A Note on Choice
This is a lot about font and a little about choice.
I wonder how many other Gen Z adults are hardwired to always have their typed content be Times New Roman 12 font. It is not really the kind of thing to come up in casual conversation. Like “Hi, I am Mariah. Do you also religiously check to make sure all your documents are in Times New Roman 12 font before you even begin to write?” I am not even sure if this is the kind of thing every person my age was taught in middle school. I was part of the generation that had those “modern” computers installed in my English classes. The ones that were two feet below you, under a sheet of thick plastic that was inscribed with initials and hearts and cool Ss from the students who had sat there before you. Luckily, I was part of the lab rat grade: the grade that was always the first to test out these computers, new curriculum, and in high school, the school issued iPads. The fake glass was never that scratched by the time I got to class.
Right now, I am typing this on my (kind of) HP EliteBook 640 14-inch G11 Notebook PC. Strangely enough, I have intentionally not changed the font setting to Times New Roman 12. I have kept it at the default Aptos (Body). I really can’t believe they changed the default Microsoft word font from Calibri to Aptos, but that is beside the point. The whole point is that in the small picture world of fonts, there is a big picture world of choice. I have had the freedom to choose on what font I use in my documents since 2019, when I got my high school diploma and was freed from the captivity of Times New Roman. A simple click on the drop-down arrow shows that I have over 100 options to choose from, and even more that I can download, create, or poach from the internet. So here I am, writing from the freedom of Aptos, the first time I am writing from a different font than Times New Roman in seven years.
Anyways, the connection to change is this: why is it so hard?
I haven’t researched change as much as I have thought about it. This might go hand-in-hand with my struggles to implement lasting change into my own life. I feel like as humans, one of our weaknesses is to notice a need for change and rarely move forward from that point. There is a common saying, “Noticing need for change is the first step of change.” I disagree with that. I don’t think that is a step at all. There is no action in that step. How often do we look at ourselves and notice something we want to be different, and then continue onward? Like my font dilemma, I always manually change from Aptos to Times New Roman and tell myself that maybe next time I will choose something more creative. Is that it? Is that the problem? Is laziness really the root of why we humans decide to continue with bad habits, associate with negative people, and pave a future we don’t care about? Even with these little things like fonts that only take a couple minutes to change, it seems like that is too much to be tasked with.
Not to get all research-based here, but we humans form our identity based on habits that we form, and that is just a fact (in lots of cases, but not all). Verplanken and Sui (2019) cover how habit correlates with identity. Specifically, the authors noted that from an early age, we learn how to do “the right thing.” Think about washing your hands after getting them dirty. You were taught to do that, over and over again, right? Now, as an adult, it feels wrong to not wash your hands after getting them dirty or using the bathroom. Habits don’t just create an invisible reflex, they cause an emotion when the action is, or isn’t, carried out the way it was taught to. These emotions are what shape us, our morals, and our identities.
Think about when you sometimes don’t wash your hands after getting them dirty; that moment of deliberation before leaving the bathroom. You feel a bit of guilt and disgust flit through your body before you submit to it and turn on the faucet. It just takes more energy to go against your habitual self than to submit to it. The consequential thoughts that follow you after making your decisions that are “against who you are as a person” cause much more angst than just doing the thing that you so want to do. Times New Roman doesn’t really have that much of a hold on me, but the energy it takes to change the font, be okay with it, and not worry about how “unprofessional” my choice is perceived does have a hold on me. According to Galla and Duckworth’s (2015) state that, “A strong motivation, anchored in self-identity, may instigate repeated action, which may then become a habit. Such habits may function as vehicles of self-control in accomplishing a goal: habits relieve an individual from having to deliberate and decide on actions and may thus promote the accomplishment of a goal.”
This is all to say that change is hard because what we do over and over again shapes our identity (in some ways), and all those articles and advice that is given by people on “how to completely change your life” revolves around changing habits and routines (routines is just another word for habits).
Am I, Mariah Last Name, going to use Times New Roman 12-point font for the rest of my life just because my English teacher in eighth grade said it was the most professional? Yeah, probably. It seems like the most moral and mature thing to do, and I am okay with this habit running my life and ultimately controlling my identity, as the empirical evidence shows.
References:
Verplanken, B., & Sui, J. (2019). Habit and identity: Behavioral, cognitive, affective, and motivational facets of an integrated self. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1504. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01504
Galla, B. M., & Duckworth, A. L. (2015). More than resisting temptation: Beneficial habits mediate the relationship between self-control and positive life outcomes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(3), 508–525. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000026
