Aloe Avoidance Addictions

There's this aloe vera plant, quite a large one actually, just outside the door to my room. It sits on top of a bookshelf about eye level, and its branches grow all over the place like a slow-motion monster. One branch, an especially long branch, is growing horizontal. At eye level. Just outside my door. The first few times I left my room I nearly poked my eyes out. Now I'm used to it. Every time I leave my room I dodge my head to the left and escape unassailed. I no longer think or consider the branch. My head just sort of jerks left and then rights itself. I wonder now if this is how addictions form. We repeatedly do the same thing to the point that we no longer think while doing it. If the aloe vera plant is moved, I have a feeling my head will still snap left and then right. Isn't that like addiction? The original reason is gone, and yet we go through the motions as if it were still somehow propelling us.

So if the Aloe Plant is moved... and I still go through the motions of avoiding it... how do I form a new habit that doesn't involve the aloe branch? Just sheer willpower and always being aware of what I'm doing when I leave my room? How can I make sure I'm never preoccupied? Never too tired to care? Perhaps I need a new reason to keep my head still... something on the other side so I won't lean left. Something painful? A new aloe plant? Or perhaps something to look ahead towards, to keep my head focused -- a painting at the end of the hall? I like that idea better.

Now, for the aloe plants in my life, once I've moved them, with what do I fill their void? As MacDonald wrote, "Only good where evil was, is evil dead." What good can I place before me upon which to fix my eyes, so I won't lean left for reasons I no longer see?