Tag: Bad Habits

  • Return of the Sketchbook

    If there was one thing in life that I could fix, it would be to make it easier to hold on to good habits. I am great at creating and sustaining bad habits; I’m master at that. But good habits? Hell no. Even if I do follow the three-month rule, you know, if do anything for three months then it will become a habit; Even if I do that, for something that is good for me, if I take one day off, I will never return to that good habit.

    Case in point, and it’s not the gym, I used to be very good at drawing something just about every day in my sketchbook. A while ago, I remember reading a profile on the painter Chris Ofili, and in it Ofili described his daily routine which was that when he woke up in the morning, he would do a sketch. I thought that was a pretty good idea, and from my perspective, drawing a sketch everyday means that you are creative and accomplishing something, every day. So, I tried to keep that up.

    And sadly, I couldn’t. I go through periods where I’m on top of it. Especially with the kid, she has several sketchbooks, and it’s an activity that we can do together. But at some point, something comes up and the habit gets broken all over again. The current sketchbook that I have was started back in 2022. I’ve almost filled it up, but still, you know – there really isn’t an excuse for three years.

    So, today, I decided to get back on that horse. No more of looking at my sketchbook on my desk, gather dust. Nope. It’s time for me to get some more creativity flowing, even if the drawing is basic and simple. Getting started and creating the habit is the point, regardless of what the sketch looks like.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Bad Habits, Tottenham’s Not Dead Yet, and If David Brooks Says We Need an Uprising…

    (But I can’t go for that…)

    I don’t have as many bad habits as I used to. I am a reformed smoker, which was the worst bad habit I ever had, and I know that I am better off. But man… Some nights, a whiff of smoke will catch me in just the right mood, and I get that craving ll over again. I won’t act on it, but it sure is tempting. To be outside of a bar, slightly tippsy, and smoking a cigarette as the rest of the world is asleep. That feeling of being on the edge of the world, almost outside the boarder of normal and decent life. Not a bad person, just not one that fits in. Maybe that’s a tad romantic when it comes to an addiction, and I don’t want to return to it, but like thinking of a long lost ex, it wasn’t all bad.

    I don’t want to get too deep into it, because if you know you know, but stupid old Tottenham refuses to give up one winning at least one trophy this year. I had written them off, and I felt better for it, but that damn team went and gave me hope. Just a small drop, a taste of things to come, and now I have started caring again, and that annoys me. I would rather be thinking about next season, rather than what might be.

    So, if David Brooks says we need an uprising, then we might need an uprising.