An acquired habit, from the physiological point of view, is nothing
but a new pathway of discharge formed in the brain, by which certain
incoming currents ever often tend to escape.
The great thing is to make our nervous system our ally instead of
our enemy.--Guard against ways that are likely to be disadvantageous
to us, as we should guard against the plague.
The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the
effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind
will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable
human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision and
for whom (every act) the time of rising and going to bed, the beginning
of every bit of work, are subjects for express volitional deliberation.
Maxim I. In the acquisition of a new thought or the leaving off of
an old one we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and
decided initiative as possible.
Maxim II. Never suffer an exception to occur until the new habit
is securely rooted in your life.
Each lapse is like letting fall a ball of string which one is carefully
winding up; a single slip means more than a great many turns will wind
again.
Continuity of training is the great means of making the nervous
system act infallibly right. It is necessary above all things never to
lose a battle. Every gain on the wrong side undoes the effect of many
conquests on the right.
The essential precaution is to so regulate the opposing powers that
the one may have a series of uninterrupted success, until repetition has
fortified it to such a degree as to enable it to cope with the opposition
under any circumstances.
The need of securing success at the outset is imperative. To be
habitually successful is the thing.
Be careful not to give the will such a task as to insure its defeat
at the outset, but provided one can stand it, a sharp period of
suffering, and then a free time is the best to aim at, whether in giving
up the opium habit or in simply changing one's hours of rising or of
work.
It is surprising how soon a desire will die of inanition if it be never
fed.
Without unbroken advance there is no such thing as accumulation
of the ethical forces possible, and to make this possible and to exercise
and habituate us in it is the sovereign blessing of regular work.
Maxim III. Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every
resolution you make and on every emotional prompting you may experience
in the direction of habits you aspire to gain.
It is not the moment of their forming but in the moment of their
producing motor effects, that resolves and aspirations communicate the
new 'set' to the brain.
The actual presence of the practical opportunity alone furnishes the
fulcrum upon which the lever can rest, by means of which the moral
will may multiply its strength and raise itself aloft. He who had no
solid ground to press against will never get beyond the stage of empty
gesture making.
When a resolve or a fine glow of feeling is allowed to evaporate
without bearing practical fruit, it is a waste and a chance lost; it
works so as positively to hinder future resolutions and emotions from
taking the normal path of discharge.
If we let our emotions evaporate, they get in a way of evaporating.