October's Theme: Habit

This month, we thought we'd put a meta-concept under the microscope of Mutual Improvement: habit.

Many great minds have contemplated the role of habits in our lives and left us words of advice. "The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half." wrote Feodor Dostoevski, a word of warning to those who don't rework their habits.
The writer John Dryden expressed the same idea thus: "We first make our habits, and then our habits make us." This month, we want to rework what we know about habit: how do they form, what is their function, how can we put habit to use in our lives?

Whether we are aware of them or not, habits have a profound impact on our lives. Much that we do successfully and with pleasure, we also do habitually. Much that we struggle to change in our lives involves reworking a habit. In many ways, our habits define us. "We are what we repeatedly do." wrote Aristotle, giving habit a chief role in his ethics. "Virtue then, is not an act, but a habit."

How is it that the simple repetition of actions or thoughts become such a force in our lives? A Chinese proverb says, "Habits are cobwebs at first; cables at last". This months theme is all about spinning the cobwebs that will define who we are, and breaking the cables that hold us back from where we are trying to go.

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[Jordan]

The worst vice of a fanatic is his sincerity.
~Oscar Wilde

Our virtues are most often but our vices disguised.
~François de la Rochefoucauld