I recently finished Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink. It’s a great book that explores the psychology of what, how, and why we eat. While I was reading this book, I was listening to Cal Newport’s most recent interview with Tim Ferriss. I couldn’t help but notice a parallel in these two seemingly disparate sources—and it’s an important one.
Wansink explains that “eating scripts” are key to changing our relationship with food. Eating scripts are behavioral patterns associated with food and drink consumption. Having a protein bar every morning is an eating script. So is downing an entire pint of ice cream (or a few pints of beer) after every breakup. The book maintains that pre-deciding what you eat and drink will lead to a healthier relationship with food and overall lifestyle.
Newport, on the other hand, discusses a mindful approach to social media. He advocates a total social media “detox” for a month. After, you’re encouraged to revisit and reflect upon your relationship with social media. He recommends we write some guidelines regarding when, how, and why we use social media. For example, we agree to only use Twitter on lunch breaks or tik tok between 8-9pm every day.
Scripts allow us to make carefully calculated choices consistent with our values. They also eliminate decision fatigue. We can make big-picture decisions regarding the lives we want to live and the people we want to be. They’re a trump card we play when our monkey brains want us to keep scrolling through Instagram or munching on popcorn.
Scripts may seem tedious, micromanaging, and stifling. I’ve found that it’s easier to stick to principles I’ve codified and committed to ahead of time. If there’s an area in your life—education, relationships, health, etc.—scripts might just be the key.
TL; DR—this was just a modern iteration of Socrates’s timeless wisdom:
“The unexamined life is not worth living