Last Wednesday afternoon I was amazed by the tailback from Dundrum Town Centre. People were sitting in their cars for what seemed like miles, patiently waiting to increase their credit card debt even more in the sales, writes Breda O'Brien.
There is some excuse for the crazy amount of spending that people do at Christmas, given that for most people it is a way of expressing appreciation and care for the people they love. But sitting in a tailback to get dubious sale bargains that most people don't really need? Now that stretches even my ability to spin.
Some months ago, an immigrant to Ireland interviewed by this newspaper made gracious excuses for the fact that even on modest wages, she and her partner could still afford to buy a house, while Irish people could not. Saving was not in the Irish nature, she declared. Well, that would be news to our frugal grandparents.
Saving is a habit, and we have simply replaced it with another habit. We have adopted "spend, spend, spend" as our national motto.
Habit is an incredibly strong force. It is an interesting exercise to monitor how much of our day is spent in actions that are habitual. Habits are often remarkably efficient, allowing us to retain actions like riding a bicycle even if someone has not cycled for decades. Unfortunately, it is equally efficient at embedding negative habits and, sadly, they tend to be harder to break.
Prof Ben Fletcher, head of the school of psychology at the University of Herefordshire, has done some intriguing work on habits. He started by researching the psychology of stress and discovered that changing external factors in workplaces had negligible effects on people's stress levels.
What might be termed "habits of attitude" were far more influential factors in how people reacted to stress. The more open-minded and flexible people are, and the less they are rigidly tied to the same old ways of doing things, the less stress they will experience.
However, changing people's thinking was incredibly difficult. Attempting to change bad habits directly was equally problematic, because each habit was tied to many other habits, which formed what he called a "habitweb".
The "habitweb" is all the supporting and encircling behaviours that accompany any action taken regularly, some of which may seem to have little direct connection with the major habit. For example, if someone automatically puts on the kettle when they enter the house, chances are that this is connected with a snacking habit that will become very powerful and hard to break, because one action triggers another.
The professor made a major breakthrough when he discovered that allowing people to "play" with habits by changing something apparently minor for as short a period as a day, weakened the power of negative habits much more quickly than a direct attack.
So what has that to do with a tailback from Dundrum Town Centre? We also have habits as a nation that underpin our lifestyles. Driving to suburban shopping centres is just another manifestation of the fact that our lives are completely car-dependent in a way that is unsustainable and environmentally disastrous.
For example, there are not enough school places 30 to 60 miles from Dublin, but schools are closing in older suburban Dublin areas, where most of the houses are now occupied by elderly people. No young parent could afford to buy in these areas. So we continue our mad expansion outwards, leading to cars holding a single dazed occupant commuting unbelievable distances every day. Few shout stop, and when anyone does, we are too tired to muster the energy to demand change.
We are chronically sleep deprived, not least because of our commuting lifestyle. Apparently, before Edison invented electricity, the average person slept nine hours a night. Today, we sleep just under seven hours a night, meaning that we have a cumulative sleep debt that renders us foggy of brain and irritable of demeanour. Our children are also sleep deprived, as commuting parents get them up earlier in the morning to transport them to school or childcare. They also go to bed later, because parents fear that their children will scarcely know them if they do not spend some time with them in the evening. As a result, children are now just as likely to complain of exhaustion as parents are.
Most people are uneasy about the way that the economy seems to dominate every aspect of Irish life. Is having 60 per cent of women in the paid workforce, with no compensating move of men into the home, and having children spend most of their day away from parents a good thing?
Yet few of us can see a way out given that most mortgages now demand two incomes. We are also ambivalent about changing our new patterns. In our productivity and work-obsessed culture, that seems positively sacrilegious. Do less? Downsize a mere decade after it first became possible to upsize? Are you crazy?
Before we have a national coronary, Prof Fletcher kicks in with some soothing suggestions. No need for extravagant new year resolutions. Instead, change the way you do things, one thing a day, for only a day. So no telly for a day. No drinking alcohol on a day you would normally drink treble the recommended amount. Talk to someone you usually ignore. Refrain from giving an opinion if you are a rent-a-rant, and give an opinion if you are normally too shy. Don't use your credit or debit card for a day.
Apparently, all that kind of stuff rewires your brain so that you can work your way out of the "habitweb" we are all entangled in.
No need to frighten yourself yet by contemplating buying a smaller house or letting one parent stay at home at least part-time. Start by giving complete and absorbed attention to a child instead of surreptitiously checking work-related e-mails at home.
Prof Fletcher says it is crucial to examine five dimensions of your life and try to change gently in a more positive direction. They are awareness, self-responsibility, balance, fearlessness and conscience.
Hmm, not exactly what you would find on a political party's manifesto, but then, there isn't much possibility of change there, is there?