Meaningful Returns

I have a vine problem, and vines are tricky. Some, like Boston Ivy (which, apparently, is not actually an ivy), are quite tame and even useful as a gardening aesthetic. You can guide it more or less as you choose, it’s aesthetically pleasing, and it isn’t poisonous. If you decide you want it gone, Boston Ivy is not particularly difficult to uproot or disentangle.

I’ve got a good bit of Boston Ivy in my yard, but it does not constitute my vine problem. No, I have an as yet unidentified vine that loves to choke trees with growths the size of my arm and uproot my yard with stubborn outshoots that hide just beneath the surface. It is unattractive, hardly tameable, fast-growing, and quite difficult to eradicate for any length of time.

Our lives are full of vines. We just call them habits.

Some, like Boston Ivy, can actually be very useful and necessary. These might include automating savings and charitable giving each month, good hygiene-related habits, safety habits, meditative habits, and a host of others.

But other habits, like the mystery vine which is the bane of my yard, can be very destructive. There are a number of spending habits that could fall into this category. Impulse buying, over-buying, under-buying, junk buying, and pretend buying (using credit card debt to finance an unaffordable lifestyle) are a few.

Sometimes we need to take drastic measures to rid ourselves of bad habits–the proverbial axe and chainsaw, if you will. But other times we can actually plant good habits that will help us control our bad ones without having to exercise our limited source of willpower and mental energy.

Do you have a vine problem? If so, what do you need to do about it?