Kicking it

Every so often, it happens: you find a pocket of quiet time, kick off your shoes, lay back, catch a little peep of yourself, and realize, “I have to get into this so-and-so habit,” or “I have to kick this such-and-such habit.” Nine times out of ten, much like the 4 dress sizes you need to shed to give justice to “40 is the new 20,” “have to” never manages to drop its last four letters for the one that will transform it into the much trimmer and infinitely more empowered “had.”

Just what is it about habits that make them so darned difficult? It’s like they purposely go out of their way to be contrary: good ones take heaven and earth and everything in between to make, bad ones are near impossible to break. And yet, just when you find enough sense to recognize the road to perdition and stay away, you magically fall into one habit, that of straying into that irresistibly forbidden path, faster and easier than you can say “oops!” Seriously.

Like most people, I, too, have my have-tos. And as much as I would like to fancy myself a paragon of fortitude, daintily brushing dust off my immaculately maintained self after crumbling those offending four letters with a mighty blow of the favored one, I am in reality just one of several billion humans who have chanced upon this so-called life, making the best of their limited capacity.

Oh, well. Limited capacity is still capacity. Let it not be said that I never even tried. Who knows? Maybe with an occasional chink here and a little crack there while I go about my business, I would someday find I have managed to whittle it down to “had” after all. And all without kicking up so much as a speck of dust.