My excuse for why I have not written anything to share

I am evidently very bad at keeping to my planned writing schedule. It is almost May and I have produced approximately zero short stories ._. 

I have been writing more poetry in the last few months though, although none of it is I think particularly good. Most of the stuff I have written is not even in a shareable state yet. Ironically I have been finding that the more 'serious' writing I have been trying to do, the more I have been trying to cut down unnecessary words, and also I realized that my attention span is not long enough to create any kind of 'plot' or 'conflict' or 'character development' -- I am mostly just interested in fun sentences and thoughts and fleeting ideas and emotions, and this is how my attempt to write a short story devolved (evolved?) into an attempt to write a poem.

But then once one starts to write a poem, one finds that there are other things that seemingly start to matter, like ensuring that every word is the correct word, or trying to see if there is anything particularly clever that can be done to hint at a different reading, or allude to some symbolic metaphor, which ultimately takes us down into some completely-unrelated-to-what-we-were-originally-communicating rabbit hole.

I have this bad habit where I start analyzing the poem I am writing as if I were reading it. This is bad because I then get too excited about the possible ways of reading the poem, and get lost in the sauce of where I want to go in terms of writing it. Then I get a bit sad because I am pretty sure nobody except me would end up getting what I 'read' out of my own poem, but also realize that it probably didn't matter anyway because I'm basically just circle-jerking ideas in my own head that have no real world impact.

And then (unlike when writing a blog post or other long prose), when there are so few words on the screen, I find myself reading and re-reading and editing as I go, because some phrase doesn't quite feel right rhythmically, or some word doesn't quite fit in aurally, in terms of the 'sound' of the word, in its assonant or rhyming qualities. But then once one thing changes, the rest of the structure is also subject to that change, so it becomes a challenge to 'fold everything in on its neighbor' (like when you try to fold in all the edges of a box lid such that each side is stacked on top of the side next to it, such as in an Escher staircase). Somehow cardboard feels more flexible than lines in poems.

I also have never been particularly interested in writing rhyming poems. I think it has always just read very whimsical / delightful to me and a little too 'perfect' in its structure. Now that I write down my thoughts about this, I think it is similar in spirit to my feelings toward Mozart. I'm not a classical music expert, but my uninformed opinion is that Mozart pieces tend to sound very structured and formulaic, and not as interesting as other composers. I have no idea if this is actually true from from a music theory point of view, this is only my impression from listening to his composition. 

So this leaves me with:

1. a desire to write poem(s)
2. that use language elements to be interesting and convey layers of meaning
3. where the layers of meaning complement but do not overshadow the main theme of the poem
4. and where the elements used to make the poem more technically interesting are not too formulaic or structured

I'm also a bit of an imposter because I don't actually read a lot of poetry, and that should probably change if I were to start (attempting) writing poetry, so please let me know if there are any particular poems or poets you enjoy that I should read. I recently bought a copy of Ariel (Sylvia Plath) and am enjoying it.

Another fun exercise I thought about that my language skills are not good enough to do would be to write poetry in Chinese, where the meaning or radical breakdowns of the written characters would also add a layer of meaning to the poem. I had this idea to write a poem where if you read it to a listener, it would mean one thing (the most obvious phonetic reading), but then when you read the actual characters, it means something completely different (probably some structural line breaks or weird words would be used for their meaning only). Bonus points for if the two meanings are related to some common theme. Unfortunately my Chinese is not good enough to do something like this but I think it would be a cool poem :)

Ok uh anyway I think that's it for now, a short update on why you haven't read anything I have written in the last four months. Will anything get shared anytime soon? Stay tuned! Who knows! I didn't set out to make this blog post today but I was just so happy to finally be faced with a low-plan weekend at home that I decided to take some time to spill some thoughts onto the internet. Does this whole post even make any sense? I don't know! I'm not about to read this many words and edit it though, it's no poem, yolo and publish leggu

Aiden

I accidentally dreamed of Aiden
grey eyes, famed smile
refined wraith-like fire at daybreak

Should I feel shame
for inventing Aiden?

See him only as a trained lion
An Adonis, graced by finery,
A lie laced over
simple self deception?


Outside, a couple strolls
salty broth licking their toes
breaking over dead anemones
ignorant attention only tracing the stars


Would it be so bad

to fall for Aiden?

