Today I did something I said I’d never do again, but an old habit got in the way of my new resolve. I picked up a packet… no… a box-full of hard-copy photos from the store. I’m embarrassed to say I now have 307 new prints to put into albums.

An old Chinese proverb says, “Habits are cobwebs at first, cables at last.” As the wildlife in our basement enjoys cob-webbing our 196 photo albums, I’m upstairs shackling myself with a cable wrapped around me 307 times. Now I have the undertaking of putting these prints in books I haven’t even bought yet. Worse yet, it’ll put us over the 200-album mark, a dubious honor.

What could possibly be the reason for such idiocy? I do have one. It’s the tiny but potent memory card inside my digital camera. Because I can delete any photo, I take pix with abandon, which is what brought me up against three maxed-out cards that needed clearing. The thought of losing even one good shot nagged me until I finally decided to make 4×6 copies to have and to hold… as is my habit.

My kids have pressed me to give up hard copies entirely, and I promised I would… next time. For now I can’t ignore the cry of my basement albums: “You’ve loved us for so long! Don’t stop now!”

Is photo hoarding a bad habit? Or is it a harmless pastime?

Are there any harmless bad habits?

My 307 pictures got me thinking. How many other bad habits do I have that haven’t been classified as such? What behaviors more serious than album-collecting ought to be stopped? Every bad habit has something tantalizing within it. We can’t lick it because we like it. It feeds us somehow, gratifies something, gives back in some way. If it didn’t, we’d walk away.

Experts tell us the best way to get rid of an undesirable habit is to substitute a desirable one. But since there’s already something desirable nestled within every bad habit, finding an even more desirable substitute can be problematic. It’s one of life’s big challenges.

If I could figure out how to conquer my album-addiction, maybe I could triumph over other bad habits, say, my love affair with sugar. How could there ever be anything more desirable than sugar? For now, I’m just trying to think of something better than stockpiling photos in the basement. After watching Louisa reorganize her computer pictures for several hours, keeping electronic  albums doesn’t have much appeal either.

After all, dusting the cobwebs off my basement albums could be done in three minutes flat. If I’m munching on candy while doing it, two.

”For as he thinks within himself, so he is.” (Proverbs 23:7a)

Praising and Praying with Mary

1. Thanks so much for continuing to pray about my feeding tube pain and the the appointment with a GI doctor.
2. I’m thankful the tube itself continues to feed me well.