29. Power of Custom
There are many who find themselves in the toils of an evil custom who would most willingly give money and time to be free from its control. Montaigne says, "Custom is a violent and treacherous school-mistress. She, by little and little, slyly and unperceivedly slips in the foot of her authority; but having by this gentle and humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which we have no more the courage or the power to lift up our eyes." Custom is the law of one class of people and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash, for precedence is the legislator of the first and novelty of the second. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present; but both are somewhat purblind as to things that are to come. Of the two, fashion imposes the heaviest burdens, for she cheats her votaries of their time, their fortune, and their comforts, and she repays them only with the celebrity of being ridiculed and despised—a very paradoxical mode of payment, yet always most thankfully received.
It is surprising to what an extent our likes and dislikes are creatures of custom. Our modes of belief, thoughts, and opinions are molded and shaped by what has been the prevailing mode of thinking heretofore. Though we are, indeed, not so given to the worship of past institutions as some people, yet we all acknowledge the prevailing power of custom, of personal habits, and of fashions. We dare not stand alone in any matter of concern, but wish to be in company of those similarly minded. The law of opinion goes forth. We do not ask who promulgates it, but fall into the ranks of its followers and worshipers. We are whirled in the giddy ranks and blinded by the dazzling lights. Novelty is the show, conformity is the law—and life a trance, until at last we awake from it to find that we have been the victims of a fatal folly and a bewildering dream.
Habit is man's best friend or worst enemy. It can exalt him to the highest pinnacle of virtue, honor, or happiness, or sink him to the lowest depths of vice, shame, and misery. If we look back upon the usual course of our feelings we shall find that we are more influenced by the frequent recurrence of objects than by their weight and importance, and that habit has more force in forming our character than our opinions. The mind naturally takes its tone and complexion from what it habitually contemplates. "Whatever may be the cause," says Lord Kames, "it is an established fact that we are much influenced by custom. It hath an effect upon our pleasures, upon our actions, and even upon our thoughts and sentiments." Habit makes no figure during the vivacity of youth, in middle age it gains ground, and in old age governs without control. In that period of life, generally speaking, we eat at a certain hour, take exercise at a certain time, all by the direction of habit; nay, a particular seat, table, and bed comes to be essential, and a habit in any of these can not be contradicted without uneasiness. Man, it has been said, is a bundle of habits, and habit is a second nature. Metastasio entertained so strong an opinion as to the power of repetition in act and thought that he said, "All is habit in mankind, even virtue itself."
Beginning with single acts habit is formed slowly at first, and it is not till its spider's thread is woven in a thick cable that its existence is suspected. Then it is found that beginning in cobwebs it ends in chains. Gulliver was bound as fast by the Lilliputians with multiplied threads as if they had used ropes. "Like flakes of snow that fall unperceivedly upon the earth," says Jeremy Bentham, "the seemingly unimportant events of life succeed one another." As the snow gathers so are our habits formed; no single flake that is added to the pile produces a sensible change; no single action creates, however it may exhibit, a man's character. But as the tempest hurls the avalanche down the mountain and overwhelms the inhabitant and his habitation, so passion, acting upon the elements of mischief which pernicious habits have brought together by imperceptible accumulation, may overthrow the edifice of truth and virtue.
The force of habit renders pleasant many things which at first were intensely disagreeable or even painful. Walking upon the quarter-deck of a vessel, though felt at first to be intolerably confined, becomes, by repetition, so agreeable to the sailor that, in his walks on shore, he often hems himself within the same bounds. Arctic explorers become so accustomed to the hardships incident to such a life that they do not enjoy the comforts of home when they return. So powerful is the effect of constant repetition of action that men whose habits are fixed may almost be said to have lost their free agency. Their actions become of the nature of fate, and they are so bound by the chains which they have woven for themselves that they do that which they have been accustomed to do even when they know it can yield neither pleasure nor profit.
Those who are in the power of an evil habit must conquer it as they can, and conquered it must be, or neither wisdom nor happiness can be obtained; but those who are not yet subject to their influence may, by timely caution, preserve their freedom. They may effectually resolve to escape the tyrant whom they will vainly resolve to conquer. Be not slow in the breaking of a sinful custom; a quick, courageous resolution is better than a gradual deliberation; in such a combat he is the bravest soldier who lays about him without fear or wit. Wit pleads; fear disheartens. He who would kill hydra had better strike off one neck than five heads,—fell the tree and the branches are soon cut off. Vicious habits are so great a strain on human nature, said Cicero, and so odious in themselves that every person actuated by right reason would avoid them, though he were sure they would always be concealed both from God and man and had no future punishment entailed on them. Vicious habits, when opposed, offer the most vigorous resistance on the first attack; at each successive encounter this resistance grows weaker, until, finally, it ceases altogether, and the victory is achieved.
Such being the power of habit all can plainly see the importance of forming habits of such a nature that they shall constantly tend to increase our happiness, and to render more sure and certain that success the attaining of which is the object of all our endeavors. We may form habits of honesty or knavery, frugality or extravagance, of patience or impatience, self-denial or self-indulgence. In short, there is not a virtue nor a vice, not an act of body nor of mind, to which we may not be chained by this despotic power. It has been truly said that even happiness may become habitual. One may acquire the habit of looking upon the sunny side of things, or of looking upon the gloomy side. He may accustom himself, by a happy alchemy, to transmute the darkest events into materials for hopes. Hume, the historian, said that the habit of looking at the bright side of things was better than an income of a thousand pounds a year.
Habits which are to be commended are not to be formed in a day, nor by a few faint resolutions, not by accident, not by fits and starts—being one moment in a paroxysm of attention and the next falling into the sleep of indifference—are they to be obtained, but by steady, persistent efforts. Above all, it is necessary that they should be acquired in youth, for then do they cost the least effort. Like letters cut in the bark of a tree, they grow and widen with age. Once obtained they are a fortune of themselves, for their possessor has disposed thereby of the heavier end of the load of life; all the remaining he can carry easily and pleasantly. On the other hand, bad habits, once formed, will hang forever on the wheels of enterprise, and in the end will assert their supremacy, to the ruin and shame of their victim.
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