Man can be equally
bright
and vacant

it is 2023

Somehow, it's already January 1st 2023, and I didn't find time yet to reflect on last year and to prepare for what I want to focus on this year. Running up against time is a theme that I've started to notice more and more recently, and it's especially discouraging in the way it spawns off a mini existentialist crisis, forcing me to paradoxically think more about the future alongside an undercurrent of the nagging feeling that I should be focusing on enjoying the present moment -- a disgustingly human experience.

I did start taking some notes on the plane on my way back from New York after Christmas, so in no particular order, here's a random list of things I want to work on:

• making my own clothing / getting better at sewing
• get through an online music course I paid for and started last year
• draw more [in public] and get over my fear / anxiety over other people watching what I'm working on
• figure out my psychological issues with having kids
• keep climbing and getting stronger
• improve hip flexibility, get into a habit of stretching daily after waking up
• take a gun safety course
• learn how to drive stick (properly ._. third time's the charm?)
• more creative writing. trying to put a bar at 6 pieces this year (one per 2 months), figure it's reasonable enough to try to hit
• maybe also more writing in general, like my random real life thoughts/learnings from hobbies and projects
• I also have this desire to clean up my digital life and organize stuff better (like personal files / photos / website etc. wise) but tbh I don't think I actually have the energy to enjoy the process of doing this, I just kinda want it to be done, so I'm not sure if this will go anywhere.

I also had a section on reflections for 2022, but tbh it was mostly about work and I hadn't started writing anything about any other part of my life, but I also don't really feel like dwelling a lot on it now and I can't even really think of anything in particular to point out, other than I still miss Cheddar. 

sunrise at joshua tree national park on december 31 2022

I spent the last few days camping and sitting out in nature and it was quite nice. Like a lot of people who have probably only read the opening two pages of Walden, I used to romanticize going to the woods to live deliberately, then regressed against that popular thought for a while because I realized I wouldn't actually enjoy living in solitude in the woods for two years like Thoreau did (a very literal interpretation I suppose), to now -- I think -- appreciating it more again since I was able to do it with some people I enjoy spending time with, but also knowing that it was not at all the full solo experience. 

Still, there are some interesting learnings that arose while I was "in the woods" (though technically speaking, we were in the desert). I noticed it is a place where I felt simultaneously the most detached and attached to my day to day life; detached in that the physical routine was very much atypical, but attached in that while in a state that is so stripped back, what does remain of the routine, my thoughts, attention, and even expressed personality felt very closely tied to who I am and what I care about. I felt I was able to feel my closeness to those 'core' things for the first time in a while. It made me want to examine what it was exactly that captured my attention in a foreign context that made them so important to me, when in my day-to-day they do not feel very significant at all and mostly fade into the background. I would like to spend more time in stripped back states like this to think about it some more, and I understand now why some more solo time might be good for that.

some noise, or the stars

self-directed therapy or something, re: categorizing identity; self 'marketing'

(It's somewhat ironic that I decided to write this up in the Blogspot composer, after just now setting up a Substack account. Old habits are hard to beat I guess, it's possible that I've been fully conditioned at this point to only be able to have a semi-congruent flow of thoughts in this interface).

Anyway, something I've been thinking about over the last few years is the recently popularized concept of a 'personal brand' and especially how to portray and categorize the various facets of one's interests over the internet.

As the footprint of my various 'content' has grown through the years, I haven't been particularly mindful of the various crumbs I've left of my old internet accounts, whether it be digital art, writing, forum posts, and so on, across the web. This is probably something that is beginning to affect a lot of people my age, as the internet has aged and there are a surprising number of 'old school' sites that have proved rather longevous (I say 'my age' because my hypothesis is that people in this group grew up with an internet that was not as mature or curated, and may have been more likely to have been part of a range of various discrete web communities -- as opposed to those who are a bit younger, who perhaps grew up with dominant social networks where almost everyone left some sort of trace or presented some version of a whole 'authentic self' in one account). I know the former to at least be anecdotally true, because I have done my fair share of internet stalking where finding out someone's internet alias and googling it has revealed a slew of other accounts and posts under a huge range of various websites (...I also have a significant cringe feeling associated with the nightmarish thought of some past forgotten account being able to be tied to me in the present if someone were to look hard enough).

