subject: Bad Habits. Are You Still Holding On To Them [print this page] I don't know how long David has been homelessI don't know how long David has been homeless. He is one of America's walking wounded" mentally ill, unable to take care of himself, unable to cope with the business of life. He is always happy to talk, although you have to repeat yourself a few times before he can understand you because you see David is losing his hearing.
One day I tried to take him to a shelter for the homeless. All he had to do was get in the pickup truck. He had to make a decision: Get in or stay on the street. The right decision could have started the cycle of healing and change, but it was more than David was capable of doing that
morning. He decided to stay on the street, waiting for his imaginary ride to El Paso.
When Is it possible to free yourself from bad habits? Can people really change in any meaningful and lost-lasting way? Can I change myself? The answer to each of these questions is "yes." But you can't change in 24 hours, as some programs and self-help books promise.
My research, as well as my experience and common sense, tell me that anyone can change, but at the same time, I know that people need a compelling reason to change.
What does it mean to change? To change means to establish new priorities, to choose a behaviour that's different from the one we're using now. David Lucero is stuck on the street, waiting for a solution that doesn't exist. When a real solution is right in front of his nose, he can't see it.
I don't know when his hearing started to deteriorate. And even though he can see, I have learnt how to free yourself from bad habits starts with the realisation that we cause our own feelings.
I am the major cause of my own problems. The moment I grasp that simple fact, I'm ready to step into the process of self-change that will lead to freedom from the habits that keep me from living a more satisfying life. And when I'm free from my bad habits, the people around me will be free from the person I used to be.
All people can bring about superficial changes in themselves. But freeing yourself from a self-destructive habit like smoking or overeating requires a deep, long-lasting change. A bad habit is like an iceberg. You can't beat the habit if you approach it as if it were only as large as what you can see on the surface.
Franz Kafka said, "a book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us." Any book or program that aims to help people break bad habits must reveal the whole iceberg that lies below the surface.
You can't eliminate the whole thing in one day, but if you take a step-by-step approach, you can eliminate the bad habit sooner than you thought possible. It is going to take effort on your part.
You can't eat whatever you want and loose weight, no matter how many times you hear it on the talk shows. But you can loose weight, and you can learn to enjoy healthy foods more than the unhealthy foods you're eating now.
