The Habits: Cobwebs, Then C

That we are “creatures of habit” is a commonly accepted comment. But habits are not unalterable.

Habits may become deeply fixed upon us, good or bad, but the bad habits, it sometimes seems, tie themselves to us more tenaciously⎯perhaps because bad often have to do with appetites, with habit-forming, enslaving substances, with things that create a craving.

There is an old Spanish proverb that says: “Habits are at first cobwebs, then cables.” But never can we safely concede that we are helpless before our habits. If we form habits in the first place, which we do, we must be able to break them, which we can; change them, which we must if they are wrong habits. With our habits, or against them, we must not do that which our better sense or our better selves would not suggest, or that which would create an unquiet conscience.

If we were to concede that the habits we acquire are beyond our control, we would be conceding virtual enslavement. “We first make our habits, and then our habits make us,” wrote John Dryden. Choosing and controlling our habits is a vitally important part of life’s process.

This suggests the importance of early guidance, of home influence and example. A childish act may seem inconsequential. But a trend or tendency is not inconsequential. An attitude is not inconsequential. What initially seems to be something we can take or leave, may become something we feel we must have. “Just this once” may lead to “just once more.” Once more may lead to many more, until we have a habit.

Concerning someone who gambled and explained that he had only played for a “trifle,” Plato replied: “The habit is not a trifle.”

Despite all explanations, all excuses, all rationalizing, the laws of life, the laws of health, the commandments are in force, and we must have the character and conviction to control, to change, to make or break or abandon the habits we have. We can form good habits or break bad habits⎯if we want to. But nothing much is done unless we really want to.