HABIT
Habit is our "best friend or worst enemy." We are "walking bundles of
habits." Habit is the "fly-wheel of society," keeping men patient and
docile in the hard or disagreeable lot which some must fill. Habit is a
"cable which we cannot break." So say the wise men. Let me know your
habits of life and you have revealed your moral standards and conduct.
Let me discover your intellectual habits, and I understand your type of
mind and methods of thought. In short, our lives are largely a daily
round of activities dictated by our habits in this line or that. Most of
our movements and acts are habitual; we think as we have formed the
habit of thinking; we decide as we are in the habit of deciding; we
sleep, or eat, or speak as we have grown into the habit of doing these
things; we may even say our prayers or perform other religious exercises
as matters of habit. But while habit is the veriest tyrant, yet its good
offices far exceed the bad even in the most fruitless or depraved life.
1. THE NATURE OF HABIT
Many people when they speak or think of habit give the term a very
narrow or limited meaning. They have in mind only certain moral or
personal tendencies usually spoken of as one's "habits." But in order to
understand habit in any thorough and complete way we must, as suggested
by the preceding paragraph, broaden our concept to include every
possible line of physical and mental activity. Habit may be defined as
_the tendency of the nervous system to repeat any act that has been
performed once or many times_.
THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HABIT.--Habit is to be explained from the
standpoint of its physical basis. Habits are formed because the tissues
of our brains are capable of being modified by use, and of so retaining
the effects of this modification that the same act is easier of
performance each succeeding time. This results in the old act being
repeated instead of a new one being selected, and hence the old act is
perpetuated.
Even dead and inert matter obeys the same principles in this regard as
does living matter. Says M. Leon Dumont: "Everyone knows how a garment,
having been worn a certain time, clings to the shape of the body better
than when it was new; there has been a change in the tissue, and this
change is a new habit of cohesion; a lock works better after having been
used some time; at the outset more force was required to overcome
certain roughness in the mechanism. The overcoming of this resistance is
a phenomenon of habituation. It costs less trouble to fold a paper when
it has been folded already. This saving of trouble is due to the
essential nature of habit, which brings it about that, to reproduce the
effect, a less amount of the outward cause is required. The sounds of a
violin improve by use in the hands of an able artist, because the fibers
of the wood at last contract habits of vibration conformed to harmonic
relations. This is what gives such inestimable value to instruments that
have belonged to great masters. Water, in flowing, hollows out for
itself a channel, which grows broader and deeper; and, after having
ceased to flow, it resumes when it flows again the path traced for
itself before. Just so, the impressions of outer objects fashion for
themselves in the nervous system more and more appropriate paths, and
these vital phenomena recur under similar excitements from without, when
they have been interrupted for a certain time."[2]
ALL LIVING TISSUE PLASTIC.--What is true of inanimate matter is doubly
true of living tissue. The tissues of the human body can be molded into
almost any form you choose if taken in time. A child may be placed on
his feet at too early an age, and the bones of his legs form the habit
of remaining bent. The Flathead Indian binds a board on the skull of his
child, and its head forms the habit of remaining flat on the top. Wrong
bodily postures produce curvature of the spine, and pernicious modes of
dress deform the bones of the chest. The muscles may be trained into the
habit of keeping the shoulders straight or letting them droop; those of
the back, to keep the body well up on the hips, or to let it sag; those
of locomotion, to give us a light, springy step, or to allow a shuffling
carriage; those of speech, to give us a clear-cut, accurate
articulation, or a careless, halting one; and those of the face, to give
us a cheerful cast of countenance, or a glum and morose expression.
HABIT A MODIFICATION OF BRAIN TISSUE.--But the nervous tissue is the
most sensitive and easily molded of all bodily tissues. In fact, it is
probable that the real _habit_ of our characteristic walk, gesture, or
speech resides in the brain, rather than in the muscles which it
controls. So delicate is the organization of the brain structure and so
unstable its molecules, that even the perfume of the flower, which
assails the nose of a child, the song of a bird, which strikes his ear,
or the fleeting dream, which lingers but for a second in his sleep, has
so modified his brain that it will never again be as if these things had
not been experienced. Every sensory current which runs in from the
outside world; every motor current which runs out to command a muscle;
every thought that we think, has so modified the nerve structure through
which it acts, that a tendency remains for a like act to be repeated.
