When we consciously and deliberately develop new and better habits, our self image tends to outgrow the old habits and grow into the new pattern.
The U.N. brings everybody together. And without it, we can't deal with Ebola or terrorism or climate change. But it's 70 years old. It's tired. It's acquired a lot of bad habits. And often it feels like only new bad habits get added and old bad habits don't get taken away.
Old rules and habits have to be rejected and dismissed so that something new can be created.
Being stuck is a position few of us like. We want something new but cannot let go of the old - old ideas, beliefs, habits, even thoughts. We are out of contact with our own genius. Sometimes we know we are stuck; sometimes we don't. In both cases we have to DO something.
Whatever your present situation, I assure you that you are not your habits. You can replace old patterns of self-defeating behavior with new patterns, new habits of the effectiveness, happiness and trust-based relationships.
It will be difficult to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me, like tugging a single thread from a complex work of embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else.
Marco Polo tells the tale of The Old Man in the Mountains and how he recruits new members to his Band of Assassins by means of drugs, beautiful women, lush gardens, and religious promises. The unfortunate thing about this world is that the good habits are much easier to give up than the bad ones.
There’s something about it that makes other good habits easier.
It is the inevitable effect of religion on public policy that makes it a matter of public concern. Advocates of religiosity extol the virtues or moral habits that religion is supposed to instill in us. But we should be equally concerned with the intellectual habits it discourages.
A birthday is a good time to begin a new; throwing away the old habits, as you would old clothes, and never putting them again.
?In every crisis there is a message. Crises are nature's way of forcing change - breaking down old structures, shaking loose negative habits so that something new and better can take their place.
Cravings are what drive habits. And figuring out how to spark a craving makes creating a new habit easier.
Unless the desire to change remains strong, body and mind tend to return to old, familiar patterns. It takes time-from three to six months-for old habits to become obsolete. By the end of that time, you'll have adapted to a new pattern. In a sense, you'll have found a new way of life.
He ought to buy her a new dress. She would never accept it, of course, but maybe if her current garments were accidentally burned... ...But how could he manage to burn her dress? She'd have to not be wearing it, and that posed a certain challenge in and of itself.
Old friends, like old shoes, are comfortable. But old shoes, unlike old friends, tend not to be supportive: it is easier to stumble and sprain an ankle while wearing a pair of old shoes than it is in new shoes, with their less yielding leather.
Old habits are hard to forget, and old fears are habits.