To change habits, change the first small step
Don't pick up your phone
The light is growing brighter and we feel the need to get better habits. Virtues are habits (see: Aristotle) but not all habits are virtuous!
Motivational experts tell us to tackle big goals by changing small habits. Being good — having virtue — is the biggest goal of all, and of course it’s comprised of many small actions and thoughts all day; but we aren’t sure where to start.
Start with the first moments of waking.
May I suggest not taking your phone to bed?
a) it’s listening… to everything.
b) you simply will want to look at it, even if you use it for an alarm. Just get an analog alarm clock and leave the phone downstairs.*
Starting your day with thanking God for a new day, getting dressed, and making your bed, not to mention greeting your family members cheerfully — and not by looking at your phone — is a small step that helps us go along that path to where we actually want to be.
You can look at it a bit later!
*If you have teens out driving, or some other reason to want to be communicated with in the middle of the night, set your phone to grayscale and put it in focus mode.
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My book on how to live with the Liturgical Year: The Little Oratory
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As with everything here at the SFH, the best thing is for you to take my ideas, coming from my experience of 45 years of marriage and raising seven children, and apply them to your situation with discernment, prudence, and confidence — and a sense of humor!
I can’t stand how attached we are to these phones… I feel as though my generation (xennials) were the guinea pigs… they dumbed us down. But not anymore… there’s still time to take our lives back and set a better example for our children. My son (15yo and still without a phone) asked when he was 13… “Mama… what exactly do you do on your phone”. Nothing. Absolutely nothing important or worthy of the time lost while I’m on it. 💔
So true. This year I am trying to limit phone use, other than many podcasts, YouTube’s and Substacks where I get news, Bible in a Year and my favorite Happy Despite Them 🥰
One tactic Dr Andrew Huberman suggests is when you are tempted to pick up the phone or engage in any bad habit is to resist, mark this down and not succumb until you have resisted 25 times. It does teach that you can say no to the phone