Our brain and nervous system is daily being molded into fixed habits of
acting by our thoughts and deeds, and thus becomes the automatic
register of all we do.
The old Chinese fairy story hits upon a fundamental and vital truth.
These celestials tell their children that each child is accompanied by
day and by night, every moment of his life, by an invisible fairy, who
is provided with a pencil and tablet. It is the duty of this fairy to
put down every deed of the child, both good and evil, in an indelible
record which will one day rise as a witness against him. So it is in
very truth with our brains. The wrong act may have been performed in
secret, no living being may ever know that we performed it, and a
merciful Providence may forgive it; but the inexorable monitor of our
deeds was all the time beside us writing the record, and the history of
that act is inscribed forever in the tissues of our brain. It may be
repented of bitterly in sackcloth and ashes and be discontinued, but its
effects can never be quite effaced; they will remain with us a handicap
till our dying day, and in some critical moment in a great emergency we
shall be in danger of defeat from that long past and forgotten act.
WE MUST FORM HABITS.--We _must_, then, form habits. It is not at all in
our power to say whether we will form habits or not; for, once started,
they go on forming themselves by day and night, steadily and
relentlessly. Habit is, therefore, one of the great factors to be
reckoned with in our lives, and the question becomes not, Shall we form
habits? but _What habits we shall form._ And we have the determining of
this question largely in our own power, for habits do not just happen,
nor do they come to us ready made. We ourselves make them from day to
day through the acts we perform, and in so far as we have control over
our acts, in that far we can determine our habits.
2. THE PLACE OF HABIT IN THE ECONOMY OF OUR LIVES
Habit is one of nature's methods of economizing time and effort, while
at the same time securing greater skill and efficiency. This is easily
seen when it is remembered that habit tends towards _automatic_ action;
that is, towards action governed by the lower nerve centers and taking
care of itself, so to speak, without the interference of consciousness.
Everyone has observed how much easier in the performance and more
skillful in its execution is the act, be it playing a piano, painting a
picture, or driving a nail, when the movements involved have ceased to
be consciously directed and become automatic.
HABIT INCREASES SKILL AND EFFICIENCY.--Practically all increase in
skill, whether physical or mental, depends on our ability to form
habits. Habit holds fast to the skill already attained while practice or
intelligence makes ready for the next step in advance. Could we not form
habits we should improve but little in our way of doing things, no
matter how many times we did them over. We should now be obliged to go
through the same bungling process of dressing ourselves as when we
first learned it as children. Our writing would proceed as awkwardly in
the high school as the primary, our eating as adults would be as messy
and wide of the mark as when we were infants, and we should miss in a
thousand ways the motor skill that now seems so easy and natural. All
highly skilled occupations, and those demanding great manual dexterity,
likewise depend on our habit-forming power for the accurate and
automatic movements required.
So with mental skill. A great portion of the fundamentals of our
education must be made automatic--must become matters of habit. We set
out to learn the symbols of speech. We hear words and see them on the
printed page; associated with these words are meanings, or ideas. Habit
binds the word and the idea together, so that to think of the one is to
call up the other--and language is learned. We must learn numbers, so we
practice the "combinations," and with 4×6, or 3×8 we associate 24. Habit
secures this association in our minds, and lo! we soon know our
"tables." And so on throughout the whole range of our learning. We learn
certain symbols, or facts, or processes, and habit takes hold and
renders these automatic so that we can use them freely, easily, and with
skill, leaving our thought free for matters that cannot be made
automatic. One of our greatest dangers is that we shall not make
sufficiently automatic, enough of the necessary foundation material of
education. Failing in this, we shall at best be but blunderers
intellectually, handicapped because we failed to make proper use of
habit in our development.
For, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, there is a limit to our
mental energy and also to the number of objects to which we are able to
attend. It is only when attention has been freed from the many things
that can always be thought or done _in the same way_, that the mind can
devote itself to the real problems that require judgment, imagination or
reasoning. The writer whose spelling and punctuation do not take care of
themselves will hardly make a success of writing. The mathematician
whose number combinations, processes and formulæ are not automatic in
his mind can never hope to make progress in mathematical thinking. The
speaker who, while speaking, has to think of his gestures, his voice or
his enunciation will never sway audiences by his logic or his eloquence.
HABIT SAVES EFFORT AND FATIGUE.--We do most easily and with least
fatigue that which we are accustomed to do. It is the new act or the
strange task that tires us. The horse that is used to the farm wearies
if put on the road, while the roadster tires easily when hitched to the
plow. The experienced penman works all day at his desk without undue
fatigue, while the man more accustomed to the pick and the shovel than
to the pen, is exhausted by a half hour's writing at a letter. Those who
follow a sedentary and inactive occupation do not tire by much sitting,
while children or others used to freedom and action may find it a
wearisome task merely to remain still for an hour or two.
Not only would the skill and speed demanded by modern industry be
impossible without the aid of habit, but without its help none could
stand the fatigue and strain. The new workman placed at a high-speed
machine is ready to fall from weariness at the end of his first day. But
little by little he learns to omit the unnecessary movements, the
necessary movements become easier and more automatic through habit, and
he finds the work easier. We may conclude, then, that not only do
consciously directed movements show less skill than the same movements
made automatic by habit, but they also require more effort and produce
greater fatigue.
HABIT ECONOMIZES MORAL EFFORT.--To have to decide each time the question
comes up whether we will attend to this lecture or sermon or lesson;
whether we will persevere and go through this piece of disagreeable work
which we have begun; whether we will go to the trouble of being
courteous and kind to this or that poor or unlovely or dirty
fellow-mortal; whether we will take this road because it looks easy, or
that one because we know it to be the one we ought to take; whether we
will be strictly fair and honest when we might just as well be the
opposite; whether we will resist the temptation which dares us; whether
we will do this duty, hard though it is, which confronts us--to have to
decide each of these questions every time it presents itself is to put
too large a proportion of our thought and energy on things which should
take care of themselves. For all these things should early become so
nearly habitual that they can be settled with the very minimum of
expenditure of energy when they arise.
THE HABIT OF ATTENTION.--It is a noble thing to be able to attend by
sheer force of will when the interest lags, or some more attractive
thing appears, but far better is it so to have formed the habit of
attention that we naturally fall into that attitude when this is the
desirable thing. To understand what I mean, you only have to look over a
class or an audience and note the different ways which people have of
finally settling down to listening. Some with an attitude which says,
"Now here I am, ready to listen to you if you will interest me,
otherwise not." Others with a manner which says, "I did not really come
here expecting to listen, and you will have a large task if you
interest me; I never listen unless I am compelled to, and the
responsibility rests on you." Others plainly say, "I really mean to
listen, but I have hard work to control my thoughts, and if I wander I
shall not blame you altogether; it is just my way." And still others
say, "When I am expected to listen, I always listen whether there is
anything much to listen to or not. I have formed that habit, and so have
no quarrel with myself about it. You can depend on me to be attentive,
for I cannot afford to weaken my habit of attention whether you do well
or not." Every speaker will clasp these last listeners to his heart and
feed them on the choicest thoughts of his soul; they are the ones to
whom he speaks and to whom his address will appeal.
HABIT ENABLES US TO MEET THE DISAGREEABLE.--To be able to persevere in
the face of difficulties and hardships and carry through the
disagreeable thing in spite of the protests of our natures against the
sacrifice which it requires, is a creditable thing; but it is more
creditable to have so formed the habit of perseverance that the
disagreeable duty shall be done without a struggle, or protest, or
question. Horace Mann testifies of himself that whatever success he was
able to attain was made possible through the early habit which he formed
of never stopping to inquire whether he _liked_ to do a thing which
needed doing, but of doing everything equally well and without question,
both the pleasant and the unpleasant.
