Habits

It’s the Labor Day weekend. Most of us are at least a bit excited. Why? Because this weekend we will do something at least a little different, even if it’s just not going to work on Monday. Different is good and exciting.

“We are what we repeatedly do.” Aristotle. We are creatures of habit. Consider how much of what we do each day is what we did yesterday and what we will do tomorrow. When we rise, when we go to bed, what we eat, what we wear, what we say… all habits.

It’s kind of discouraging to consider just how unoriginal we are. We consider it a good or even exciting day, when we just do something different.  Much of what we do, many of our habits, we aren’t really thrilled about. We have habits not always because we’ve discovered the best or most satisfying way to do something. It’s just what we do, because it’s what we always do. Frightening how little sense that makes.

Most us feel our lives could be better. We could be doing a better job of whatever we believe we should be doing. For example, as Christians we believe we should be growing in our knowledge of Christ and making Him better known, but we’re not.

That leaves us with an awful lot we would like to change. If we give it much thought we realize that if we could change our habits we could change our lives. We could be accomplishing what we know we should. Why don’t we?

Habits are powerful. They are as difficult to intentionally start as they are to stop. If we give our habits much thought, it’s often tough to recall how we got into them, and have no idea how to get out of them.

Habits are comfortable. They are easier to live with than to change. We are so used to them, that they seem part of us.  They identify us. Who would we be without them?

We are afraid to abandon habits. A change of habit takes us into the great unknown. The unknown is dark and different and scary. We aren’t in love with all our habits, but better the enemy we know, right?

Maybe our labor on Labor Day should be considering the habits that make up our lives and identifying those we really want to change. A habit inventory: It’s the just the first step in changing what we don’t love about our lives.