A Habitual Ape

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9dJliHNJAU
If this is your first time reading my Blog, I habitually post a song to accompany your reading. There are no lyrics in the song above so it won't distract you, besides the incessant foot-tapping induced by it. Today, Bonobo will be guiding you through my exposition. If that first song ends before you're finished reading then you can throw on the song posted below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiYsnlPTX48

Habits are a fundamental force that controls our behavior. Our character, in essence, is an assemblage of various habits. Without a firm and fundamental understanding of how the habit-loop system operates, we allow it to control us and diminish our autonomy. I don’t believe autonomy is inherent but I do believe it is attainable for anyone with the correct guidance.  In this article I’ll do my best to delineate the habit-loop system and offer some tools for gaining control over it.

The habit-loop system, which I will fully describe in a moment, is a crucial component of our behavior because it effectively motivates us to enact certain routines and minimizes the amount of thought-energy required to perform certain tasks. The habit-loop system operates on a simple system of cue-routine-reward, but there are some intricacies with this system. The reason exercise becomes a habitual routine for many people is not only because the reward but because you can anticipate the reward. That is a crucial step in forming a concrete habit: anticipating the reward. The anticipation is conjured by the cue which then manufactures the craving to enact the routine because you can only get the reward by going through the routine. Cue is not enough in and of itself to form a concrete habit, the cue must manufacture anticipation and that anticipation will create the craving for the reward.

This is why it is so easy to become imprisoned in habits which provide immediate gratification, because the routine is easy and the reward is satisfying. Our brain will naturally pursue habits with the easiest route to reward. Additionally, these simple routines only offer an ephemeral reward which will keep you coming back very often, hence why smokers can go through an entire pack in a single day. I myself have dabbled with cigarettes so I’m not only accusing, I’ve experienced it myself, I experienced it for about six months in fact. Within the last year, however, I’ve cultivated some habit-loops that replaced the deleterious ones that I formed at a younger age. The three big habits for me which help me refrain from immediately gratifying rewards are writing, proactive learning (I study often but not from resources offered by high-school) and exercise. These three habits don't only provide the satisfying neurological reward but they also help me develop as a person and cultivate character virtues which benefit me in every facet of my life because the route to reward is extensive and requires dedication.

My cue for writing is a blank word-document because I can anticipate how I will feel once I have filled it with my ideas; I can anticipate the immense burst of joy and elation I get once I have completed an exposition. In order to get the immense burst of joy and elation, though, I must go through the routine of writing. My cue for exercise has now become purely mental, only because I have been a habitual exerciser for a year now, conquering mountains and surpassing my limits actively. That is neither here nor there, though. Initially, my cue to exercise was leaving my gym pass on this small table that I must pass in order to get to my kitchen in the morning. This cue not only made me think about exercising but caused me to anticipate the exceedingly satisfying feeling of relaxing in the steam-room after a tough work-out. Finally, my cue for proactive studying is the anticipation of being able to think entirely new thoughts that I was previously incapable of thinking. Studying becomes effortless when you’re engrossed in captivating material that speaks to your inner-interests. Thankfully, my proactive study of psychology and philosophy allow me to write this Blog and provide my readers with tools they may not have had previously, so this Blog has become an anticipatory cue in a sense.

This habit-loop system, whether we enjoy conceding that it is in fact determining our behavior or not, has control over our minds, but it doesn’t have to. Once you cultivate an acute sensitivity to your habits you can begin to control them and mould them around how you want to truly live. The understanding of this habit-loop system unshackles us from our mind and bestows autonomy unto us. Your journey to autonomy will be a tough one, you will fail and you will stumble, but that is beneficial, failure forces us to grow. I myself am still on this journey and I am failing frequently but those failures are forcing me to grow. The journey to autonomy is probably the toughest and longest journey you can embark on but that’s the point, adapting to tough scenarios causes you to cultivate character-virtues that you can then carry with you into every facet of your life. The journey to autonomy will be arduous and difficult but the sooner you start the sooner you can achieve true freedom.