April 17, 2025 ☼ notes

What we learn as children programs us in certain ways. These programs run subconsciously. They determine our default behaviors.

I have a set of default emotional reactions, conversational habits, daily routines, and behaviors.

Sometimes they’re tiny things, like where I store the strainers in the kitchen (under the sink). My sister and I can find anything in each other’s kitchens because we both default to the placement behaviors we learned in childhood. That’s cool, that’s efficient, I don’t have to think about things and I can just put stuff away.

Some default behaviors served me well in childhood but don’t work for helping me be the person I want to be as an adult.

For example, I tend to automatically, immediately agree with people in conversation — even if I don’t really agree with them. It’s a habit, a default conversational behavior that I learned long ago. It was called having good manners. It kept me out of trouble, so it was a useful behavior that got cemented in.

But it doesn’t work for me as an adult. It’s not that I want to be disagreeable, or generate conflict for no reason; it’s that I don’t want to voice agreement unless I mean it.

It takes a lot of work to change defaults. They’re ingrained. I have to pay attention.