Habits. You cannot live without them. They make life easier for us because they pretty much regulate our behavior.

Habits are ingrained learned ways of doing things. Watch a little child try to brush his teeth. We say he isn’t used to it. In reality he has not acquired the skill nor the habit. Even when he knows how, he will have to be reminded until he has the habit. Then, he will be set for life.

When he goes to school, he must eventually acquire good study habits in order to actualize his full potential. He might be intelligent, but unless he has study habits he might even flunk or barely pass. I repeated grade four and graduated at the end of the class while in elementary school. I had no study habits. When I entered the seminary I found studying long hours very difficult, but I eventually got some long delayed study habits that got me through the thirteen years of schooling required to reach the priesthood.

If you are to be successful, you will need a lot of good habits to keep you steady as you go through life. A virtue is a habitual way of thinking. The honest man who cannot be corrupted has a habit of thinking integrity. It is so deeply ingrained in his mind that he can easily walk away from an attempt bribe.

If, on the other hand, he is a dishonest man, he too has a habit, but it is a habit that makes it easy for him to steal. It is a habit that he acquired years ago. It began with stealing small items, and cheating in school, lying, deceit, etc. Habits that went opposite of truthful and honest living.

We have to be careful about the habits we acquire. The good ones will benefit us and lead us to a happy lifestyle.

There are unhealthy habits that weaken us. Eating habits that cripple the body and can cause early death. Habits that translate into offensive behavior. Impolite manners, for instance, can work against our success.

Addictions are habits that trap us in ways that disrupt our lives and can possibly even kill us. The drug addict is caught in compulsive behavior that slowly destroys him. The alcoholic has, like the drug addict, such a strong habit that it causes changes in the brain and makes it very difficult to break.

Smokers know how hard it is to “break the habit” that is killing them. Gamblers have acquired a habit that is impoverishing them and they seem helpless to stop.

The lesson to be learned here is clear: habits can be good, but they can also be bad. They can build and they can destroy. It all boils down to this: control your habits, don’t let them control you.