The short answer:

Mostly force of habit.

The long answer:

Do you ever have moments when you overthink perfectly ordinary things? The other day I was going through my usual bedtime routine, and while I floss regularly, for some reason that day it seemed like an utterly absurd thing to do. There I was, taking a thin piece of string covered in wax and pushing it repeatedly into all the gaps between my teeth and gums. What could possibly possess me to do such a thing?

Of course, I know that flossing is part of a proper oral hygiene regimen, which is presumably why I started doing it. (I wasn’t just sitting around one day, thinking to myself, hmm, I haven’t put anything in the gaps between my teeth recently…) But it is not something that makes me feel better in any obvious way, and I certainly do not think about staving off gingivitis when I floss. I could only conclude that I floss because it’s something that I do. Granted, that just begs the question, but it was late, and I wasn’t begging for an answer.

Unfortunately, that left me thinking about whether there are other things that I do just because they are things that I do. As a result, I felt very self-conscious for a few days for no particular reason. But it did lead me to thinking about some of my more peculiar habits.

For instance, I avoid stepping on cracks in the sidewalk, but I’m not sure why. I am not at all superstitious; if anything, I am substitious, if such an adjective exists. I don’t even feel bad if I accidentally step on a crack. So why do I do this? It’s just something I do. Maybe it gives me something to concentrate on when I’m walking around. More likely, I just started doing it one day and felt like keeping it up. I’m sure I could stop if I really wanted to. (Then again, isn’t that what smokers say?) But it does me no harm, except that I tend to look down as I walk and my gait is sometimes uneven, so why should I stop?

Here’s another example: I eat lasagna layer by layer. First I scrape off the top layer of cheese and sauce, then I eat the next layer of noodle, then I scrape out the next layer of ricotta, and so on. I didn’t even realize this might be strange until I decided that the purpose of lasagna is to be able to eat different ingredients together rather than separately. Again, it really does me no harm, except that perhaps I look uncouth at dinner parties. But since I usually feel uncomfortable at such events anyway, I’m going to eat however I damn well please.

I could go on and on: I wear my watch with the face on the inside of my wrist. I try to spend bills in increasing order of how crisp they are. I crack my toe knuckles. I read Garfield every day. I overthink things.

I’d like to think that it isn’t worth thinking about such details. After all, if there’s no obvious harm from something, why should it matter why we started doing it? But I feel that such complacency cannot be a good thing. Without reminding ourselves of our reasons and objectives from time to time, even when dealing with trivial matters, we can convince ourselves to continue doing obsolete, nonsensical, or even harmful things without realizing it. And even if you don’t believe it can be as pernicious as all that, it is easy to get in a rut if the logic behind your habits always runs in circles.

So take some time to think about the things you do that you don’t usually think about. Maybe you’ll realize that some of your old habits are worth breaking once and for all. Just please don’t stop flossing on my account.

Cheers,
-qm