2-38: Habitual Continuity

Thoughts On Instincts That Last

I was at my parents’ house for Christmas, standing in the shower, when I reach for the bar of soap and noticed a small rectangular patch that was a different color. Then I realized it was a tiny sliver of the former bar of soap fused to one side of the new one. I started laughing and couldn’t help but smile. I stood there for a minute, holding the bar, noticing how deliberately the two piecess had been pressed together. My parents could afford to live well into their hundreds financially, yet they won’t throw out a bar of soap when it’s only a millimeter thick. Instead, they’ll press the last sliver into the next bar and keep going.

This same pattern shows up elsewhere, too. My mom drinks boxed red wine. She says it’s because that’s what she drank before her and my dad were married. Financially, they could open a new bottle of Caymus every night without thinking twice. Yet, the box remains on top of the fridge.

The saying is old habits die hard, but it’s more than that in this case. It’s the hard-wiring muscle memory that leads to preserving every last drop of something, or the micro dose of nostalgia every time my Mom pours a glass. Their circumstances have changed but their instincts have not. These habits, and probably countless others, came about during formative years when nothing was wasted and when excess was few and far between.

Abundance arrived slowly and did not knock at the door to greet them. This gradual onset of financial security meant that their operating systems had yet to update. I don’t see these habits as flaws, but rather as small remnants of what shaped them. In some ways, it’s the instinct of frugality and preservation that put them in the position they are in today.

Lasting habits take a significant amount of time to solidify and just as slowly as they arrived, they are sometimes so ingrained in who we are that they may never leave us. Habits occasionally need tended to, as we continuously evaluate whether they continue to serve us and our goals. If my parents end up reading this essay, I hope they know that I genuinely look fondly on the fused soap and the boxed wine, as they inspire humility and gratitude. Changing those habits now would feel like erasing part of who they are. Watching them has simply made me wonder what habits I should preserve as carefully as they have, and which ones deserve a thoughtful update.