The youth who can fight out a moral battle and win against the
allurements of some attractive temptation is worthy the highest honor
and praise; but so long as he has to fight the same battle over and over
again, he is on dangerous ground morally. For good morals must finally
become habits, so ingrained in us that the right decision comes largely
without effort and without struggle. Otherwise the strain is too great,
and defeat will occasionally come; and defeat means weakness and at last
disaster, after the spirit has tired of the constant conflict. And so on
in a hundred lines. Good habits are more to be coveted than individual
victories in special cases, much as these are to be desired. For good
habits mean victories all along the line.
HABIT THE FOUNDATION OF PERSONALITY.--The biologist tells us that it is
the _constant_ and not the _occasional_ in the environment that
impresses itself on an organism. So also it is the _habitual_ in our
lives that builds itself into our character and personality. In a very
real sense we _are_ what we are in the habit of doing and thinking.
Without habit, personality could not exist; for we could never do a
thing twice alike, and hence would be a new person each succeeding
moment. The acts which give us our own peculiar individuality are our
habitual acts--the little things that do themselves moment by moment
without care or attention, and are the truest and best expression of our
real selves. Probably no one of us could be very sure which arm he puts
into the sleeve, or which foot he puts into the shoe, first; and yet
each of us certainly formed the habit long ago of doing these things in
a certain way. We might not be able to describe just how we hold knife
and fork and spoon, and yet each has his own characteristic and habitual
way of handling them. We sit down and get up in some characteristic way,
and the very poise of our heads and attitudes of our bodies are the
result of habit. We get sleepy and wake up, become hungry and thirsty at
certain hours, through force of habit. We form the habit of liking a
certain chair, or nook, or corner, or path, or desk, and then seek this
to the exclusion of all others. We habitually use a particular pitch of
voice and type of enunciation in speaking, and this becomes one of our
characteristic marks; or we form the habit of using barbarisms or
solecisms of language in youth, and these cling to us and become an
inseparable part of us later in life.
On the mental side the case is no different. Our thinking is as
characteristic as our physical acts. We may form the habit of thinking
things out logically, or of jumping to conclusions; of thinking
critically and independently, or of taking things unquestioningly on the
authority of others. We may form the habit of carefully reading good,
sensible books, or of skimming sentimental and trashy ones; of choosing
elevating, ennobling companions, or the opposite; of being a good
conversationalist and doing our part in a social group, or of being a
drag on the conversation, and needing to be "entertained." We may form
the habit of observing the things about us and enjoying the beautiful in
our environment, or of failing to observe or to enjoy. We may form the
habit of obeying the voice of conscience or of weakly yielding to
temptation without a struggle; of taking a reverent attitude of prayer
in our devotions, or of merely saying our prayers.
HABIT SAVES WORRY AND REBELLION.--Habit has been called the "balance
wheel" of society. This is because men readily become habituated to the
hard, the disagreeable, or the inevitable, and cease to battle against
it. A lot that at first seems unendurable after a time causes less
revolt. A sorrow that seems too poignant to be borne in the course of
time loses some of its sharpness. Oppression or injustice that arouses
the fiercest resentment and hate may finally come to be accepted with
resignation. Habit helps us learn that "what cannot be cured must be
endured."
3. THE TYRANNY OF HABIT
EVEN GOOD HABITS NEED TO BE MODIFIED.--But even in good habits there is
danger. Habit is the opposite of attention. Habit relieves attention of
unnecessary strain. Every habitual act was at one time, either in the
history of the race or of the individual, a voluntary act; that is, it
was performed under active attention. As the habit grew, attention was
gradually rendered unnecessary, until finally it dropped entirely out.
And herein lies the danger. Habit once formed has no way of being
modified unless in some way attention is called to it, for a habit left
to itself becomes more and more firmly fixed. The rut grows deeper. In
very few, if any, of our actions can we afford to have this the case.
