WAY TO GO! Are you a “creature” of habit?
I don't care at all for that “creature” reference - it makes me sound like too much of a pet critter of some sort – but I suppose most of us are given to an in-born urge - if it be that - to duplicating the thing we are doing the easy way in which we have always done it. It saves time. It saves effort. It saves unnecessary wear-and-tear to the patience of all those folks who react to our actions.
Much of my own habitude, I like to assume, affects me alone. It's my business, I decide – and yet I know that's not right even as write it down. Of course not, because each of us is a model to someone else far more often than we realize.
Improper habits, we all come to know eventually, can become a prisoner of the worst sort. Some of those are more noticeable than others, fortunately, so we can learn to avoid serious entanglement with many of them. Continuing to smoke cigarettes, for instance, after trying a few of them or of belting back a brace of bubbling brews at a bar just because others seem to be generating kicks by doing so - is an invitation to an ignoble stance,to say the least. Common sense kicks in and we have formed a “habit”- worthy one.
I have of getting up around six each morning. I have been known to talk myself out of doing so on occasion, but, by and large, I like to start my day a just about the same time the day itself is getting under way. It became habit when I had to get up at that hour at six in order for me to be at my work-place desk at eight.
I was thinking about is thing of forming new habits just this morning while watching and listening to a mish-mash of disaster news including two hurricanes – A & P waters – at once; the mess in Iraq, etc.; another “can't-happen” polygamy sweep in mountain-time areas, another deadly aircraft crash; nuke notes from Iran; “next” in the Karr-Ramsey drama; style news about “whale tail” baggy pants and bare BB short shirts!
How did we get to this particular juncture in our present societal level? Is it all edging still lower, or is that sinking feeling I have just my imagination running wild?
It's high time we examined our old habits and see to starting some new ones. Suggested areas: New Orleans, the United Nations concept, political stability, excesses in “enjoyments” - entertainments, sports, religion, fat, fads, and fantasy ... and foremost among them all... the end of war and the discovery of Peace.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 9-2-06 [c470wds]
