3, Are we prisoners of our habits?

We all had first-hand experience procrastinating and watching series, ending with binge-eating, spending
too much time on social media and doing not enough physical activities. Lots of people, without noticing it,
developed a habit of all these, in some cases, dreadful things and still are used to doing them. To my mind,
bad habits are simply a way of dealing with stress and boredom. They interrupt our life and prevent us from
accomplishing goals, they jeopardize our mental and physical health, make us weaken and waste our time
and energy. A person gets used to all these habits and thus often moves away from society, living in his
created world. Of course, all these things can be combined, but we should find a right pathway and
distribute all these things correctly in order to have time for really good habits that will strengthen our
physical and mental health. Many people have this feeling of awareness, that something is wrong in their
life, that this life pathway went in the wrong direction. People begin to analyze their life, looking for that
problem but sometimes, it’s all in vain, because they don’t notice how these habits are destroying their
lives.

But in more cases, the awareness and inspiration to change something come and person thinks how to
overcome these hard-wired habits and addictions. I found some methods how to kick these habits. The first
advice, which seems to be very helpful, is when you are looking for the first step to breaking bad habits, it’s
better to start with awareness. You can make yourself feel guilty or spend your time dreaming about how
you wish things were.

The second additional idea, which helped me a lot is to use the word ‘’but’’ to overcome negative self-talk..

For example:

I’m just sitting and watching TV, but it would be better to read an interesting book or to do homework,
instead of procrastinating, then I would be more intelligent, and have less tasks for the next days.

The third advice, which I consider to be the most effective is to join forces with somebody. For me, it was
too difficult to go to the gym alone and I decided to invite my best friend, and if, for example, if I lose the
desire to go to the gym, then she will return it to me and give motivation, strengthen me and the same
with her. In that way we can hold each other accountable and celebrate our victories together, due to the
knowing that someone else expects you to be better.
 1. universal basic income

Universal basic income is a proposed government-guaranteed payment, a social welfare that each citizen
receives. Its scheme is to ensure all people have the means to purchase necessities and improve their
quality of life. I try to find out a couple of for and against arguments.

I will begin with pros

1. BETTER WORKING CONDITIONS

◦ With a minimum guaranteed income, people will be free to challenge unfair working practices such as
zero hour contracts. The workplace would therefore be forced to reform with better conditions, including
more meaningful work and better pay. This would strengthen the position of ordinary people in relation to
corporations.

2. MORE TIME FOR YOURSELF

◦ People could reduce their working hours without sacrificing their income. They will develop the habit of
spending more time on other pursuits they find more meaningful such as a hobby, greater family time or
setting up a business. Fostering a greater entrepreneurial and creative spirit among citizens will improve
society and the economy. This will also lead to a reduction in stress and improve general mental health.

3. PROMOTES EQUALITY

◦ With the safety net provided by a UBI, many people would choose to work less. This would increase job
opportunities for those currently excluded from the labour market. It would also recognise the economic
contribution of unpaid labour, the majority of which is undertaken by women. Women would also benefit
from a better distribution of jobs as well as the greater time a UBI would allow for family. Crucially this may
lead to a more equal division of care within households. It would reduce inequality in general, eliminating
extreme financial poverty

cons

1. IT WEAKENS THE ECONOMY

Giving every person a smidge income would be prohibitively expensive. Governments would have to
borrow extensively which would create perpetual government debt. If implemented on a cross country
level a UBI would also lead to global inflation, making things more expensive for ordinary or
underprivileged people.

2. DISINCENTIVISES WORK

A basic income removes the need to work which would lead to some people not working and not adding
anything to society. This encourages roller coaster of emotions, laziness and other problematic behaviour
as well as undermines the value of work as a social institution. This would be especially true in lower
prestige professions where people would have no motivation to take these jobs, leading to either a
shortage of workers or inflated wages in these roles, which could increase prices for everyone and be bad
for the economy.

3. EMPLOYERS MAY PAY LOWER WAGES

With a universal safety net, employers would have no incentive to increase wages beyond what is
mandated by the government. This is likely to affect those in lower paying jobs more than the wealthiest,
thereby stunting the trend towards higher minimum wages that is happening across Europe.