therealljidol. I am NOT signed up as a possible-to-be-voted-out contestant, but I want to practice with at least some of the LJ Idol topics.]Bad habit of my life: Too often swooping in at what turns out to be the end of something and asking if I can help. It was like a radar was engaged: About to end...closer to ending...they're done... "Hey, need a hand?"
Insidious, it is: it gives the illusion of helping, the reinforcing satisfaction of imagining you helped/had helped/could have helped, and the underlying uselessness because you didn't do anything. Imagined heavy lifting doesn't equal heavy lifting. And usually helping others ain't heavy lifting. (Being at the bar Friday night with Cort and Fatboy and fellow fans: an easy thing to do on top of being a good, needed thing to do. It helped. And the heaviest thing I lifted was 10 ounces of beer.)
It took a while for the realization that I was mining towards uselessness to bubble upward in my brain so that I could realize it was a bad habit. And that I was doing it.
And as this journal is an ongoing effort to keep me honest -- well, honest-er -- I need to cop to my bad habits. But at least it reinforces my efforts not to do said habits.
Somehow it's slightly appropriate, though, that I'm getting to this topic late. Had I been actually participating in
therealljidol, that might've knocked me out of the game. And let me get back to not doing anything.(Thanks for the reminder,
darkprism!)