I've been thinking about this more as 'content creation' and the concept of the Micro Influencer has turned into an Actually Viable Way To Make Money in the last few years. There is a lot of conventional wisdom in the Industry now that suggests curating content in a way that 'makes sense' to some specific, niche audience: to curate a certain type of Instagram Feed, write a certain form of Twitter thread or, indeed, select topics for a Substack newsletter. What's more is that usually, there is an expectation that the creator present themselves as their true identity; it's not uncommon for niche Influencers to eventually transition into generic lifestyle content or start alternative channels for their other hobbies. It's not always clear how much of this is to lean back into the presentation of a more Authentic Self, versus expanding a business to capture another audience though -- it's probably usually some mixture of both.

I see this as a version of what we saw a few years ago as more established professionals expanded their internet presence for career purposes and were being coached on how to develop a 'personal brand'. This has always felt somewhat contrived to me, as I've seen that Americans especially tend to want to present the same version of the Self in all parts of their lives, and one's Authentic Self is likely too nuanced and complex to be able to be presented in a neat Personal Brand 'package' on some minimalist interface for someone to skim over in 0.3s on some splash page or social media bio, so like... how?

I am neither very organized nor very interested in becoming an Influencer, and certainly not good at drawing such boundaries between different parts of my life. I tend to hop from one interest to he next quite quickly, making my Instagram feed not very aesthetic in its holistic view (shock horror). This would normally not be a problem, except that I've been finding that as people around me consume more micro-influencer content, the more they are used to the pattern, and the more confusing it can be to look at a blog or a feed or, even at a higher level, internet footprint like mine. The impact has been that I've progressively shied away more from the internet as a form of self expression or even just sharing about my life, because I don't feel I'm able to present it in a way that 'makes sense' to the viewer. I even have more than one Instagram account for different content, because I didn't want to spam my 'normal friends' with lots of content around some niche hobby I was getting into.

On the topic of writing, a question that I've struggled with for as long as I've been putting words on the internet, is "do I want someone to read this? If so, whom, and how can I isolate that audience? And if not, why am I even publishing it on the internet?"

As I was writing this out, I realized a couple things about how I think about the answer to this. Firstly, the recognition that there are several distinct types of writing that I've published on the internet over the years: (1) research based articles or knowledge sharing,
(2) creative writing, and
(3) random streams of consciousness and personal thoughts

For (1), since this is the most obvious type of content that I'd want people to read, I will try the most hard to find some audience for these sorts of writing, historically by publishing on a Serious Platform (like Medium) and sharing over something like Twitter. I'll also go through quite a lot of editing, which I don't do for the vast majority of things I post on these blogs like (2) and (3). 

For (2), I just write creatively for fun, but sometimes it actually turns out kind of cool and I'm actually pretty happy with it and feel at least lukewarm about sharing (even with people I know), but still feel kind of sheepish about it. I guess sharing creative writing is kind of like sharing art though, which is always kind of nerve wracking. But part of is it that I also feel way less experienced in creative writing than visual art, to the point where I'm mostly not sure if what I wrote and liked is actually Good or not, so I don't feel as comfortable sharing I guess? Also, when juxtaposed with (1), I feel that consumption of creative writing is more up to personal taste and 'leisure' / 'enjoyment', and I feel much worse about taking up someone's leisure time with something they won't enjoy, compared to simply delivering information (although I know that in recent years, presentation of information can also be polarizing... however I feel that seeking the truth through data is a much less controversial positive use of time than consuming potentially bad art, so I suppose I've projected that belief onto how I think others should use their time too).

For (3), if I'm honest, a lot of the time, I do want someone to read it (though honestly I can't really explain why), but I want that someone to be a stranger in my real life. Maybe it's some part of my personal anxieties, like I don't want people close to me to know so much about what goes in my weird head because I'm afraid they'll judge me, or because I want them to find out about that weird part of me through direct personal interactions and a built relationship, so that they don't end up knowing way more about me than I know about them. 

I also write and publish online because I know I'll read it sometime in the future, and this was the laziest form of cloud based storage that existed back when I started (I will probably be quite sad if Blogspot ever disappears). Certainly, there have been writings I've posted on self-hosted blogs that have disappeared into the ether that I regret a little (my chocolate croissant reviews -- probably lost forever???).

But also, outside of all of this, I haven't felt that there is a comfortable way to present 'all parts of myself' on some internet platform 'authentically'. There's a reason I post (1) type articles not on my blog but in some other More Serious Spaces. Although, I suppose this is probably just a problem with Life On Earth too, and the fact that the internet is so public and feels so permanent exacerbates certain insecurities I have, especially now that everything on the internet feels like it's so closely tied to our Real Identities. Maybe I just miss the times where I could log on as RandomUsername23418 to some niche forum and just partake in conversation about niche thing without having to explain it to anyone in my real life. Nowadays in my real life people know I use Reddit and ask about what subreddits I like.

