Strip The Veil Of Habit (The Deadening Effects Of Habit)

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Do you want to know a secret?

The world is full of beautiful things but sadly we are missing out on them because of our habits.

About a month ago I went on vacation to a beautiful country called Iceland.

If you haven't been I'd highly recommend you go because they have the most spectacular natural wonders that would rival anywhere in the world.

The waterfalls there are almost innumerable and when you see them they'll take your breath away.

And because I was there for two weeks I probably saw 30 to 40 of them and like I said truly spectacular.

But I noticed something when I was there.

Some of the waterfalls were right next to the parking lot but many of them you had to go for a hike sometimes up to a half an hour to really see them up close.

Whether they were up close or a hike I would stop when I get there and really look at them.

Yes I take the pictures like everyone else but then I would just stay there often find in a quiet spot and just feel them,

Sense them,

Look at them,

Hear them.

And though they were similar to other waterfalls I'd seen because I'd seen so many on the trip each one of them had their own unique flavor and I really enjoyed and savored my experience of each one of them.

But what I noticed with the majority of the people is they would walk up to the waterfall,

Be in a hurry,

Not often smiling,

Just getting to their destination,

Turn their phone on,

Take a picture or have someone take a picture of them,

Smile.

And once the picture was taken they'd often go back to their curmudgeon self.

It was rather sad because shortly after that almost immediately they would leave and go back to the car or hike down the trail.

Almost no one stayed and just experienced the waterfall.

Once they got the best picture that they wanted they left.

I actually don't remember one time at any waterfall that I was at that when I got there the people that were there or the people that arrived with me at the same time were there when I left.

I remember a couple of times just wishing I could grab them and say,

Stay,

Look,

It's so beautiful.

I know you've seen it before but look at this one.

This one's unique.

This one is gorgeous.

Feel it.

Taste it.

Smell it.

Hear it.

Be with it.

I didn't but I thought about it.

As I started out this podcast I said the world is full of beautiful things.

It really is.

But so often after we've seen it once we stop seeing it.

Our habit says I've seen that.

I've done that.

I don't need to do that again.

As a clinical psychologist working in Southern California I have the opportunity of giving my clients assignments and one of my assignments that I like to give is go to the beach and watch the sunset and you'll be utterly shocked at how much pushback I can get from that very simple assignment.

Why do I need to do that?

I don't understand.

What's the point?

They really don't understand why I want them to watch sunset.

They've seen one before.

Why do they need to see one again?

The very sad thing about human behavior is that once we've seen something we stop seeing it for all the beauty that it holds and the key of life is seeing things with fresh eyes throughout our life and even until we take our last breath.

Throughout the course of human history there's been many wonderful people men and women alike who have taught this message to be careful to strip the veil of habit and to be careful of the deadening effects of our habits because when we don't remove the habit and we stop seeing things with fresh new eyes we start dying.

We stop living.

But perhaps one of the greatest teachers of this story that would encourage you to learn about and read is the Frenchman by the name of Marcel Proust.

He wrote a multi-volume novel that in many ways is considered perhaps the longest novel ever written by a single person but more importantly is considered by many to be the greatest novel ever written.

