What’s Your Nail Polish?
Posted by Cap in Even More Ramblings on December 26, 2005 |I was visiting my friend one day, and while my buddy was away in the outhouse, I decided to poke around his room. Being the nosey bastard that I am, I immediately spotted the nail polisher on his desk.
When my dismay looking friend (caught me snooping) explained to me what the nail polisher was for, I was blown away by his ingenious idea.
My buddy, like me, has this bad habit of biting his nail; and apparently nail polishers are bitter tasting. So he applies the nail polisher, and whenever he begins biting his nail, he’ll be reminded not to by the bitter taste!
Wow! Simply amazing!
What? You’ve heard of this idea already?
Whatever, I’ve just patented this. I’m going to call it the “Nasty Bad Habit Removal Kit.”
Only $59.95.
…
What got me really thinking though, is the fact that unlike me, my friend is actually taking actions to do something about his bad habit. I’ve honestly never heard of this nail polish idea before, but it sounded like a pretty good one.
The thing about bad habits, and they can be all sorts of things - spending, eating, sleeping; is that they can generally be prevented or changed - if you make the effort to do so.
Habits are often unconscious patterns of behavior that are generally formed through frequent repetition. The key thing to breaking a bad habit, or the formation of one, is breaking that very chain of repetition.
I asked my buddy how well the nail polish is working out, and he was pretty straight up about it. There are times where he continues to bite his nail even though the taste is bitter, but the majority of the time, it’s stopping his habit.
This blog, in some sense, is the nail polish to my crazy spending habits. It’s not super effective, but like my friend’s nail polish, it works most of the time. I remember one instance where I didn’t buy the “Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy” DVD, simply because I reminded myself of my blog’s name (plus it was a mediocre movie).
Now to create a blog for every bad habit that I have… coming up next, www.StopSleepingLate.com
If only it was that easy.
The thing about correcting a bad habit, is that it takes time and effort; and like many things in life, the results you get are what you put into it.
Just a friendly reminder, ’s all.
6 Responses to “What’s Your Nail Polish?”
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December 27th, 2005 at 12:40 am
Good that he didn’t explain the nail polish was to repair the runs in his pantyhose ;)
Taking action to try and form a bad habit into a non habit or a good habit is an important step that a lot of people never even attempt. It does take time and effort, but the more you concentrate, the easier it becomes to avoid the habit. Thanks for the friendly reminder…
December 29th, 2005 at 5:08 pm
I’m trying to stop biting my nails. I bought a special nail polish that your friend might want to try, since the regular isn’t working perfectly for him (it sounds like he still occasionally bites his nails). It’s called “No Bite!” and you can find it with the rest of the nail stuff in drugstores. It costs as much as a regular bottle of nail polish, and tastes utterly awful–much, much worse than regular polish. It has a matte finish too, which would be especially good for men.
(The bad thing is that you find out just how often your hands end up in your mouth, even if you’re not biting your nails. Flossing and eating finger foods turn into ordeals.)
December 31st, 2005 at 5:41 am
nail polish does that too? or are you joking? haha, I seriously can’t tell.
but yeah, I suppose like everyone else.. I start to think more about my bad habits as the year ends.
hmmm no Bites eh? sounds interesting. actually I have the same bad habit too, so I might try that out. thanks!
I honestly didnt know this was a common fix for biting your nail till my friend told me.
matte finish sounds good, finger food hell doesn’t.
January 6th, 2006 at 9:26 am
I was linked to you site through ramit’s site (iwtytbr.com) and this post inclined me to download hitchikers guide. You should buy a spindle of DVD-Rs and just burn the movies you want to keep. This way you can stop buying crap! :)
January 6th, 2006 at 9:42 am
was the link from my comments left there?
I think the only reason why I enjoyed the movie was because I loved the books.
the extras in the DVD werent so bad though. I eventually just asked my friend to rent one for me, since he has a Netflix account.
DVD-Rs are still pretty expensive to me, at least the 16x ones anyway.
January 8th, 2006 at 10:57 pm
I enjoyed this post enough that I added it to the Carnival of Debt Reduction #17. I hope others find it as informative as I did. Thanks.