So that's all just to say, if I were to post this onto Substack, which I had originally intended to do since I wanted to play around with the platform, it would probably be 'good' to do another pass of it and edit it a bit to make it more congruous and make it actually make more sense than a random stream of consciousness at least*, but also, I don't think I care enough right now / am too lazy / I don't think anyone will read it anyway so... YOLO?

*also I think I actually have some more thoughts about this topic (probably like... quarter baked, unlike this half baked stream of consciousness), but maybe I'll save it for another time when I feel randomly inspired to write again

The Fifth

May melted,

refroze,

and melted again;

a feverish freezer burn whiplash

a month of paradox

going places to go no where

doing nothing yet things happening

cold to hot to cold to hot

from sitting still in the sky for days

no maypole celebrations here

only blood

red maple leaves falling

red stripes sliding

halfway down

tears to be erased by alcohol wipes

smell of sanitizer in the news;

they are trying to make things look positive

but early blooms cut short are an omen

pollen scattered instead of rain

the only thing I could breathe

other than winter sand, chalk,

and dust from my unfinished bathroom

On June fifth I am still

positive

Some distinct Cheddar thoughts I wrote to cope

I had never been 100% sure about adopting a dog. Despite my frequent browsing of rescue websites and gushing over other people's cute pets at coffee shops, when it came down to thinking about how a dog would fit into my own life, there had always been some reservations. How much less freedom would I have to travel? How much earlier would I have to wake up to fit morning walks into my schedule? How would I deal with unpleasant necessities like picking up poop off the sidewalk, dust and dirt in the house, or training accidents?

Even after actually adopting a dog at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, part of me didn't realize it had become real. Sitting in the meet-and-greet room at Family Dog Rescue, looking at his furry face smiling nervously up at me, I felt a little outside of my own body as we signed the papers. 

But here I am, two years later, eyes red from tears at the prospect of saying goodbye to Cheddar. It is the saddest thing I've had to do in my life. 

It's not like we didn't know it was coming. If anything, our relationship with Cheddar has always been colored by the looming inevitability of death in the background, almost from the very beginning. There was a period in the first few weeks where Alex and I did not simply have the puppy blues, but legitimately were thinking about giving Cheddar back to the shelter because we didn't want to become hospice care for our first dog. The shelter owner even told us that they would understand if we wanted to return him, since a dog with cancer is a lot to handle for first time dog parents. Yet somehow, he stayed in our lives. 

---

Cheddar is a dog of routine and never much enjoyed surprises. Even when we tried to do something nice for him, like bring him over to Christmas dinner, or take him on a road trip with us, or take him out to dinner where he sat underneath us on the patio, you would get the sense that he might prefer to just be at home. Sometimes you'd even feel a bit bad for trying to do something special for him.

When we'd try to make him a special dinner or a special treat, he'd chomp it down greedily and then look at you with a Very Serious Face. As if trying to suss out whether there was more to be had, and how he could get it -- there was never any happy appreciation. And then worst of all, you'd both slightly regret it several hours later when he was grumbling because his digestive tract was unhappy.

Cheddar was a street dog for a while before he got rescued. You could tell because he was never snobby about food. People are always amazed when we tell them he eats anything: salad, broccoli, bitter melon, kimchi... the only things we figured out that he wasn't really a fan of was citrus, basil, and coffee. In the beginning, he was particularly extremely interested in whatever scraps of food we came across on the street (it took a while for us to teach him 'no', and it got a little better after that). Once, he desperately bit a bucket that had a hamburger bun in it when the bun itself was definitely out of reach. He made us work on our food-spotting and kicking-food-away reflexes, but more importantly, he made us laugh a lot.

He'd look pathetically at you when you tried to get him interested in any toy that wasn't food-related in some way. Like, "what am I supposed to do with this?". It took me about four months to teach him to pick up a tennis ball and bring it to me. And then, he'd only do it about half the time when he knew I had treats. He would also sassily make a "bleh" face after dropping the tennis ball, as if to say, "this thing doesn't belong in my mouth. it's seriously not edible."

He wasn't very interested in the other dogs at the park, although every now and then there would be a new dog that piqued his interest. The other dogs seemed to sense that he wasn't really down to play and that he was pretty easygoing too, most of them tended to ignore this old man, and others tried to assert dominance and hump him. Cheddar would sit down acceptingly and let them do their thing.

