeit in different parts of the globe. We both had struggles relating to school and I remember telling her that I was having problems with time management and productivity. As a solution to this problem I was finding things to fill up my schedule so that I would be forced to be more productive with the little time I had for each task. My plan was to create habits of going to the gym every night, working two part time jobs, studying Japanese more seriously and attending language classes, in addition to working on my thesis.

In essence, I wanted to change my habits. I told my friend about how I had lost motivation and how hard it was to work on my thesis. I went to school everyday, but most days were not productive. My friend then told me that she also went through something similar and suggested that I waste time productively by reading a non-wishy washy book called 'The Power of Habit'. She even sent me the link to the book on Amazon. I thanked her for it and decided not to buy it. A few months later, as I idly browsed the isle of English books at a bookstore in town, I saw 'The Power of Habit' on the shelf staring at me. It was fate, I had to buy it. So I started reading in 2015.

That Flickering Bulb

So, I've been away for a while. I got really busy, mentally :) with things of a less interesting nature than blogging.

I just realized that after three and a half years the light sensor in the kitchen at school finally got fixed. Imagine my surprise when I walked into the kitchen and the light that usually just blinks rapidly, came on and brightened the room to brilliance never before seen :). It made me think of my current situation and gave me some hope. If after three and a half years someone remembered that flickering light bulb in the tiny hole of a kitchen, then all is not lost. Mind you, if the bulb had gone out completely, it would have been fixed a long time ago, but because it failed to surrender, it was left to struggle for three and a half years.



Maybe sometimes the struggle can be avoided. Who said life is supposed to be hard or easy? Sometimes we struggle for a long time because we simply will not put up a white flag or ask for help. Many times I get lost using maps but I don't ask for help until I've circled the entire area at least once. For the light bulb, going out would have been easy, however, I would have never noticed it. I would have never learnt a lesson from it being fixed today. It would have never made an impression on me. The same goes for us, I think. If I get lost while trying to find my way, I, inevitably learn about the area. I learn road names, coffee shop names, paths that leads to train stations, paths that lead nowhere, and eventually the path that leads to my preferred destination. All the other stuff that I learnt while I was lost will help me to find the destination again in the future and may help with other things as well. If I simply ask for help immediately, I pass up the opportunity to learn on my own, with my own eyes and feet. The experience weakens when you throw your hands up too quickly.




After a while though, the preferred destination becomes more important than the journey to finding it. At that point, if you are not closer to finding it than before, you should definitely seek help.  At a certain point, the light bulb will actually need to work to be of use. Three and a half years is a long time, but the good thing is now it's fixed which brings other things to my attention that were unknown to me before. I now get to appreciate the details of the kitchen that I couldn't see before.










Source of pictures: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=flickering+lightbulb&FORM=HDRSC2#view=detail&id=DDD6143695A9FEEB93FA1191F8283CB24EAC1FF4&selectedIndex=8

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=getting+lost&FORM=HDRSC2#a

Don't end up hating your life at 40 because you pursued the career path you chose as a teenager!

I've been thinking a lot lately about my life and the choices that I've made. I read a quote recently that essentially said don't end up hating your life at 40 because you pursued the career path you chose as a teenager. This got me thinking about change and all the unforeseen things that accompany it. In order to ensure that I don't end up hating my life at 40, I need to actually pursue the things that interest me now. Of course, my career path is still important to me and I will continue pursuing it fervently, but I also have other dreams that do not include academics. To get on with those dreams though, I need to set aside 'dream accomplishment' time. Otherwise, I will just drum away at my academics and wake up one day utterly disappointed in me.

Before making my journey into this land of the unknown, I was excited and a bit apprehensive. Upon getting here, those feelings remained for a long time. Recently however, I've begun to feel a sense of 'me'. I know myself more today than I did 3 years ago. I'm more willing to sacrifice and do what is important to me but I keep wishing I had more time and using lack of time as an excuse to not pursue other things of importance to me. This month I will change that though. Notice, this month ends today, so today is my day of progress!

Two weeks ago I woke up feeling quite unaccomplished. I thought about the fact that my graduate school journey was not going according to plan at all. In fact, I'm about a year behind schedule. How did that happen? I wasn't sleeping for a whole year, I'm certain. But what exactly happened? I procrastinated, researched things that turned out to be inconsistent with my professor's goals for me and ended up with a year of nothing. I learnt that this journey is not entirely about me. In a year, I've learnt how to read my professor more accurately, I've learnt the importance of saving towards conferences, and I've realised that my research in grad school is 30% about my interests and 70% about my professor's :) I guess it's a good thing I learnt those things in one year. Sometimes we take years to learn lessons that are not explicitly taught.

So now it's time to focus on things that will help me to finish my thesis and graduate next year. Lord help me if I know what those things are!