Keep a Record

One definition of suffering is doing the same thing over and over again, each time expecting different results. It's so easy to see this pattern in others: "Katherine, for God's sake, Barbie doesn't fit down in the drain (it's not a water slide)"; or the alcoholic who swears she will be able to control her drinking once she finds the right job. But I can be so blind to my own attempts at disguising self-destructive behavior in a web of lies and rationalizations.

That's why, when I'm in enough pain, I write everything down--so I can read for myself exactly how I felt after I had lunch with the person who likes to beat me up as a hobby, or after eight weeks of a Marlboro binge, or after two weeks on a Hershey-Starbucks diet. Maybe it's the journalist in me, but the case for breaking a certain addiction, or stopping a behavior contributing to depression, is much stronger once you can read the evidence provided from the past.