To Be What One Desires to Be. The Notion of Habit and Its Educational Value

Abstract

Habits are crucial to the development of what could be referred to as the most human facet of mortals. Habit is an operational device, a way of thinking or acting, which predisposes us, or makes it easier concerning thinking and behaviour, to go in the direction we have decided upon.

Strictly speaking, habit is not the same as custom or routine, and it does not arise through a repeated action. While habits bring stability to our way of thinking and acting, they do not save our having to plan nor take decisions. Consequently, it becomes easier for us to feel better about ourselves, to feel more at ease as to our habitual way of living, and so our behaviour accordingly adapts to suit our being.

At its core, educating consists of encouraging intellectual and moral habits, stable patterns of behaviour which condition us with regard to specific ways of thinking and acting which end up becoming very much “ours”, also emotionally: we recognise ourselves easily through those patterns because they are part and parcel of our natural being (first nature) causing the behaviours in question to ensue spontaneously; though this does not always happen effortlessly, it does so with lesser or minimum effort. That being the case, thanks to the consolidated habit, the way we conduct ourselves is no longer “forced”.