Bad Habits

With the advent of social media, OTT platforms, access to tons of global content through the internet and globalization, a plethora of information available online for easy and fast consumption and quicker access to capital/resources, we have a lot of available options to consider in our spare time. Gone are the days when we used our spare time for careful introspection. This act of introspection led us to course-correct a lot of our hazy or directionless actions. It used to bring us closer to what we wanted to be and achieve. Most importantly, it allowed us to realize who we are, why we are a certain way, what to do in our life to make our actions more relevant and how to proceed about it. When such valuable time is replaced with other seemingly exciting options, we lose a lot of potential to improve ourselves. There is a need to carefully evaluate whether we benefit from these new online tools and reverse the ill effects done by them in our lives.

For example, in this day and age, it has become difficult for us to be truly free. Even if we get some fraction of minutes to spare, we reach for our phones or nearby television or laptop and start sifting through channels or reels. While we decided to do this for only a few minutes, we ended up spending huge chunks of minutes engrossed in this activity. Not only do we spend more time on it than we initially set out for, but we unknowingly do greater damage to our ability to be patient, focused, meticulous and mindful. Rapidly sifting through reels or channels indicates our deeper need to find something more interesting and intriguing. Our sense of intrigue has risen manifolds over time. What sparked our curiosity and our attention a few years ago won’t have the same effect now. It will be boxed in a mundane and repeatable category. This has led to an increased desire within ourselves to seek things more and more interesting. We remain unhappy with the mundane routine of our lives, and instead seek transport to an imaginary world with imaginary characters trying to seek happiness in the world they show via social media. In addition, we have developed a very short-lived attention span when indulging in such activities. And this even gets spilled our other tasks and work we do which require careful and measured execution. Thus, our ability to be focused, mindful and meticulous is reduced and negatively impacted.

These kinds of dangerous habits that are unknowingly formed by our seemingly innocuous actions are something we need to be conscious of and prevent from taking hold of our time and mental space. I have observed that while the nature of actions will be dependent on the kind of habits we want to unlearn, we can come up with some foundational principles that can be applied irrespective of the situation involved. These are the following:


1. Know your weaknesses well and their negative impact.

I, for example, tend to open YouTube and start looking for interesting videos to watch. I have developed a keen interest in geo-politics and hence I can’t prevent myself from watching related videos when they show up on my feed. This leads me to waste lots of valuable time. The same is true with the Instagram reels. Once I start sifting there is no stopping me.

2. Develop a strong will to take difficult steps or decisions to prevent your weakness from magnifying the damage.

I, for example, had, for a couple of weeks uninstalled Instagram and had decided to go YouTube free every time I work. It has been difficult to follow these as I tend to resort to Instagram or YouTube as soon as I want to relish and enjoy my spare time.

3. Consistently fight off bad practices.

Even though I know that social media is encroaching on my free time, I tend to fall back on it at certain times. My mind has a nasty habit of giving a very unbeatable rational explanation to do the thing even if it was decided to not pursue it before. There are times when I make a compromise of indulging in the act for only a specified time. However, yielding to such demand eventually leads me to again be addicted to the act. Making a consistent practice of fighting off these negative tendencies is indispensable to gradually lessen these sensations of craving.



This framework of identification, gathering and applying willpower and bringing consistency can be used to fight of varied habits or tendencies we form in our life - the ones which unknowingly and gradually overpower us to the point where it becomes nearly impossible to imagine our life without it. These principles can be applied in trying to quit smoking, fighting our drug addiction, greed for more money or lust, and a lot of other negative habits as well.