My habitual ways of operating take care of me from one angle—restrict me from another. They give me tried and true methods that have been collected since childhood. Whether they work in the particular instance, age or not. They include, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, postures, gestures, intonations and all the little things others notice about me.
Inundated with impressions; sights, sounds, aromas, textures, temperatures, attitudes, words and more. Some internal place has sorted them all into the responses that belong to me. It looks for what it knows, what it can say, it looks for danger, for signals it needs to respond to. It worries and scolds if I have made a fool of myself, and boasts when I do well. It has developed over time, and with repetition. It is the automatic answer that comes out more often than not when someone says, “How are you?” or saying “God bless you.” after a sneeze. I don’t think about it any more, I hear the sneeze and the words come to mind, wanted or not.
They are mechanical/habituated ways of interpreting my life. To think about them as good or bad is to fall into back into them. A habituated response in not necessarily good or bad. It can be either. The question I found most useful in looking at this is: Is it producing the result I want?
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