Questions #23 & 24: Addiction harpooning tips, anyone?

(This post is part of a series for July 2013 entitled “Question Month.” Read the intro to the series here.)

My Facebook post earlier this week (yeah, gave up on the daily thing, but for good reason):

Question Nos. 23 & 24: How do you break your addictions? How do you form new, better (hopefully lasting) habits?

What are my addictions? Hmmm, let me gnaw on a cuticle for a second here while I think… Yup. That’s one of them right there. But wait, there’s more…

Cuticle gnawing.
iPad tooling.
Juice guzzling.
Family for-granted-taking.
Ear canal scratching.
Photo snapping.

So I’m not the world’s worst addict. That much we know. Still, I would like to reform the above. I have bitten the skin around my fingernails for nearly my entire life. I tried it for the first time, no joke, because a fellow preschooler said it was cool to bite your nails. They were wrong. The nails themselves feel scratchy in the mouth, taste bitter, and can lead to serious pain, but the cuticles… Ah, the cuticles are a bizarre delicacy from which I have yet to be parted.

I should not be on the iPad during my children’s waking hours. I am better than I used to be on the “real” computer, but still. I am somehow absent from the room while iPaddling in a way I am not while doing anything else: laundry, cooking, composing, knitting, gardening… All allow me to be attentive to my children in a way the iPad cannot.

Laugh if you will, but juice is my Achilles heel. I had it bested for months and months and then just a week or two ago broke down in a bad way, and now I’m scrabbling my way back on the wagon.

My family is beautiful, precious beyond measure, and deserving of a far better mom and spouse than my current self.

I cannot seem to stop cleaning my ears with Q-tips even though I know it could damage my hearing… Partially because the alternate method for ear cleaning requires alone time (to let some drops seep in before flushing the ear out), but mostly because of the eargasm involved. I know I am not alone in this.

All of these are Habits in Need of Breaking, sure, but what’s wrong with photography, you ask? Well, sometimes nothing at all, but occasionally it detracts from actually living and enjoying the experience in an effort to document it sufficiently.

What habits am I trying, with varying success, to instill?

Water and tea drinking.
Meditation and mindfulness.
Doctor-approved ear cleansing.
Kindness toward those I love.
Eating a large and timely breakfast.
Keeping up with chores.
Regular music practice (composing and instrument-playing).

I won’t bore you with my attempts at the above, but I will gladly blame my absence lately from what was intended to be daily blogging upon a visit from in-laws followed closely by a sudden and delightful ability to wrestle composition time out of nowhere. For the first time in far too long I have written significant amounts of music over four (4) consecutive days, sometimes in just five-minute increments stolen throughout the day, and am rewarded with the delightful experience of having my own music stuck in my head.

I have truly enjoyed having a theme for July despite my waning participation toward the end here, and have thus been planning a much less time-intensive theme for August. Details to follow before long!