Little Necessary Habits

LITTLE NECESSARY HABITS

Do you have anything in your life you have to do regularly but absolutely never want to bother with? I don’t mean filing your taxes or getting a root canal. I mean small tasks that aren’t even difficult, but they must be done. And most often, you don’t want to do them. I call them little necessary habits, and my biggest (and most annoying) one revolves around hand lotion.

BABY ASHLEYNE’S HAND PROBLEM

Every winter, as far back as I can remember, I have had dry hands. I’m not talking, “Oh, my hands are a little dry after washing the dishes, where’s the Bath and Body Works lotion?” I’m talking cracked knuckles, bleeding thumbs, skin catching on soft fabrics. Every year when the temperature drops below 40 degrees, my hands start drying out like your aunt Edna’s fruitcake that you left on the counter last week.

And it happens shockingly fast. If I don’t do anything about my hands for two days, it’s distracting. I keep thinking about how dry my hands are, instead of, for instance, work emails. But if I don’t do anything about it for three days or more, it’s painful.

I learned this the hard way as a child. I’d come in from sledding or a trip into town, and take off my gloves to find my hands bleeding. My parents tried dozens of lotions, hand salves, and oils, but either they didn’t work, or I didn’t want to use them because they stung my cracked skin so badly. I remember crying as my father rubbed olive oil into my hands; it was a temporary solution, soothing the pain but not solving the problem.

FINALLY, A SOLUTION

And then, my mother found a specific hand cream. (Neutrogena hand lotion, in case you’re wondering. Those Norwegians understand cracked skin.) And it worked. It didn’t sting badly (only a little), and it actually healed my hands.

With one very annoying caveat: I had to use it every single day. Skipping a day meant flaky skin and cracks appearing. And skipping a few days meant bleeding again. So I developed a little necessary habit: keep this hand lotion in stock, and use it every night.

But, like most humans, anytime I have to do something, I develop a strong distaste for it. And sometimes I just plain forget it! It’s a constant push and pull, these little necessary habits that I have to do over and over to prevent negative consequences. And it’s just so dang annoying. Like matching your socks or washing chicken. Necessary. Dumb. 

Well, this past week, I didn’t have my hand lotion with me. And it was a harsh reminder of how necessary this little habit actually is. So I won’t be skipping days again anytime soon!

WHAT ARE YOUR LITTLE NECESSARY HABITS?

I don’t really have a conclusion here; I’m mostly just venting about having to put a specific kind of lotion on every night when I don’t want to. (Champagne problems? Absolutely.) But it made me wonder: what are your little necessary habits, and how do you keep yourself motivated to get them done?