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Is changing all my bad habits wishful thinking?

By Huang Yuli (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-01-06 08:10

As I was walking toward my bus stop after work, a taxi passed right by me, then another. I put up my hand before the third turned up and got into it.

That's the way I've been behaving every day since it got cold. It also happened during the summer. And it's not only after work, but also many times in the morning at the bus stop outside my community.

I'd really like to take taxis less and save some money because it is not a short distance from my place to work. But each time the bus fails to come right away, I just start to look for excuses, like it's blowing strongly, or I'm carrying two heavy bags today, or I need to get home quickly.

You always find an excuse as long as you want to - it's never a hard thing.

I remember I heard about an "exceptional lady" from a driver when I still lived in another community. He takes passengers with his Jetta without a business license (illegally). Once, I took his car and he gossiped all the way about a young woman who had just started working and who earned only about 3,000 yuan a month but who spent a third of it on taking a "taxi" to work and back home. Strictly speaking, she takes his car, since it's cheaper than a formal taxi.

"I send her to work in the morning and pick her up after. Sometimes, she calls me to bring her lunch cooked by her mother at noon. She rents an apartment as well. I wonder whether she spends more than she earns," he said.

I still remember his contemptuous face, and I remember I scorned that life too. How come my life has turned out almost as bad as that pathetic lady?

I tried to keep count of my spending in October. It turned out that my salary had gone before the end of the month, and the rental had not yet been counted and I didn't find any expensive things on my purchase list.

A friend who earns about the same as me told me she saves 2,000 or even 3,000 yuan a month. I always find it too horrible to look at my bank account so normally I don't. Sorry for all the complaining if you find it too much, but that is my most important resolution for the New Year - to know something about finances or at least learn how to manage my own.

Another bad habit I seriously want to change is that I take too long to get going in the mornings and am always running late.

In fact, I've had the bad habit for the past 20 years and it seems to be getting worse.

There are many reasons. I don't like to stay up late but there may be an article that is not yet done and that has to be typed up in bed by midnight because it needs to be handed in the next day.

I may need to be at a drum class at 11 am but dragged too much time at home doing nothing and didn't leave until 11:20 am, had to take a taxi but still arrived at the class at 11:50 am with the class almost over.

I may have a serious amount of work that needs to be finished within two hours but spend the first hour browsing online-shopping websites and only begin to freak out when I'm in the second hour.

Well, bad habits can become part of one's character and that's too bad because you may not even realize you have them.

I know New Year's resolutions are, to some extent, a self-comfort. Many are soon forgotten in our busy daily lives. People always want to become a brand-new person and try to draw a line under their old self, but mostly we end up being still the same old person we were. It needs real determination to make the change.

But no matter how useless or endless it turns out, people still make New Year's resolutions every year. At least they are good, positive, hopeful wishes and, who knows, they might come true some day.