This morning I read a quote that said, “You are watching people go through withdrawal from the emotional addiction to the myth of certainty.”
And I didn’t think that was inaccurate. Because throughout the last two+ months, I keep thinking of the ways that all of this feels like a strange version of rehab where we’ve all been asked to give up our habits—good or bad—cold turkey.
Three weeks into the stay-at-home order, I started to feel a little better than the constant unease of those initial days. And at some point I started to think of the pain of those first few weeks as withdrawal symptoms. My strong addiction to busyness had meant that I was never just resting at home. And then, quite suddenly, I was always just resting at home.
For me, this time has slowly revealed how entrenched some of my bad habits had become. It took three weeks to break the busyness one. But there are more that the weeks have slowly revealed. And I’m betting others relate.
You hear a lot about the tangible things people want to continue past this time—things like spending more time with family and going on long walks with their dogs. This is what I want to bring out of this time. I don’t want to return to these habits.
I think it goes back to the quote I read this morning—the addiction is to a myth anyway. They’re all actually myths I’ve created in my own head— things like “being busy equals being happy” or “working hard will make people like you more.”
And so, while I don’t want to in any way downplay the sad and terrible side of this time— and, of course, there are many things I’m eager to return to once it’s past—my hope is that I come out of it having permanently left behind these emotional addictions to myths.
So, what about you? What bad habits has this time broken for you?
Sarah Crosland 