esrosedotblog

BELTED

I drove to the gym this morning and realized, almost a mile down the road, that I did not have my seat belt buckled.

A first!

I have been using seat belts before they required them. I had them installed in our 1964 Chevy station wagon. They bolted the belts in place. No rollers.

I am only writing about this because I don't like "missing" beats.

I don't think that I am coming down with dementia or anything.

What I do think is that habit is not as reliable as we think it is.

If you follow the routine of a habit, its prelude and the prelude before that, then it is reinforced. If you break the routine, it undermines the habit.

Here is what I think happened.

I got my gear into the car. It is shower day at the gym so that means put my shit in the back seat. A bag, the other stuff. Put the mail that is going to be dropped off into the front. This is not the "usual" routine.

I already wrote that the recycle day is today, one day late. I put the bin near the Jeep, not in its normal place, and I was worried about hitting it when I pulled out. Another sidetrack.

Well, there may have been something else too. John said that Booker's new tennis ball was somewhere in a crack in the back seat and I was looking for that.

So, a long, highly grooved habit of seat belt buckling is undermined.

So much for relying on habit to get you by.

Maybe it is dementia.

Labels: life