Resolutions

Old Habits Die Hard

Sumaiya Ahsan Bushra
Photos: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

	Some people bite their nails when they are nervous.

As the clock strikes 12, a new year awaits us-a year filled with blooming hopes and promises. With this New Year, I am quite sure that a handful of you are determined to say good-bye to bad habits. Young people, like us, make resolutions to give up bad habits and pray that we can find new, good ones to acquire. In general, most of us are not aware of our bad habits. So, if we take a glimpse at the overall picture of how we present ourselves in front of people, then we are truly likely to feel disgusted!

While some of us have this tendency to pick our nose, and bite our nails, nervously, others love to pull strands of hair or scratch the scalp unconsciously. These two groups of people are not a rare bunch and you are likely to come across them in the streets. At times, while you are tapping your table, you might find dirt lurking around and just before you realise the truth, you see the creepy, young, peon at your office with a smile on his face. Right! He was using your computer while you were away and yes, that dirt you spotted was his booger! So before it's too late, please stop scratching your head and picking your nose because it really is a terrible habit to indulge in!

Then there are those, who just stare at people with harmless intentions, or NOT! These people are tolerable but it still is a bad habit and one should refrain from it as much as possible. Halima Sayeed, a 22 year old, working at the news desk of a local daily, states, “People stare at me at work. I really can't help it. I can't ask them to look away because it is their basic right to look wherever they want to. But then it gets quite unbearable when people just stare right at my chest, as if that's what defines me as a whole!”

Bad habits often go unnoticed but to a mere observer it is quite repulsive.

A similar group are those, who get excessively 'touchy' with almost everyone and anyone they know! Shaila Firoz, who recently graduated from the Business School of North South University and who works at a pharmaceutical company now, explains, “I have this colleague at my work place and he can get quite overtly touchy at times. He is genuinely nice and means no harm, most of the time. But then there are times, when he really starts being awkward with his hands. The funniest part is, he does not limit this obsessive behaviour to the opposite sex only, but does the same with his own kind as well. So, most of my male colleagues are always laughing at him!”

Another group includes those who love to make people's lives miserable by prying on their privacy. Bullying is closely associated with this, as one can be emotionally blackmailed with the intimate details of a person's life. Little does this group know that it is not only discourteous to play such pranks but it is also psychologically detrimental for an individual whose privacy has been invaded. In addition, such terrible habits could lead to endless drama which, I assure you; most people do not want to find themselves in!

The thing with bad habits is, you don't really know of it and therefore, you can't avoid it either. Being unaware is the worst thing that could possibly happen to someone. So, the first step to bidding farewell to bad habit is keeping your eyes open and knowing your flaws through other people's behaviour. The second step is by slowly, and steadily getting rid of those irrational and compulsive habits before someone else spots it and starts ridiculing you!

DID YOU KNOW?

Syd Barett

Musician, singer-songwriter, artist Roger Keith 'Syd' Barrett was born as Roger Keith Barrett on 6 January, 1946 (today would have been his 67th birthday!). After playing piano occasionally, preferring writing and drawing, Roger got a ukulele at age 10 or less, then a banjo at 11, then a Hofner acoustic guitar when he was 14. A year after he got his first acoustic guitar, he bought his first electric guitar and built his own amplifier. Like his brothers before him, Barrett attended Morley Memorial Junior School. Later, in 1957, he attended Cambridgeshire High School for Boys and Cambridge College of Arts and Technology. His father died of cancer on 11 December 1961, less than a month before Barrett's 16th birthday. Eager to help her son recover from his grief, Barrett's mother encouraged the band in which he played, Geoff Mott and The Mottoes, a band which Barrett formed, to perform in their front room. Waters and Barrett were childhood friends, and Waters often visited such gigs. At one point, Waters even organised one gig: CND Benefit at Friends Meeting House however, shortly after this gig The Mottoes broke up. Barrett had taken a place at the Cambridge Technical College art department. It was here, that Barrett met David Gilmour. During the winter of 1962 and early 1963, The Beatles had made an impact on Barrett. He once said to fellow school friend (and later, Pink Floyd's album designer), Storm Thorgerson: "Storm, man, this is it." For a while Barrett began to play Beatles songs at parties and at picnics. Barrett, thinking about his future, decided to apply for Camberwell College of Arts in London. The day of the interview was the same day The Beatles were to perform in Cambridge. However, to his own dismay he went to the interview, and he was accepted. Barrett enrolled in the college in London in summer 1964 to study painting.

Information Source: Internet