I can stop any time
Here is a funny story credited to anonymity.
A mechanic was working under a car and some br ake f luid dr ippe d into his mouth. “Wow! That stuff isn’t too bad tasting,” he thought. The next day, he told his buddy about tasting the brake fluid. “It was pretty good, really. I think I’ll have a little more today.” His friend was a little concerned, but didn’t say anything.
The next day, “Hey, I drank a whole glass of brake fluid. Great stuff! I’m going to have more.” A few days later, he was up to a bottle a day.
“You know,” said his buddy, “that brake fluid is poison and really bad for you. You better cut out drinking that stuff.”
“Hey, no problem. It’s brake fluid. I can stop any time!” Duh!
Now let me talk to you about something else that is no longer funny.
Nobody wants to be hooked to drugs. Nobody wakes up in the morning and say, “Today I will work my way to becoming a drug addict.” Nobody has ever written in his or her slum book: “One day I will gamble away all of my family’s wealth.” And most smokers would say, “I can stop any time” but they do not because they cannot. They may feel they can but in reality they could not.
Why is this so? The reason is because many people mistake feelings for reason. They have not spent time to seriously think about important matters.
I have had people tell me they resigned from a job they wanted, leave their organizations simply because they felt they were not appreciated and after a few months realized that it was not a very wise decision to leave.
When people are governed by feelings and make decisions from it they usually make wrong decisions.
This does not mean that feelings are unimportant because they truly are. Feelings make us know we are alive. Imagine getting married and living the rest of your life with someone you do not feel anything for or about? That would have been a lifetime of drudgery.
Yet on the other side of the extreme there are those that rush from one event and adventure to another seeking and longing for exactly that, the “rush” that gives them an emotional high just to feel alive.
Addiction deadens feelings; so do sensuality and other vices. Habits take over and this is why we often times associate words like addiction and habits.
Le t me bring you to the workplace. There is a popular phrase we have learned even in our young age that goes this way: “When the cat is away, the mouse will play.”
When the boss is away, left unsupervised there are many who would while their time away. When people have gotten used to wasting away time, sneaking out of the workplace doing lunch outs, taking advantage of budget airfares and going out on vacation rather than doing diligent work; the negative effect here is obvious that the business they run would not grow and productivity would be low and slow. But that is the least of the problem.
The real problem lies in the fact that laziness and deceit will become a part of the personality make up such that when they wish to be productive, when they want to be diligent, when they seek to improve they could no longer. Because they cannot stop the habit of timidity and inefficiency such that they have imprisoned themselves to mediocrity and stagnancy and their career deterioration will be fast from then on.
This is an addiction that does not only deaden the sensitivities it surely deadens potential. They think they can stop doing this anytime but they could not.
You and I just have to remember this all the time. Habits are always more powerful than knowledge. So make sure you have healthy habits.
(Experience two inspiring days of leadership training with Francis Kong in his highly acclaimed and updated Level Up Leadership this March 15-16 at Makati Shangri-La Hotel. For registration or inquiries contact April at +63928 559 1798)