Skip to main content

What are your personal habits like?


Are you guilty of this particular charming habit?  Back before social distancing and working from home, the number of people I noticed daily who could not seem to keep their digits out of their nostrils in public was truly stomach churning.  When did everyone start behaving like ill-bred toddlers in a sandbox?


Um, men?  We can be the most handsome, most physically fit, best dressed, highly educated, and most accomplished raconteurs around.  But you know what?  We're only as pleasant as our personal habits.  The kind of things you do when you're alone, or when you think no one is watching.  Personal habits might include everything from the condition in which you leave the bathroom following a shave and shower -- or after, ahem, using the facilities -- to making sure dirty clothing makes it into the hamper immediately upon removal, to how you behave at the table during mealtimes, to the state of your entryway and living space, to. . .  Fill in the bank. 

The point is, it maters not what sort of job you have, how much money you earn, the size of your house, the sort of vehicle you drive, or how cool you think you are.  As my now wife The Grand Duchess once observed many years ago about relationships in general, when we began dating seriously and were talking very broadly about things not necessarily relating to us as a couple, it is the little things that count.  Personal habits are those little things.  They can make, or break connections and relationships.  Familial, romantic, professional, or otherwise.  

Let's be completely honest for a moment.  We cannot fault others for doing anything possible to avoid time in the company of an inconsiderate, gross slob either at home behind closed doors, or in public.  It's time to back away from the current societal obsession that somehow equates disgusting behaviors with authenticity.  No, no, no gentlemen!  As part of the ongoing program to kick our everyday style several rungs up the socio-evolutionary ladder, it might, instead, be high time to take a long hard look at ourselves in the mirror and pay greater attention to, smarten up, and polish those personal habits.  Undoubtedly, there are also other personal habits you'll want to do your level best to suppress.  For longer than just a few days.  The people around us will appreciate the effort. 

To borrow a page from Michael Caine's book, "Know what I mean?"

-- Heinz-Ulrich

Comments

  1. CharlottesvilleJuly 23, 2020 at 8:02 AM

    Amen, Heinz-Ulrich.

    “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”

    ― John Wooden

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

All opinions are welcome here. Even those that differ from mine. But let's keep it clean and civil, please.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

Popular Posts

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

    A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall.  I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation.  Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold.   Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario.  But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich
Post a Comment
Read more

The Power of Ideas. . .

  T he end is nigh!  The autumn semester/term approaches.  And while we still have almost two months of summer left according to the calendar, "Summer is over and gone," as the crickets sang in Charlotte's Web .  At least for those of us who head back to the classroom in less than a month.   In advance of a meeting with my program director late Monday morning, I spent about 40 minutes total during the weekend to jot down several ideas about planned workshops and related activities for the coming 2024-2025 academic year.  At an opportune moment, I mentioned "I have a few ideas," and opened my leather portfolio.   My director was highly receptive to almost everything I suggested, and we had a very productive planning session for just over 90 minutes.  Just about everything I sketched out on Sunday aligns with his own ideas.  It's nice when meetings go that well, and two related things occur to me in hindsight. One, it pays to exercise...
1 comment
Read more

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

  A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh.  Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan.  Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt.  Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode.   However, I was not completely useless yesterday!  I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch.  The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings,  took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific.  I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 19...
1 comment
Read more