The Power of Habit

Not too long ago, I was taking the NEL when I realised that the door that was directly in front of me refused to open for my entry. Somewhat startled, it took me 2 seconds to realise that it was not in use, and to scamper into one of the other opened doors.

A little moment's reflection made me decide to observe how many people would make the same mistake as I did.

To be fair, it is rather hard for anyone outside of the train to be able to see the sticker from the outside—something to do with the many layers of intervening glasses. But from the inside, the sticker label is quite clear:What this picture doesn't really show that it is roughly at eye-level for an "average" height person (say 1.65m or so). I wonder how many people will actually see it and not stand there and attempt to alight from it.

Unfortunately, not many people actually saw the sticker until it was too late.

From the starting station (Serangoon) to the ending station (Harbourfront), I found that there were at least 3 people who automatically stood in front of the doors each time the train arrived at a station. Among these folks, there were both the young, the old and the plain clueless. I guess the power of habit is really rather strong here. It was quite funny actually, to see well-dressed folks just standing there when the train arrived at the station, and waiting for the doors to open up, despite the fact that they might have been around and thus seen the other folks who were trying the same thing just a few stops before.

It goes to show how observant of our surroundings we really are, that and the power of habit can cause. This little unexpected social experiment just shows that habit can lead to complacency, and in this case to embarrassment. Now think about the more "serious" problems that are out there, like the operation of heavy machinery or even the whole shebang of counter-terrorism efforts.

If all we are doing is to rely on habits to allow us to get through with what we are doing, sooner or later, we'll end up being somewhat complacent. In this case, the payback was just slight embarrassment, but in the other more "serious" cases, real lives may be lost and real properties may be destroyed. It goes to show that we should always take the time to stop and reflect upon what we are doing to ensure that the habits are well-understood and the ability to be flexible will still stay with us.