🍔 The life hack that makes your bad habits quit themselves

Want to kick a bad habit? Try making it annoying.

We’ve made the world incredibly convenient. Between writing that first sentence and this one, I ordered lunch from a restaurant seven miles away. A tasty burger will be at my door in 20 minutes, and that’s a problem. I’m not supposed to be having burgers (or overspending on food delivery for that matter).

Convenience brings us doomscrolling, impulse shopping, and 2 a.m. cheese binges. But as Erik Barnes explains, making your worst habits slightly more annoying might be the surprisingly simple trick to quitting them.

Psychotherapists love it. Reddit swears by it. The secret is knowing how to make laziness work for you instead of against you.

Image of the day

🎤 From “Macarena” to “Born in the U.S.A.”, five hits that aren’t what you think

Spoiler: “Who Let the Dogs Out” isn’t about dogs, and “Take Me to Church” isn’t about church.

I don’t know how she does this, but my wife knows the lyrics to every song. She sings along. She sings beautifully! But somehow, she doesn’t listen to the words. I know, it doesn’t make sense. She can sing you every line but can’t tell you what the song’s about. As Ryan Reed reports, she’s not alone.

Take Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.”, a stadium-shaking singalong that’s been blasted at Fourth of July cookouts for decades. But listen closer and you’ll hear a working-class veteran disillusioned by war and the American dream. Politicians once tried to use it as a patriotic anthem, missing that it’s really a gut-punch about loss and decline.

Then there’s “Who Let the Dogs Out,” the late-’90s banger we all screamed at sports games. It’s not about barking mutts at all. Trinidadian songwriter Anslem Douglas originally wrote it as a feminist response to catcalling, a woman’s revenge song against men acting like, well, dogs. The Baha Men just made it sound like a party.

And that’s just two of the five. The others? “Every Breath You Take” probably shouldn’t play at your wedding, “Macarena” isn’t just about dancing, and “Take Me to Church” should never be played in one.

* - Yes, I said tray liner. I’m CD-tray-liner years old.

And what did we learn?

On Friday we spoke the subtext; Back to the Future isn’t about time travel, it’s about overcoming bullies which is, (ironically?) timeless.

So, which car did Biff drive in the first movie? Fully a third of the GOOD readers got this one right. Great Scott!

• 1953 Buick Skylark (22.2%)

• 1955 Chevy Bel Air (25.0%)

• 1946 Ford Super De Luxe convertible (33.3%) ✅

• 1949 Mercury Coupe (19.4%)

🍅 The tomato trick will change how you work

This low-tech '80s trick might be the smartest trick for getting things done without losing your mind.

When I overheard Erik Barnes in the GOOD Magazine bullpen discussing a story about Italian tomatoes I looked forward to a fun culinary story I could share with you. I guess I shouldn't have assumed. Instead I got a great story about a life hack that involves zero marinara and 100% mental clarity. It was a bit of a bait and switch, but it was a GOOD bait and switch.

In the story Erik did give me, we meet a burned-out student in the '80s who grabbed a tomato-shaped kitchen timer and invented a method that would quietly become a global productivity staple. It's been used by ADHD coaches, procrastinators, and anyone who's ever stared at a to-do list and immediately needed a nap.

In fact, the technique has become so popular it is built into the latest version of the Windows operating system. Click your clock in the bottom right and you might see a little [ Focus > ] button. Yep. Tomato technique.

Full disclosure: The GOOD Magazine bullpen is a channel on Slack.

Before Oregon State student Dick Fosbury turned his back to the bar 57 years ago today, athletes would run straight at it and, well, jump. Then on October 20, 1968, Fosbury curved his approach, arched backward over the bar, and landed on his shoulders. By sending his center of mass below the bar, he stole extra centimeters from the same takeoff. Within a few years, nearly every elite jumper had adopted the “Fosbury Flop.” One weird-looking leap rewrote the coaching manuals and lifted the whole sport. How much? Today’s records are over eight inches higher than those from before, launching Dick Fosbury into the same league as the NBA’s Chucky “Slam” Dunkerson and golf’s Shannon Holenone.

[Editor’s note: Neither Chuck Dunkerson nor Shannon Holenone exists.]

Do you have something GOOD to share?

We’re always on the lookout for uplifting, enlightening, and engaging content to share with readers like you. If you have something you think should be featured in the Daily GOOD, let me know!

💬 From the group text…

I grew up around cows, and honestly, they’re a whole moo-d. But I never got to play with one like this woman. I don’t mean to milk it, but if she told me I couldn’t boop that giant snoot, she and I would have beef! I would be udderly devastated.

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