Random header image... Refresh for more!

Replace Instead of Resist

I used up one of my monthly free New York Times articles reading an extremely short piece about how replacement works better than resistance when it comes to breaking bad habits.  So whenever you get the urge to do your bad habit… let’s say… eat a handful of cookies (what? They’re small!), you do something else, such as get a glass of seltzer.

Except that puts you in the kitchen near the cookies.

Which is bad.

So instead I replace walking into the kitchen with walking around the block.  Instead of eating cookies, I’ve used up five minutes of my day (plus the two minutes it takes me to tie my shoes because I’m terrible at tying shoes) to take a walk.  Walking makes me thirsty so I swing by the kitchen for a cup of water and see the cookies… and the whole process starts all over again.

This isn’t really my point.  My point is that the New York Times made me waste one of my free articles on this advice.  It’s not clever.  It’s not earth-shattering.  By default, if you’re resisting any behaviour you are doing something else, which means you were already practicing replacement.  But now I’m out one article and no closer to resisting the handful of cookies.

Strangely, this piece of advice was in the money section.  I’m not sure how it relates to money because the author never related it to money.

New York Times, I want my one free article back.

7 comments

1 a { 04.18.18 at 8:21 am }

I hate when I waste my free articles on things that turn out to be obvious or otherwise non-edifying.

2 Charlotte { 04.18.18 at 8:22 am }

Lol. Your description totally reminded me of those “if you give a mouse a cookie” books, only the mouse is Melissa and the cookies, are, well, cookies!

3 Katherine { 04.18.18 at 9:36 am }

Well… speaking of cookies: You probably know this, but i’ll say it anyway. The NYT is not like The Times. It works with cookies, not signing in. So you can read 5 articles on each device. So you can still get more articles by reading on your phone or iPad, or something. Or, if you clear your browser history and delete your cookies, you can keep on resetting your counter ad infinitum. (I feel badly admitting that I do this — I feel like good journalism ought to get more support and more subscriptions these fake news days, and I’m not doing my part. I tell myself it’s because it’s tough times for my family, with zero income the past 10 months. But still…)
I’d feel more cheated for the time I spent reading silly advice… No time-erase/re-start function built into us!

4 Nicoleandmaggie { 04.19.18 at 12:49 pm }

This would be a good headline for the November elections though.

5 Cristy { 04.19.18 at 4:51 pm }

I want you to get your free article back too.

6 Lori Lavender Luz { 04.19.18 at 8:55 pm }

I have raised the bar for when I will click on a NYT article because too often I feel cheated, just like this. Your walking plan is better than the seltzer plan, so I will keep clicking on your links.

7 Not My Lines Yet { 04.22.18 at 2:58 pm }

Two words: Incognito mode.

Saves you from having to clear browser history, allows you to read whatever you would have liked, if the replacement theory hadn’t gotten in the way. Not that I’d know, or anything! 🙂

(c) 2006 Melissa S. Ford
The contents of this website are protected by applicable copyright laws. All rights are reserved by the author