victories all along the line.
Habit the Foundation of Personality.—The biologist tells us that it is the
constant and not the occasional in the environment that impresses itself on an
organism. So also it is the habitual in our lives that builds itself into our
character and personality. In a very real sense we are what we are in the habit of
doing and thinking.
Without habit, personality could not exist; for we could never do a thing twice
alike, and hence would be a new person each succeeding moment. The acts
which give us our own peculiar individuality are our habitual acts—the little
things that do themselves moment by moment without care or attention, and are
the truest and best expression of our real selves. Probably no one of us could be
very sure which arm he puts into the sleeve, or which foot he puts into the shoe,
first; and yet each of us certainly formed the habit long ago of doing these things
in a certain way. We might not be able to describe just how we hold knife and
fork and spoon, and yet each has his own characteristic and habitual way of
handling them. We sit down and get up in some characteristic way, and the very
poise of our heads and attitudes of our bodies are the result of habit. We get
sleepy and wake up, become hungry and thirsty at certain hours, through force of
habit. We form the habit of liking a certain chair, or nook, or corner, or path, or
desk, and then seek this to the exclusion of all others. We habitually use a
particular pitch of voice and type of enunciation in speaking, and this becomes
one of our characteristic marks; or we form the habit of using barbarisms or
solecisms of language in youth, and these cling to us and become an inseparable
part of us later in life.
On the mental side the case is no different. Our thinking is as characteristic as
our physical acts. We may form the habit of thinking things out logically, or of
jumping to conclusions; of thinking critically and independently, or of taking
things unquestioningly on the authority of others. We may form the habit of
carefully reading good, sensible books, or of skimming sentimental and trashy
ones; of choosing elevating, ennobling companions, or the opposite; of being a
good conversationalist and doing our part in a social group, or of being a drag on
the conversation, and needing to be "entertained." We may form the habit of
observing the things about us and enjoying the beautiful in our environment, or
of failing to observe or to enjoy. We may form the habit of obeying the voice of
conscience or of weakly yielding to temptation without a struggle; of taking a
reverent attitude of prayer in our devotions, or of merely saying our prayers.