Breaking Good: Supertankers, Pugilism, and Bad Habits

Fei Meng

Recently, my brother and I were discussing bad habits and how to get rid of them. For more than 25 years, Doug owned a sailboat on the Carolina coast, and he sometimes thinks in nautical metaphors. He pointed out that some bad habits were so engrained in us that the time and effort required to eliminate them might be compared to an ocean-going supertanker.

“Those ships are carrying so much weight,” he said, “that they take forever to stop or reverse course. Getting rid of a really bad habit works the same way.”

A couple days later, I looked up these cargo ships and learned that loaded supertankers require about five to eight kilometers and roughly 15 to 20 minutes to come to a complete stop, and they have a turning radius of almost two kilometers. Not exactly stopping on a dime.

My brother made a great point. To successfully cut out a habit freighted with long usage, such as screen addiction, or, for that matter, to add some new habit such as exercise to our daily routine, takes time. In our fast food, two-day delivery-from-order-to-door society, most of us are speedboats rather than freighters, and we want that habit we’ve practiced for decades to be gone by the weekend. Actress and writer Carrie Fisher humorously summed up our “I want it now” attitude: “Instant gratification takes too long.”

Given our voracious desire for immediate results, by what means can we slow that freighter of bad habits and turn it around?

Books such as James Clear’s “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones” and online articles such as Jud Brewer’s “How to Break Up With Your Bad Habits” examine the nature of habits, the psychology behind them, and specific ways to kick them to the curb. Search “breaking bad habits” online, and you’ll find loads of how-to advice, much of it excellent, on removing unwanted patterns or practices from our lives.

It so happens that I’m an unacknowledged expert on dumping bad habits, with a success rate of about 50 percent. As sports announcer Jim McKay used to say, I know “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” Right now, for instance, I’m working on ridding myself of my extraneous daily—“But they taste so good!"—peanut butter sandwiches in hopes of losing some pounds. Anyway, some thoughts, and for these, I’ll be stepping off that cargo ship and into a boxing ring, a territory more familiar to me.

The Impatient-Patient Combination

Boxers are trained to throw their punches in combinations: jabs, crosses, hooks, and uppercuts. Likewise, fighters against bad habits must throw a two-punch combo: impatience and patience. Impatience is the burning desire to dump the habit, and patience is what will see us through. As the Emperor Augustus often remarked, “Festina lente,” which means “make haste slowly.” That Zen-like tag tells us to keep driving toward a goal but with deliberation.

Slips

When a boxer tumbles to the canvas without being hit, it’s ruled a slip, and he gets up and keeps fighting. Like him, we sometimes slip. The alcoholic a month into abstinence gives way to temptation and spends an evening with Mr. Beam. He can keep drinking the next day, or he can push himself off the canvas, pitch the bourbon bottle, and keep up the good fight, braced by renewed resolve and self-forgiveness.

Opponents

Like the boxer, you face two opponents in the ring: the guy swinging at you and yourself. If you’re trying to lose weight, that voice you hear in your head, “For heaven’s sake, one doughnut never hurt anyone” is you. Your other opponent is the weight itself. Remind yourself that you’re much more than the extra 40 pounds you’re trying to shed. You aren’t your weight.

Keep your hands up. Bob and weave. Keep punching.

And stay away from peanut butter.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.