At what point do you stop giving yourself grace and force yourself to take responsibility for the thing you’re not doing?
At the end of September, I went to the dentist. I don’t like the dentist. I’ve spent most of my adult life avoiding going. Now, like a proper grown-up, I’ve forced myself to go back. My new dentist is really nice. She doesn’t treat me like a child, and she doesn’t lecture me about irrelevant things. However, since I’ve not been very good at going, I do have some areas of decay she is concerned about. She has prescribed me some high-fluoride toothpaste and asked me to floss every day.
As someone with far too many teeth in a small mouth, I have known for years and years that I should floss. My teeth are so close together that it doesn’t take much for decay to become a serious problem and flossing prevents that from happening.
But I just hate having to do things in the evenings. I really hate it. The complete list of acceptable evening activities in my mind is: cooking, eating, watching TV, bathing, reading and sleeping. Those are, pretty much, the only things I can regularly get myself to do without extreme physical reluctance. I do not want to have to go out. I do not want to do any writing. I do not want to clean or do admin. This aversion to evening activities goes far enough that I don’t even want to take my contact lenses out, wash my face, clean my teeth or floss.
Being a somewhat functional adult, I do go out in the evenings. I also do write sometimes if I’m on a deadline. I do, of course, take my contact lenses out and clean my teeth. I do sometimes wash my face and, pre-October, I would floss…maybe once a week…or once every two.
Anyway, the point of all this is that my new, nice dentist threatened me with fillings if, by January, there is no improvement. She told me to use her special toothpaste and floss every day and, being a good student/frightened of fillings, I’m doing it. Literally every night. Even when I have accidentally stayed up until midnight and I’m really tired and I really, really don’t want to stand at the sink for another minute. Every night.
And, a couple of weeks ago, I ran out of floss. And I didn’t get the chance to buy any more for two days. And I discovered something odd. I still don’t want to floss. I’m still tired and want to go to bed with gross teeth and a filthy face. But, just before it was time to brush my teeth, I found myself looking forward to that super clean-teeth feeling flossing gives you. My mouth feels nicer now when I go to bed and, when I couldn’t floss, I missed it.
So, back to the original question: at what point do we stop giving ourselves grace and start forcing ourselves to just get on and do the thing we don’t want to do again and again until it’s a habit we miss when we stop?
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