Our habits need to be progressive, they need to grow, to be modified, to
be improved. Otherwise they will become an incrusting shell, fixed and
unyielding, which will limit our growth.
It is necessary, then, to keep our habitual acts under some surveillance
of attention, to pass them in review for inspection every now and then,
that we may discover possible modifications which will make them more
serviceable. We need to be inventive, constantly to find out better ways
of doing things. Habit takes care of our standing, walking, sitting; but
how many of us could not improve his poise and carriage if he would? Our
speech has become largely automatic, but no doubt all of us might remove
faults of enunciation, pronunciation or stress from our speaking. So
also we might better our habits of study and thinking, our methods of
memorizing, or our manner of attending.
THE TENDENCY OF "RUTS."--But this will require something of heroism. For
to follow the well-beaten path of custom is easy and pleasant, while to
break out of the rut of habit and start a new line of action is
difficult and disturbing. Most people prefer to keep doing things as
they always have done them, to continue reading and thinking and
believing as they have long been in the habit of doing, not so much
because they feel that their way is best, but because it is easier than
to change. Hence the great mass of us settle down on the plane of
mediocrity, and become "old fogy." We learn to do things passably well,
cease to think about improving our ways of doing them, and so fall into
a rut. Only the few go on. They make use of habit as the rest do, but
they also continue to attend at critical points of action, and so make
habit an _ally_ in place of accepting it as a _tyrant_.
4. HABIT-FORMING A PART OF EDUCATION
It follows from the importance of habit in our lives that no small part
of education should be concerned with the development of serviceable
habits. Says James, "Could the young but realize how soon they will
become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to
their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates,
good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or
of vice leaves its never-so-little scar." Any youth who is forming a
large number of useful habits is receiving no mean education, no matter
if his knowledge of books may be limited; on the other hand, no one who
is forming a large number of bad habits is being well educated, no
matter how brilliant his knowledge may be.
YOUTH THE TIME FOR HABIT-FORMING.--Childhood and youth is the great time
for habit-forming. Then the brain is plastic and easily molded, and it
retains its impressions more indelibly; later it is hard to modify, and
the impressions made are less permanent. It is hard to teach an old dog
new tricks; nor would he remember them if you could teach them to him,
nor be able to perform them well even if he could remember them. The
young child will, within the first few weeks of its life, form habits of
sleeping and feeding. It may in a few days be led into the habit of
sleeping in the dark, or requiring a light; of going to sleep lying
quietly, or of insisting upon being rocked; of getting hungry by the
clock, or of wanting its food at all times when it finds nothing else to
do, and so on. It is wholly outside the power of the mother or the nurse
to determine whether the child shall form habits, but largely within
their power to say what habits shall be formed, since they control his
acts.
As the child grows older, the range of his habits increases; and by the
time he has reached his middle teens, the greater number of his personal
habits are formed. It is very doubtful whether a boy who has not formed
habits of punctuality before the age of fifteen will ever be entirely
trustworthy in matters requiring precision in this line. The girl who
has not, before this age, formed habits of neatness and order will
hardly make a tidy housekeeper later in her life. Those who in youth
have no opportunity to habituate themselves to the usages of society may
study books on etiquette and employ private instructors in the art of
polite behavior all they please later in life, but they will never cease
to be awkward and ill at ease. None are at a greater disadvantage than
the suddenly-grown-rich who attempt late in life to surround themselves
with articles of art and luxury, though their habits were all formed
amid barrenness and want during their earlier years.
THE HABIT OF ACHIEVEMENT.--What youth does not dream of being great, or
noble, or a celebrated scholar! And how few there are who finally
achieve their ideals! Where does the cause of failure lie? Surely not in
the lack of high ideals. Multitudes of young people have "Excelsior!" as
their motto, and yet never get started up the mountain slope, let alone
toiling on to its top. They have put in hours dreaming of the glory
farther up, _and have never begun to climb_. The difficulty comes in not
realizing that the only way to become what we wish or dream that we may
become is _to form the habit of being that thing_. To form the habit of
achievement, of effort, of self-sacrifice, if need be. To form the habit
of deeds along with dreams; to form the habit of _doing_.
