Compulsive behaviours are masks we wear to disguise deeper problems.
Anything compulsive is bad for you. It pushes one part of your life out of balance, and balance (though necessarily imperfect) is the ideal human state.
Compulsive behaviours overcompensate for the problem at hand. They are either an attempt to remedy the situation or numb the pain, but either way, compulsion means a behaviour has gone too far. Most behaviours in life are helpful only to a certain point. Beyond this, they do more damage than good.
Behaviours become compulsive when they are an attempt to compensate for unmet emotional needs. When we believe they can fix something that they can’t really.
They may appear healthy or productive or impressive on the surface, but they mask an inner reality that is anything but.
Positive behaviours can become compulsive, which means that behaviours aren’t compulsive because they are bad—they become bad when they become compulsive.
A behaviour is compulsive if you can’t not do it, or you can’t stop yourself once you’ve begun. Not being able to live without it or stop when you’ve started is dangerous, because in a world of unpredictable and unpreventable chaos, you need control over your own actions, if nothing else.
You cannot control what happens around you, but you can control your own thoughts, and you can control your own actions.
Compulsive behaviours erode your control, or at the very least, your perception of control.
Get it back.