All habits are hard work

We love saying that bad habits are easier to build than good ones. But I think that’s wrong.

Here’s what made me realize it: I saw a man rolling his own tobacco outside a filter coffee stand. Completely absorbed in his work. Fully focused. The world around him didn’t exist. He was practicing a craft.

And this wasn’t some lazy smoker just lighting up an off-the-shelf cigarette. This was a craftsman. He picked his own paper, his own special brand of tobacco that gives him that particular cancerous pleasure, and then he rolled his own cigarette—unlike all the other lazy smokers in the world.

Think about the work that came before this moment: learning to smoke in the first place, trying different cigarettes, experimenting with various tobaccos, eventually discovering that hand-rolled is what works for him. That’s a journey. That’s dedication. It’s almost devotional.

The same goes for alcoholics. You don’t just walk into a bar, start chugging, and become an alcoholic. Alcohol tastes like shit. It’s genuinely revolting. I’ve been alive for a quarter century and I still can’t get used to beer—even the thought of drinking it is worse than actually doing it, so I stick with other drinks.

For someone to become a true alcoholic, they have to find the right company that encourages drinking, get over the barrier of the terrible taste, keep at it despite that, explore different spirits and drinks, and then build the habit. But that’s just the beginning.

If you want to be a really competent alcoholic, you have to figure out what kind of drunk you want to be. A loud drunk? A violent drunk? An entertaining drunk? A blackout drunk who doesn’t remember anything the next day? And if you’re going to be a violent drunk, you have to perfect that craft too. How do you go about hitting people? How do you ensure you don’t get hit back? And when you inevitably do get hit back, what then? Where do you go? How do you react? What do you do when you get kicked out of the house? What kind of tree do you prefer sleeping under? What kind of lumbar support do you need on the hard ground, on the streets, on the floors?

Alcoholics don’t get credit for all the effort they put into perfecting the craft of being an alcoholic.

So here’s what I’m actually saying: building habits takes time and effort, period. Whether they’re good or bad. Maybe bad habits have a slight edge because they’re more fun, but I think even that’s a false dichotomy.

Take fitness. The stats show that going to the gym every day, like clockwork, for the rest of your life, is… I can’t even find the words for how hard it is. For most people, just the thought of spending an hour in the gym for years and years brings genuine anguish.

But I’ve been reasonably regular at the gym for years now, and it actually feels enjoyable. There’s an element of fun to it. It’s become routine. To quote Jerry Seinfeld: I picked the torture I can live with. What got me started? The fear of dying during COVID. That was motivation enough. The joy of being healthy, the rewards of being healthy—that kept me going. And even though it was torture, even though I hated it, even to this day I think the fear of death is what keeps me going. It doesn’t feel anguishing anymore. At some level, it’s enjoyable. It’s a habit—just like drinking alcohol is fun for some people, fitness is fun for me.

Or take murder. Imagine the work that goes into becoming a successful murderer. A knife doesn’t just go around stabbing people on its own. If you don’t learn how to plan a murder, if you don’t learn by doing how to get away with it, your dream of being a really good murderer dies fast. After one or two murders, you’ll get arrested and spend the rest of your life in jail.

But if you want to be a truly great serial killer—a mass murderer who inspires generations to come, who becomes a legend in the murder game—imagine the effort required. The 10,000 hours. The Malcolm Gladwell version of murder prep.

That’s the point: all habit formation takes work. Good or bad, you’re putting in the hours.