Our Habits Make Us

"The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt till they are too strong to be broken."
SAMUEL JOHNSON.

"The tissue of the life to be,
We weave with colors all our own;
And in the field of destiny,
We reap as we have sown."
WHITTIER.

    The great thing in all education is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisition, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual, as soon as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the certain temptations to adopt ways likely to lead us down the wrong path.  We simply must - if we hope to succeed - avoid behaviors or actions disadvantageous to us, as we would guard against the plague.

    Just one little lie to help me out of this difficulty; "I won't count this." Just one little embezzlement; no one will know it, and I can return the money before it will be needed. Just one little indulgence; I won't count it, and a good night's sleep will make me all right again. Just one small part of my work slighted; it won't make any great difference, and, besides, I am usually so careful that a little thing like this ought not to be counted.

    But, my young friend, it will be counted, whether you will or not; the deed has been recorded with an iron pen, even to the smallest detail. The Recording Angel is no myth; it is found in ourselves. Its name is Memory, and it holds everything. We think we have forgotten thousands of things until mortal danger, fever, or some other great stimulus reproduces them to the consciousness with all the fidelity of photographs.

    Sometimes all one's past life will seem to pass before him in an instant; but at all times it is really, although unconsciously, passing before him in the sentiments he feels, in the thoughts he thinks, in the impulses that move him apparently without cause.

"Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still."