Keep it up

We sleep with our feet toward the wall. And our heads at the end of the bed, so my pillow always falls off the bed. Isn't that so strange? Why do we sleep like this? I honestly can't remember why we first set up the bed like this.

 

But what is even STRANGER, is why we keep doing it, everytime we make the bed!

 

This is one example of a curious human phenomenon - we tend to continue doing things long after the reason to do them is gone. We just "keep it up" and keep going, never questioning. We keep doing things we always did. We do some things just because "that's what people do."  We do things because other people do them, and never question why they did them.

 

I recently heard a story illustrating this last point. Unfortunately I can't remember the details but let me sum it up for you. A woman was making bread with her friend, when her friend noticed she had an odd way of baking, so she asked why she was doing it this certain way. The woman says "because that's how my mom did it." The friend is perplexed and seeks out the woman's mother so she could ask why she makes bread this certain way. The mother says "because that's how my mom did it." Again, the intrigued friend seeks out the grandmother so she can investigate further! The grandmother explains that she had to make bread this strange way because of her physical disability. It wasn't the usual way of making bread, and it wasn't necessarily a beneficial way at all. But she did it out of necessity, for herself personally. Not knowing this, she passed the funny habit down to her daughter, who passed it down to her daughter. The generations just kept repeating a silly, unnecessary custom without realizing that the original intent wasn't even relevant in their own case!