The Truth of the Naked Man
There was a giant naked man, in all his long-haired, sun-leathered skin glory, just walking down the street.
And by “walking,” I mean lumbering… in broad daylight… with all his bits out for the world to see…
And no one batted an eye.
We looked around incredulously. Is anybody else seeing this?
“Oh, that’s just so and so,” we were told. “That’s just what he does.”
Natalie and I giggled as we recounted one of our favorite travel stories, this one from Nicaragua, to our recent Uber driver.
“Bahahaha!” Our driver busted out laughing. “People can get used to all kinds of shit.”
He’s not wrong.
What Is Habituation?
As humans, we have a built-in mechanism called habituation that allows us to return to baseline when we get tipped away from it.
Think: your heart rate settling back to normal after a good cardio session or venture through a haunted house.
Think: the novelty of a new relationship wearing off as you settle in.
Think: the elation from crushing that goal fading over time or the punchline losing its punch the 4th time you hear the joke.
It’s a failsafe that ensures our hearts won’t combust if we go for a run (imagine what would happen if your body didn’t settle back down) and that we stay motivated (imagine how not-driven you’d be if you remained fully satisfied after that first goal).
Habituation is a brilliant design feature from Mother Nature, and learning how to harness it can be freeing.
Using Habituation to Your Advantage
When it comes to anxiety, habituation holds the key to growth.
Fear can be a fierce prison guard, keeping you locked inside your comfort zone. When you muster the courage to stretch out of it, to venture into the unknown or unfamiliar, you are going to feel anxious or uncomfortable. Full stop.
That discomfort, if you let it, will force you back inside. If, however, you can stand brave in the face of that anxiety, it will fade.
Like jumping into a cold swimming pool, if you can wait it out, your body will adjust, and the water won’t feel so cold anymore. It may take more time than you’d like, but you will get used to it.
This is where it really works in our favor. If we can be brave enough and patient enough, we can conquer fears and find ourselves back at our baseline… with a bigger comfort zone to boot.
On the other side of the spectrum, though, habituation can hinder happiness… if you go about pursuing it in the wrong way.
Many people conflate happiness with pleasure or the sense of joy that comes from getting what you want.
This experience, this variant of happiness, is fleeting, though, because we will, inevitably, habituate.
The happy wears off, leaving us to chase the next hit.
That is, unless you understand that happiness garnered from an external source will always result in habituation.
That kind of happiness cannot last.
I find this knowledge freeing as well. It means that I am not beholden to running on the hedonic treadmill and allows me, instead, to seek deeper, more lasting sources of joy, meaning, and satisfaction.
Armed with this knowledge, we can use habituation to our advantage to help us break free from the fears and misguided pursuits of happiness that actually hold us back.
An Untapped Source of Resilience
Humans are nothing if not adaptable, and this attribute holds the key to both our strength and our potential demise.
When you feel yourself scared of a scenario that Future You must face, whether that’s ending a relationship, grieving the death of a loved one, becoming a parent, moving, taking on that new role at work, or starting a new endeavor, you may find yourself quietly questioning, “Can I do it?”
Or perhaps it’s louder.
“I don’t think I can do it. It’s going to be so hard.”
Yes, dear friend, it might be. It might hurt. It might feel daunting. It might overwhelm your current capacity.
And then you will almost invariably adapt.
Trust that the habituation process will happen. You will be ok. You will rise to the challenge. Take the leap.
The Key to Our Demise
There’s a classic allegory about a frog slowly being boiled alive. The story goes that if you put a frog into boiling water, it will immediately jump out. If, however, you put it in cold water and gradually turn up the heat, the frog won’t notice the changes until it’s too late, thus getting boiled alive.
While this may be scientifically inaccurate, it illustrates a useful point.
Because we can get used to anything, it can be easy for us to end up in really bad circumstances, not realizing just how far off course we’ve drifted until it’s nearly too late.
I once worked in a job that seemed like a dream—good people, fun work, competitive compensation. I didn’t realize how the dynamics were slowly becoming toxic. It wasn’t until they reached a boiling point that I could look back and say, “Oh. I should’ve seen this coming.”
It wasn’t a switch being flipped. It was a gradual shift.
This happens when you let your health go. You don’t go to bed one day a fit, active body and wake up the next out of shape and unhealthy.
This happens as you take your partner for granted and the connection fizzles. Over the months or the years, you drift away from each other until you wake up next to a virtual stranger.
This happens as we become apathetic to societal shifts. Our initial outrage gives way to acceptance as we adjust to the new normal.
We habituate.
Just because we have gotten used to the way things are, desensitized to the horror or numb to the shock, does not mean that we should accept them (keep your thoughts and prayers, and come at me with a real solution to unnecessary gun violence in America, please).
We must take care that we do not let our adaptability turn into complacency.
Where Do We Go from Here?
Sometimes, we need to use habituation to our advantage to carve out bold, happy lives. Other times, we need to be aware that this innate design feature can make us vulnerable to being harmed or exploited or leading lackluster lives.
We, at our best, are resilient, adaptable beings who can thrive in most circumstances, who can find joy even in the hottest of hot water.
But just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
Instead, let’s move forward, eyes wide open, tuned into what’s happening, both inside and around us, and taking intentional action that moves us toward freedom and flourishing.
“A thousand things that had seemed unnatural and repulsive speedily became natural and ordinary to me. I suppose everything in existence takes its colour from the average hue of our surroundings.”
Are you ready to live a bolder, happier life?
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