Cheddar much preferred instead to stay near the humans; that's where the pets and treats came from. Once, he was sitting too close to another dog while they were both begging for treats, and the other dog snapped at him. Cheddar got a bit scared to beg for treats after that for a few days, but he was back at it soon enough.

He would get zoomies after having a bath. While being washed, he'd look meek, small -- the water pushed his puffy coat down on his frame, and he'd look at you with his wide eyes and mouth small, like he was holding in all his feelings. But afterwards, he'd sprint up and down the hallway, the fastest he could run -- he'd then sploot down on the rugs on either end and aggressively rub himself into the ground. He seemed happy doing this.

He grumbled when he was displeased, like an old man huffing with slight discontent. Like when you made him do a trick, and then he did it, and then realized you didn't have any treats.

When he was actually impatient, like when a chicken had been roasting in the oven for an hour, he'd sit himself right by the door, whining and chomping the air, to let us know exactly what he was after. He would be in a chicken craze all night after that, and the more we gave him, the more worked up he'd get.

Cheddar always gave everything a go. Even when he was scared of stairs, he'd try to climb them if we asked him to. 

Cheddar was good at being constant too. He was there on the red day of September 2020. He was there when we got married over video call with city hall. He was always there by your side, even when it was annoying. He just wanted to be close to you, which is quite a virtue too.

---

The guilt and absurdities associated with having a terminally ill pet include little thoughts like: 

When should I order new pills? If the vet prescribed only five refills for these painkillers, does that mean she expects Cheddar will die by the time the final refill is consumed? From extrapolating the number of pills we're feeing him per day, that means the vet's expected prognosis is <xyz> weeks...

We can plan a trip <X> months away; I suppose Cheddar will not be around by then.

Will we have to buy another bag of dog food, or will he be gone before he finishes this one? 

(every time I leave the house to do something) Should I be staying home instead to spend more time with Cheddar before he dies?

I guess there is no point taking him in for another regular exam / taking him in for vaccine renewal / giving him the anti parasite meds this month since he can barely walk / doesn't meet other dogs /  whatever new might be wrong with him probably won't kill him faster than the cancer will...

(Walking past) He is lying very still... Better make sure he is still breathing. (stands around to observe his chest for a while longer) .. ok, he is still alive.

Is this the last time <a somewhat regular visitor> is going to see Cheddar?

Is this the last time Cheddar is going to be at <a somewhat regular spot>?

(every time a part of his body clicks when we are moving him) Oh no did I break something?

This is the last Wednesday Cheddar will experience.

---

Cheddar crossed the rainbow bridge peacefully at home today. We went on some long walks, took some photos, and hung out in the sun at some of his favorite spots over the last couple days. He has been having some rough nights; he must have been battling with a lot of pain and anxiety due to his body not doing what he wanted anymore... Letting him go felt like the right thing to do, although it is the most painful thing I have had to do in my life.

The house is so quiet without him, although it is still littered with all of his things. I am so grateful that he made his way into our lives and we were able to spend the last two years with him. What have I learned from living with Cheddar?

Things just happen in life, and it's really up to you how you deal with them. 

Appreciate the little things, enjoy the goings on in the neighborhood.

Always greet others with a positive attitude.

People like to see that you're trying hard and making an effort, even if you're not much good at what you're trying to do.

Ask for what you want or need, or try your darnedest to get it yourself.

Living with Cheddar made my heart bigger. 

Personality as habits over time

Something I've been thinking about recently is the relationship between personality and habits, and if there's anything to be leveraged there for personal growth. Recently, I've been seeing discourse around twin studies around personality heritability (2018 example, 2020 example) make the rounds on Twitter, where the takeaway is basically that personality (as measured by the big 5 traits methodology -- where the traits are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) is relatively stable over time (part of their definition?), and that it is surprisingly heritable by genetics (identical twins share about 50% of tested personality traits, compared to fraternal twins sharing only 20%). 

Now, as a personality test junkie in my youth, I've taken my fair share of these types of personality quizzes, and although the tests themselves are probably not scientifically vetted, I think there definitely has been some level of variance through the years as I retook the same quizzes. Part of it may have been to do with transient background experiences around the time of test taking (for instance, I attribute the elevated neuroticism trait number on a test I took partway through college to homework stress and lack of sleep), but I also wonder about longer term 'permanent' changes. Even if it is true that personality is highly heritable, the fact that only 50% of traits are apparently genetically determined (if we are to extrapolate the identical twins studies) leaves a lot of room for environmental factors. The other 50% of non-genetic trait swing could (fudging the scientific method a bit) arguably be enough to turn someone from being described as basically an introvert into basically an extravert. At that point, what even does 'semi stable personality trait' refer to?

