Help define your world by participating.

Submit your definition on this topic by clicking here.
Please include a first name and location when submitting your definition.

HABIT

Conformity embraced.

Obstinately perpetuating sameness.

Grandparents’ admonitions ‘living on’.

Propriety adhered to daily by the sycophant.

Busy-ness that masks the dilemmas of choice.

What we are actually struggling with when fear binds us to inertia.

The cornerstone of self-deception’s comforting “you have arrived.”

That which keeps us from seeing clearly where we have been and where we are going.

A grave impediment to initiative and innovation which may determine an unfruitful, uneventful life.

A fortress against risk, a disdainer of impulse, an inhibitor of innovation, an impediment to discovery, an excuse for laziness and complacency.
 

• Perhaps change is too threatening or confusing so we cling to repetition.
   
• Perhaps the world is a feast when you are willing to ‘taste’ the possibilities.
   
• Perhaps the courage to question your viewpoints comes from the security of your love.
   
• Perhaps the girth of bloated satiation indicates how enduring the ‘marriage’ to excess has been.
   
• Perhaps the greatest hope for the human race is the sincere and constant questioning of ‘old ways’.
   
• Perhaps your drive for security can lead to complacency; perhaps this handicap will most certainly undermine your potential.
   
• Perhaps you bask blithely in the image you portray to the ‘world’; perhaps your appearance of respectability belies a cold, rigid heart.
   
• Perhaps all creatures opt for familiar, safe choices; perhaps restlessness, imagination and determination are unique, human traits that engender ‘progress’.
   
• Perhaps ‘risk taking’ is a multi-faceted, multi-layered experience for everyone; perhaps daily ‘skirmishes’ involving egos and ‘situations’ are best resolved with flexibility, courage and commitment.
   
• Perhaps ‘character growth’ is difficult when you are reluctant to consider what should and can be changed; perhaps aging strengthens the stranglehold of ‘sameness’; perhaps, however, it is always possible to cast off your ‘shackles of habit’.

ESSAY ON HABIT by EDWIN O’SHEA

RETURN HOME

©2007-2008 Edwin O'Shea and definingyourworld.com. All or part of only one topic, including all definitions and essay, may be used without written permission. Please see full copyright notice on home page.