At Tough Guy Book Club each month, we issue a challenge to all members. When one of our recent book’s characters had some seriously questionable habits, it made sense that our goons should be challenged to ask the question, “What, hard as it might be, should I quit or cut back on?”
What indeed?
Booze? Ciggies? The punt? An over-reliance on the vehicle? Gaming? Something else? Well, all the above and more. Bicycles were dusted off and mounted in favour of the car. Apps of mass distraction were deleted from devices. Cakes, biscuits and chocolate were nixed. Hot chips, sugar, salt and dairy all met the same fate. Bread was binned. Fast food fell foul. Coffee... split the jury; some goons said goodbye, others moved onto “easier” targets. But what constitutes “easier”?
Short answer one: it depends on the goon.
Short answer two: whatever choice was made, it wasn’t easy.
Existential contemplation led to shifts from yearning what could be to celebrating what is, and there were commitments to avoid negative self-talk, being insanely hard on ourselves and general self-loathing and complaining about that thing we don’t talk about. Cynicism was also renounced with a view to being more matter of fact, or even positive! Reflection allowed one goon to torpedo unnecessarily late nights that caused next-day lethargy, while another rued opportunities missed and quit saying no to things. Some goons stepped back, examined the ease with which we can embrace sedentism and took action to combat it. Others identified procrastination as the enemy and promptly fought back.
News media took a hit, with many citing it as a source of negativity. Podcasts and audiobooks stole too much time, so these were put aside to allow more music into our worlds. Food delivery services were foregone in order to eat more healthily and help small business profits stay where they belong. Doom scrolling was quit by more than one goon to varying levels of success. Shaving was given the old heave-ho in order to get some long-desired and majestic face carpet. One Irish goon even gave up potatoes!
At the end of the month, whatever was quit was quit and the results reported were overwhelmingly positive. It was interesting to see how much can be gained in our lives by removing just one thing. Moreover, the very sharing of our vices and the actions we took to rein them in created an incredibly healthy engagement in the #quitting challenge and the wider one behind it: how to be better humans.
