\nMemories fade fast. In my brain, positive memories generally fade faster than negative ones.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt’s been three weeks since I read a book of fiction. Whenever this happens, whenever more than just a few days pass between books, I start to forget how good it feels to read. Starting on the next book, even choosing a book to read, begins to seem not worth the effort. I have to remind myself that I like reading, and tell myself to just read a teensy little bit. Once I do that, the joy comes flooding back and I keep reading the book and finish it and pick up the next one and the next. And then I am baffled as to how I could possibly have forgotten that warm feeling.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe same happens with working out. It is so easy to think about what a bother it would be to find my clothes… and to pack… and to go to the gym or sports club… and how tired I will be afterwards… and forget just how good the activity itself makes me feel. But I know from experience that once I am there, I always<\/b> enjoy the activity. Whenever I have forced myself to go despite this lazy reluctance, I have never regretted it. I have never ever come home afterwards, thinking “I was right about that… I should just have stayed home.”\n<\/p>\n
\nEven with activities I really enjoy, like reading books or doing yoga, that first step can be really hard. I have to consciously fight the inertia. The initial effort almost manages to outweigh the more distant pleasure. (The discount rate for that pleasure must be massive!)\n<\/p>\n
\nThe one thing that helps most is habit and scheduling. It is a lot easier to go to the yoga class when it is a fixture in my calendar. It is a lot easier to cycle to work when I have done it daily for… five years? or is it six?\n<\/p>\n
\nAnother trick that works is taking a tiny first step. Pick up a book and open it, without committing to actually read it. Just look at the first page. Once I get that far, the momentum is usually enough to carry me along.\n<\/p>\n
\nYesterday I finally picked up a book again and I finished it today. I’m now going to start on the next one straight away so I don’t waste another three weeks without books!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Memories fade fast. In my brain, positive memories generally fade faster than negative ones. It’s been three weeks since I read a book of fiction. Whenever this happens, whenever more than just a few days pass between books, I start to forget how good it feels to read. Starting on the next book, even choosing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-observing_the_self"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}