It can go by different titles because it's translated into English but the first time I read it many decades ago it was titled Remembrance of Things Past and more recently it goes by the name of In Search of Lost Time and if you decide to read it or take a look at it the first book Swan's Way is an excellent way to really get introduced to the marvelous ability that Proust has of seeing things without habit and that's really the premise of this tome this beautiful book is that he wants us to see primarily in the book through art but see the world without habits to see it fresh to see it new like we're a child seeing things for the first time and that's why he encouraged the arts because the artist will see nature and people and things in ways that we've not seen it before with fresh eyes from a different perspective so that the world remains fresh new vibrant and alive because that's the way the world is but when our habits kick in when we've seen something when we come home to our partner and we know him or her like I know this person what's the big deal I don't even care anymore but that's where we're missing out everything in life changes and if we see it through different eyes see it from different perspectives the world becomes this playground of beauty I remember when I was younger I went on this camping trip with some friends of mine and we were hiking up this stream and it was just gorgeous and I got on my belly and got really close to the water so I could see the water slowly overrunning the rocks and everyone wondered what I was doing I just wanted to see it from a different perspective I've kept that habit up throughout my life but I remember people thinking what are you doing you look a little odd there but I was seeing things from different perspectives and that's one of the keys to living a happy life it's not getting habituated to life but seeing it through new eyes if you do read swan's way or remembrance of things past you'll see that he's magnificent a true brilliant master at seeing the world through myopic very unique eyes the first 30 pages about a young boy going to bed you may think how could that be interesting read it it's brilliant it's beautiful there's another person that you probably heard of that also talked about this his name was Jesus and in the book of Matthew you'll find this it says Jesus called a little child and had him stand among them and he said I tell you the truth unless you change and become like a little child you will never enter the kingdom of heaven and I think what he might have been referring to here is not a kingdom in the afterlife like a lot of Christians teach I think he meant right here right now we will experience heaven here on earth if we see it through the eyes of a young child because young children don't have habits young children see things new and if we can hang on to that then all of a sudden there's heaven on earth I may be wrong but I like that message so how do we implement this into our lives how do we actually practice this well the first thing is to acknowledge that if we have a habit of seeing something we probably aren't really seeing it anymore if we think we know what a sparrow looks like we're not going to see that sparrow the next time we see it we're going to say oh I know what a sparrow is big deal so once we start labeling things and stop seeing things our world begins to die it's like we just miss out on all kinds of things and I talk about this so often on this podcast there are just so many beautiful things to be with there really are from art museums to music to nature to other people to books to literature it's endless the stream of ways that we can experience life for the first time Proust's point was through the arts we're able to see things through the artist's eyes and that will help us see it from a different perspective I think most people really like impressionist art I have a lot of replicas in my house that I love to look at over and over again and I don't know if you know this but one of the main ones Monet I'm sure everyone knows of Claude Monet well he did a painting of a sunset and it was so different than anything that ever been done before that actually an art critic was critical of the painting and called it just an impression of art but the name stuck and think of all the beautiful ways we can see the world through impressionistic eyes it's marvelous so that's what we're here to do to strip the veil of habit from our eyes and see the world around us with new eyes with fresh eyes we can do that by actually listening and observing the arts I think we can do that by just pausing just stopping and looking and saying have I seen this is there a way I can look at this you know from a different angle or just look at it like I've never seen it before and of course there are I mean just think of the artists from the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci to Pablo Picasso and the women that he would paint in his paintings they're distinctly different and yet they're both beautiful in their own right they're seeing women from different perspectives we can do that we can see so many things from different perspectives and art can help with that literature can help with that but pausing can also help with that remember my waterfall example when we're out and about we have to slow down we have to saunter through life I mean think about it watch little kids they're our teachers when they go somewhere they want to look they want to explore they're in no hurry we become in a hurry as we get older because we think we know everything because we think we've seen everything if we see things through the eyes of a young child we'll see things new we'll be explorers of our beautiful world and we can do that but we have to be very careful of the deadening effects of our habits because when we become habituated to something we stop seeing it in many ways it dies and slowly we die along with it so sometimes just making the effort of saying okay I'm going to this exhibition I'm going to stay here for 10 minutes or 15 minutes and not move until I have to I remember I was visiting a museum in Amsterdam the Rijksmuseum and I remember reading a story on one of the plaques how there was a beautiful painting I believe it was by Rembrandt and Vincent van Gogh went to visit that museum and when he saw that painting he just stood there and was mesmerized and he wouldn't leave that painting he just wanted to stare at it and look at it for a very long amount of time and what happened to van Gogh now there's another museum also in Amsterdam called the van Gogh museum because he saw things new and created masterpieces that we all get to enjoy now what makes a great artist is being able to see the world from a different perspective we can live a life that's also great by seeing our world from different perspectives by pausing slowing down and looking but not rushing through life and really trying to see things when we're out and about when we walk into a big building to work and someone drops off say an orchid that's there stop pause look at it see it we have opportunities to do this throughout the day we just have to make effort and time to stop to pause to look to feel to smell to listen we have so many different ways we can experience the world new and fresh but the most important thing is we have to remember if we don't do this then we're going to experience the deadening effects of our habits and not only will we stop seeing things our hearts will start dying let's not do that let's take the time let's make the effort to see to pause to experience life with new eyes with fresh eyes so that when we wake up in the morning we can say what is life going to bring today and when we put our head down at the end of the night we can say thank you for showing me all these beautiful things throughout the day this does take work this does take effort but this one thing can be a life changer and may we all begin the process of embellishing our lives enriching our lives and seeing our world a new a fresh and beautiful thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast until next time accept what is love what is