Who of us has not at this moment lying in wait for his convenience in
the dim future a number of things which he means to do just as soon as
this term of school is finished, or this job of work is completed, or
when he is not so busy as now? And how seldom does he ever get at these
things at all! Darwin tells that in his youth he loved poetry, art, and
music, but was so busy with his scientific work that he could ill spare
the time to indulge these tastes. So he promised himself that he would
devote his time to scientific work and make his mark in this. Then he
would have time for the things that he loved, and would cultivate his
taste for the fine arts. He made his mark in the field of science, and
then turned again to poetry, to music, to art. But alas! they were all
dead and dry bones to him, without life or interest. He had passed the
time when he could ever form the taste for them. He had formed his
habits in another direction, and now it was forever too late to form new
habits. His own conclusion is, that if he had his life to live over
again, he would each week listen to some musical concert and visit some
art gallery, and that each day he would read some poetry, and thereby
keep alive and active the love for them.
So every school and home should be a species of habit-factory--a place
where children develop habits of neatness, punctuality, obedience,
politeness, dependability and the other graces of character.
5. RULES FOR HABIT-FORMING
JAMES'S THREE MAXIMS FOR HABIT-FORMING.--On the forming of new habits
and the leaving off of old ones, I know of no better statement than that
of James, based on Bain's chapter on "Moral Habits." I quote this
statement at some length: "In the acquisition of a new habit, or the
leaving off of an old one, we must take care to _launch ourselves with
as strong and decided an initiative as possible_. Accumulate all the
possible circumstances which shall reënforce right motives; put yourself
assiduously in conditions that encourage the new way; make engagements
incompatible with the old; take a public pledge, if the case allows; in
short, develop your resolution with every aid you know. This will give
your new beginning such a momentum that the temptation to break down
will not occur as soon as it otherwise might; and every day during which
a breakdown is postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring at
all.
"The second maxim is: _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 undoes
more than a great many turns will wind again. _Continuity_ of training
is the great means of making the nervous system act infallibly right....
The need of securing success nerves one to future vigor.
"A third maxim may be added to the preceding pair: _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 the habits
you aspire to gain._ It is not in 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."[3]
THE PREPONDERANCE OF GOOD HABITS OVER BAD.--And finally, let no one be
disturbed or afraid because in a little time you become a "walking
bundle of habits." For in so far as your good actions predominate over
your bad ones, that much will your good habits outweigh your bad habits.
Silently, moment by moment, efficiency is growing out of all worthy acts
well done. Every bit of heroic self-sacrifice, every battle fought and
won, every good deed performed, is being irradicably credited to you in
your nervous system, and will finally add its mite toward achieving the
success of your ambitions.
6. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
1. Select some act which you have recently begun to perform and watch it
grow more and more habitual. Notice carefully for a week and see whether
you do not discover some habits which you did not know you had. Make a
catalog of your bad habits; of the most important of your good ones.
2. Set out to form some new habits which you desire to possess; also to
break some undesirable habit, watching carefully what takes place in
both cases, and how long it requires.
3. Try the following experiment and relate the results to the matter of
automatic control brought about by habit: Draw a star on a sheet of
cardboard. Place this on a table before you, with a hand-mirror so
arranged that you can see the star in the mirror. Now trace the outline
of the star with a pencil, looking steadily in the mirror to guide your
hand. Do not lift the pencil from the paper from the time you start
until you finish. Have others try this experiment.
4. Study some group of pupils for their habits (1) of attention, (2) of
speech, (3) of standing, sitting, and walking, (4) of study. Report on
your observations and suggest methods of curing bad habits observed.
5. Make a list of "mannerisms" you have observed, and suggest how they
may be cured.
6. Make a list of from ten to twenty habits which you think the school
and its work should especially cultivate. What ones of these are the
schools you know least successful in cultivating? Where does the trouble
lie?