Consciousness - At Last!

Yesterday was a breakthough day. Yesterday morning at work, after making myself some tea and adding honey to it, I started to reach for the plastic stir sticks by the coffee machine. And stopped! My hand just stopped midway there, without having to think about it! I remembered I had my metal utensils back at my desk. And walked right back over there to stir with that spoon. I am so happy! This was a good step!
I though about why this is such a big deal. How many times have I "started" a well intentioned new pattern of behavior, only to fall back into the old way of doing something. And other times I HAVE changed a pattern of behavior as desired for good. Without it being a struggle everyday to force myself into more desirable habits. 'Cause let's face it, anytime a new way of behaving is contrived, in whatever way, when it's not part of the natural flow of activity and our psyches, we revert back to the old way of doing things. Like all the people who make a New Year's resolution to workout regularly and eat better - because they should, not because they are ready to make that change. I empathize with them, I know from my own experience that I cannot make major changes in my habits until I am ready to make them part of my life. Like quitting smoking cigarettes. It took a few attempts before that change stuck but it has stuck for 22 years. Same with drinking, 17 years. So this felt like the internal shift happened and that making better choices about everyday consumption is starting to be internalized for me.
I will be writing more philosophical observations about changing everyday habits to reduce unneccessary material consumption in relation to our culture. There is a lot of psychology involved in why we make the choices we do and I believe most of our choices are made without much awareness of why we are making them. There is a link to the side of this blog for a video called "The Story of Stuff" made by Annie Leonard, that explains certain facets of our consumerism in a very articulate, well illustrated manner.