Old Habits Die Hard

I have recently been considering how difficult it is to overcome habits, how violently our nature rebels against any attempts to break routines that we have settled down into.

Why do we react in such a way – is it because of the feeling of security that the established patterns impart to our daily lives, is it due to the apprehension of the new and the unknown that we would be forced to face if our routines were to change?

Even though we engage in these routines only once a day or once a week like, for example, always having a nap after a big meal, nevertheless we have to use all of our strengths when we try to change these patterns of behavior and overcome the fear that any such change automatically brings with it.

Now imagine if there existed an activity such that we engaged in it literally from the very moment of our births and continued to engage in it unceasingly every moment of our lives, the habit getting stronger and stronger with every passing second.

How unimaginably, inconceivably strong would our resistance be, with what extreme panic and horror would our natures react if any attempt was made to break the habit of engaging in this particular activity.

Such an activity really does exist but as it is so ubiquitous, so deeply ingrained in our nature, so accustomed are we to its persistent presence that we do not even notice ourselves practicing it. Because we never have been forced to experience the world without engaging in this activity, we have become blasé to its presence and take it for granted.

We engage in it by default, because we’ve been doing it all of our lives, we cling to it despite everything because we are afraid of discovering what things would be like without it. It is the strongest, most tenacious habit that a person possesses and consequently the hardest to break.

If only we were to see that our fear of ceasing this activity is nothing more than the ordinary fear of breaking a habit, magnified many times over by its deep-rootedness in our nature, then we would see that this fear has no rational basis. We, therefore, would finally be in a position to overcome the fear that overshadows and stains every moment of our lives, the fear of death.

If one calls into question this depiction of living as a habit, the onus is on him to examine his life and determine whether or not the overriding motivation for his existence is something other than the force of habit, if he lives for a reason other than the inertia of custom and if his life is more than just a routine that he has fallen into.