Days Falling Into Habits #003

7월 29, 2025

Habits

What do you think about when you hear the word "habits"?

To me, habits represent our personal history. While many perspectives could be valid, I believe habits essentially embody the accumulated history of how we've lived our lives.

This is because habits are ultimately patterns that emerge from repeated behaviors that have solidified over time. I might unconsciously be repeating actions I performed as a child without even realizing it.

I used to deliberately try to distance myself from habits - during both my first and second startups. However, I eventually realized that as human beings, we simply cannot escape habits entirely.

Breaking Away from Habits and Establishing New Ideals

I have a confession to make: I'm deeply embedded in habits myself. I have been, and I will continue to be. Like the Ship of Theseus paradox, I'm essentially a collection of habits - these habits are what make me, me.

During my first startup, I intentionally avoided habits, guided only by quotes I'd read in books. Looking back, it seems naive, but at the time, I genuinely believed it was possible.

I consumed new information daily, and questions naturally followed: "Why can't people just abandon their habits? They just need to embrace new things."

While I now consider this a deeply flawed perspective, I truly believed it back then - probably because my vision was limited to what I could see at that moment.

When programming, I deliberately tried to use different frameworks, languages, and packages every time. I completely overlooked the fact that these actions themselves operated on the same underlying systems and massive foundational blocks.

After six months, I reached a new realization: "Oh, I was wrong. I've been living under habits too."

This dawned on me because through programming, I had developed languages that felt natural to use, and I had unknowingly become the very type of person I used to question.

One day, when some old documents caught my eye, I reviewed my past work and discovered something striking. Six months ago, five months ago, four months ago, three months ago - I had been using the same language throughout.

The saying "humans are creatures of forgetting" hit me profoundly. Reflecting on myself, I realized: I had been living while forgetting even my own thoughts.

From that day forward, I started keeping daily records. While human memory is finite, a single sheet of paper can preserve memories far longer than we can.

Days Falling Into Habits and a Small but Heavy Journey

After recognizing that I too had fallen into habits, I chose to simply accept them. This was because I had already developed familiar languages, and I realized that venturing into new territory meant abandoning safe zones for cold, frightening cave exploration.

Like a young child, when I knew little, I absorbed everything like a sponge. But now, it felt as if the blocks I'd already stacked were pushing away new ones (similar to Tetris, where you've stacked blocks poorly or left just one space, predetermining where the next block must go).

In other words, I understood why new challenges decrease as knowledge accumulates - because taking that path would be like abandoning your home to live independently.

So for a while, I lived within habits, believing it was the more comfortable and socially accepted path. I had essentially forced myself into a predetermined route and given up on stepping outside those boundaries (at least during that period).

Like a blindfolded traveler, I simply moved forward with my eyes closed to external novelty.

Then another realization came to me - triggered by a month-long solo trip to Japan, despite not speaking Japanese.

During the first week, I received help from many people: constant internet searches, financial and experiential support from my parents, pamphlets, and more. But after that first week, I discovered something profound.

Traveling alone across vast lands with complete freedom, without worrying about anyone's judgment. True freedom itself. While I might have been embarrassed doing this while traveling in Korea, I grabbed my gimbal and went out anyway, muttering to myself in front of the camera.

I started communicating through gestures and basic English without translation apps.

While my case involved breaking habits through a change of location, it allowed me to see a broader world and experience pure freedom - the joy of traveling exactly as I could, without being tied to anyone.

A New Beginning for the Journey

Returning from my trip with this newfound freedom, I established myself anew based on this fresh realization: neither completely blocking habits nor depending entirely on them is ideal - balance, like a scale, is most important.

I felt I had truly embodied the meaning of "excess is as bad as deficiency" and experienced a sense of refreshing clarity.

Now, I accept some habits while seeking out new experiences.

After all, my entire life is essentially one big habit, and changing these habits is what life is about.

Habits are habits, novelty is novelty. Even small things - implementing them differently than before, writing them down while gradually improving, and making that progress into my new habits - this has become my driving force.

For difficult and important matters, I rely on habits; for light, creative, idea-driven challenges requiring new approaches, I embrace creativity (novelty).

I hope that you, reading this now, will also find your own realizations. If you don't give up, they will eventually turn to look at you.

Writer

Mirseo | Developer & Philosopher

Exploring the intersection of technology and philosophy to understand our world.

GitHub: @mirseo | Blog: https://blog.mirseo.dev

Writer Text

Originally written by JunHyeok-Seo(Mirseo) in Korean, translated and adapted

Korean version available at mirseo.dev/biz.mirseo.dev

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