Probably once a month I drink excessively. This destructive behavior acts as a sort of “safety valve” to let off the pressures of work.

This is, I’m informed, fairly normal behavior for the college aged. However, I lack a friend group that is unrelated to my work. In my case, every judgement error I make or weakness I display is vetted by my peers in the working world - most of whom are well past this age related issue.

Excuses are effective ways to remove guilt about not performing your best or not being ready to perform at a level demanded by the situation. Removing guilt is important, as harboring it can be crippling (in my experience as a cause of depression). However, excusing an action doesn’t help you learn from it or fix the root cause. This means that you are clearing out your guilt without protecting yourself from feeling the emotion again.

The standards project offers a new method of self reflection and a path of action towards improvement. Channeling guilt around a mistake in order to improve the standards you hold yourself to is a good way to avoid future mistakes, and the guilt that would come with it.

In my weekly programming, where I decide what rules I will follow in the coming week, I look for habits I can set to improve my performance. This week, I’m changing that.

Instead of optimizing for the creation of positive habits, I’m going to search for self-destructive habits, thoughts, and patterns, and destroy them.

I think the removal of my more eggregious faults will pay better dividends than the improvement of my better qualities. I’m starting with the removal of excessive drinking, a rule that I’m extending to a timeline greater than my normal week, since the occurance of my excessive drinking is not on a weekly frequency.

The corrolary to this, is that I will need to discover new safety valves for stress, energy, and fun. Working out an solve the first two, I’m not quite sure what will solve the third, yet. I’ll have to try several ideas.