February has ended, and the question is: how did I fate with a good intention over a month’s span?

It’s interesting how a good intention that feels very sensible and motivating can become a hassle, because you think you are still motivated to fulfill the good intention but in the end, the whole idea starts to feel hollow and pointless.

This is the point, where I start questioning my choice. But one thing was different to earlier choices to kill a habit or a good intention: I reflected on the sensibility of the good intention and the value it actually had and it has now:

It was a good intention with an aim to remain hands free until the end of the month.

It ended up in the insight, that a conviction to something that has lost sensibility is only kept up by hard willpower and discipline. Once the sensibility has gone, the conviction fades and it becomes a hollow shell without a value.

What remains may be echos or remnants. But it’s the shards of the whole that integrate into a normalized and sane way of dealing with a bad or toxic habit:

I use the phone much less, because it opened up new ways to interact with myself and my family. It gave me the insight that keeping up a conviction can end up in bad emotional states you need to compensate for otherwise. I had dug my teeth so deep into this good intention that I lost perspective for the benefits. It became a hassle.

The takeaway is that I don’t need to pile up more and more habits to be emotionally balanced. I need a good way in the middle, and I need to be mindful of the traps and pits on the way. I need to have the aims in my sight, but I don’t need to force a pace. This is what “take one step at a time” means. After a step, reevaluate, reflect and make sane decisions. This means normalizing my sobriety without doubting my decisions if I lay off certain habits. This, in turn, is one meaning of “keep up the faith in yourself” (Although this is only one meaning). And, the important thing is the aim, and that is seeing where I am headed without Pink Clouds, False Happiness Rainbows or stormy depressing tempests obstruct my view. That, then, is the clear horizon.

And, mind you, the horizon is nothing you can really reach. That means, then, that the way is the aim.

Until next time, keep up the faith in yourself and take one step at a time.