How To Know If The Cobweb Of Habit Is Taking Away Opportunities

The cobweb of habit is a trap. That means that it has very subtle threads that first give you support, but then they wrap around you and limit the terrain in which you move. However, over time you learn to balance the damage this causes you with the benefits it provides. And then you stay like this indefinitely.

The human brain is a fabulous organ, primarily designed to create. In turn, creation is, in essence, the path that intelligence takes to solve problems. The intellectual faculties and the emotional world reach their maximum color when they face a difficulty.

Custom is a way of delimiting the terrain of experience. One of the functions of routine is to reduce the range of daily difficulties that we must face. That prevents us from thinking and feeling to a great extent. We can move driven by inertia.

It is good that we do not have to think about everything we do, but when we get to the point that we have everything decided beforehand, we start to get bored first and then to get depressed.

The human brain is designed for change, for novelty, and avoiding it has intellectual and emotional consequences. How to know if we are being prey to habit? Take these signs into account.

You spend more time on the urgent than on the important

We call “urgent” what implies a duty. Custom leads us to fill ourselves with duties , but these are almost always related to the fulfillment of another, not ourselves. It is what generally urges us to act. There are work, academic, family, emotional, ideological duties, etc.

The important thing, on the other hand, has to do with what really determines our well-being and our feeling of satisfaction with life. Quality time with the people we love, for example. Or the reflection that we owe to ourselves about some feeling that bothers us and we do not know why. For that, finally, we never have time.

You often think that you should settle for what there is

When we are caught in the web of habit, we perceive a discomfort in ourselves. Although the routine leads us to everything being organized and decided in advance, we experience some kind of annoyance because this is so.

Despite this, we take care of silencing that voice that tells us that something is wrong. Many times we end up telling ourselves that “that’s what it is” and that we should settle for it. We nurture that conformism, hiding behind ideas and premises (such as “maturity”) that are not always as reasonable as they seem.

An effect of habit: fear of risk

One of the most harmful effects of habit is that little by little it makes us excessively fearful. Without hardly noticing it, we end up feeling fear for everything that is unfamiliar to us, or that implies some type of change or novelty.

A certain automatism takes hold of us. Every time we are faced with something new, the alarms go off as if we were facing a threat. We do not approach change with enthusiasm and curiosity, but with prevention and fear. We lose the openness towards the different.

Postpone indefinitely

Within the cobweb of custom there are also times when we yearn for something different. We thought that maybe we could go further or feel more satisfied if we did this or that. If we dare to undertake any activity or we dare to change.

The problem is that we almost always end up putting those dreams and projects in a drawer. There you must wait until there are more favorable conditions, or an opportunity presents itself, or certain conditions are met, etc. Most likely, eventually, those dreams and wishes will be stored in that drawer, forever.

Lack of interest predominates

One of the clear signs that we are in the grip of habit is boredom. It manifests as a feeling of disinterest towards everything. Nothing excites us enough and nothing makes us decidedly passionate.

We do not vibrate before life, but flat emotions predominate in front of most things. Without being fully aware of it, we begin to live as if we are “burning time.” We end up assuming that state as if it were natural and logical, when it is not.

Custom is a very powerful force. It is not negative by itself, since it contributes to giving us stability. But when it takes over everything, it becomes a net that traps us and suffocates us. We shouldn’t give in to her. Small changes like taking a different route, or eating something different can be a good way to start getting out of that jail.