Working with addictive habits

The practice of metta can be either a solid, protracted session where I plunge myself into loving-kindness, or it can be little seeds of metta that are a feature of every waking hour. Why can’t it be both? There are many times on any given day where I don’t feel like practicing metta or even anything positive. An example is when I feel the habitual tug of YouTube addiction. It is as if that British panel show or a news program I am addicted to is calling out to me, saying, “Come friend, be with me for a while. I’ll soothe all your worries and fears.”

Ajahn Sona is very clear on one related point here. Boredom is classified among neurotic emotions as well. So, every single time I “yield” to the impulse of boredom, I strengthen that impulse. Is there a smart way to manage this?

Well? Is there? One method that I’ve wanted to use in the past is to make the practice of the four immeasurables so palatable, and so chock full of delight and rapture and hooks, that I simply don’t find my current YouTube addictions even remotely palatable. There is an enormous value to realizing that emotions have a continuum, and one’s habitual emotional state is subject to this continuum. So, for example, if one has put in the causes and conditions for neuroses over the course of several hours, then it would take a proportionate amount of effort in order to replace these neuroses with positive emotions. This could take two forms:

Put in effort of the same caliber/ intensity for the same amount of time.

Put in effort of a higher caliber/intensity for a shorter amount of time.

Needless to say, I’d like to make the latter a habit.