Another thing I've been thinking about recently which I am bringing into this thought exercise is the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. I confess I have not actually read it cover to cover, but it is referenced so often in tech industry and self help / personal growth circles that I feel I basically know the gist of the ideas. From my understanding, the methods described in the book are pretty good at getting new habits started, but my interest in this in this particular discussion is not so much adopting a new habit of, say, flossing every night before bed (which by the way, I highly recommend everyone do), but rather whether it is possible to train yourself using some of the methods that this book describes to change one's personality, or (I suppose depending on your definition of 'personality') express different parts of it more often?

To illustrate what I mean more concretely, I will use an example where I think this could be applied. I recall an incident with my mom when I was visiting home, once, and she completely lost her temper at my grandmother due to some small thing that she had done. During that trip, I observed that it was very easy for my mother to lose her temper this way, getting worked up sometimes to the point of almost hyperventilation due to the small stressors in her life piling up. To give background, high blood pressure runs in my family and becoming angry often is counter to living a healthy life when susceptible to high blood pressure. I felt that it should be possible to train oneself out of the habit of losing one's temper one step at a time using methods similar to the ones described in Atomic Habits, or even exercising mindfulness in general and generally practicing things like the "three point check" method (I learned this from a therapist I was working with who focused on cognitive behavioral therapy).

Forming new habits when applied to a situation like this feels to me like rewiring the brain to recognize patterns and strengthen pathways that go "when event A happens (stressor), the next step is event B (breathe in, step back, and evaluate the situation)" and weakening the ones that go "when event A happens (stressor), the next step is event B (flip out)". The kicker here is that without an intentional way of training yourself this way, your brain becomes more and more likely to go down the undesirable pathway, resulting in an unpleasant feedback loop into becoming a more stressed out and neurotic person over time. I explained this to my mom at the time and encouraged her to try to take a step back the next time she felt stressed because otherwise she'd just keep getting worked up more and more easily as the years went by (and I reminded her that my grandfather had a similar temper problem by the time he was in his 70s and how much she hadn't liked that). In a situation like this, twenty years down the road, would you say that someone who has a loose temper and is frequently grumpy has the same personality as someone who is much more even tempered and calm in the face of stressors? I would argue that the change in habit and behavior could count as a personality shift over that time frame!

So I have been wondering whether there are other ways working on habits related to personality can affect the other apparently 'stable' Big 5 traits as well. Is it possible that finding something extremely enjoyable that one can do on their own more often and doing it instead of going out to social events can turn someone into more of an introvert? Is it possible that having someone in your life give you positive feedback every time you say yes to doing something new will make you more open over time? Or if something inexplicably good happened  to you every time you agreed with someone instead of being contrarian, maybe you would become more agreeable if it happened enough?

The more I thought about this, the more it reminded me of training my dog. If you can stop your dog from doing an undesirable behavior (like barking and begging at the dining table) rather than punishing them after doing it, it is actually a quicker way to train them out of that behavior because they stop strengthening those events entirely in their neural pathway understandings. I heard a story about a friend's dog who learned to put themselves in time out after doing something bad like stealing food from the dining table, because they had learned the association between event A and B so strongly! Instead, it seems the better thing to do would have been to take event A away entirely as something their brain is aware of as a possibility. We did this with our dog (who used to bark and beg at the dining table during dinner) by giving him a food puzzle toy to distract him while we ate at the table. Now, even if he doesn't have his food puzzle toy, he doesn't bark while we eat anymore because it's just not something he does frequently -- it's no longer a habit!

To some extent though, I still think there is still a limit to how much of your personality you can really affect by yourself through forming new habits. It's possible that if you are good enough at it, it can really seem like a personality change because you are expressing very differently, but it does seem that at the core, you had to be the kind of person who would stick to learning this new habit to begin with. Basically, you have to be the kind of person who would subscribe to Atomic Habits and believe that 'people can change' in order to get anything out of it. Also, you would have to value the new behavior to some extent in order to try to change yourself to express more of it I assume. So that all seems like a bit of a paradox... unless if, like dog training, there happens to be someone around you trying to manipulate your behavior by giving you positive feedback at the right moments without your knowledge. I wonder how much of an impact that person could have?