The Habits We Have…

There is this form Samuel Johnson on habit and human behavior: “the chains of habit are generally too small to be felt, until they are too strong to be broken.”¹ “Do not begin,” said John Locke, “to make anything customary,…[that] you would not have continue and increase…” ²

Habits and appetites will take hold upon our lives if we let them, until they all but occupy us. “For first cometh to the mind our lives simple suggestions,” said Thomas a Kempis, “then strong imagination, afterwards pleasure, evil affections, assent. And so little by little the enemy entereth in altogether, because he was not resisted at the beginning.”³

“Check the beginning:

Once thou might’st have cured,

But now ’tis past thy skill,

Too long hath it endured.”

At some point it becomes a question of whether or not we can charge our habits or feel helpless before them. To be a reasoning, responsible person we have to be alert, with fullest possible functioning both of mind and of body for the quick and complex decisions we have so many times to make. Especially should we avoid whatever would dull our senses, slow down our reactions, or interfere with our best judgment.

Call it morality, call it common sense, call its respect, call it respect—respect for life, respect for others, respect for itself—call it what you will—but anything that contributes to dependability, to morality, to acuteness, to self-control, to health and happiness is good.

Anything that slows down judgement, that dulls the senses, that increases dependence, that reduces self-control, anything that increases accidents or ill health isn’t good.

“The habits of time,” said George Cheever, “are the soul’s dress for eternity”⁴—and even if we have an unwise, unwholesome habit, we should not give up the honest, prayerful, continuing effort to conquer the habit we have. A man ought to examine his habits before they become the master of the man.