Habit: Involuntary Routines

How much of our expe­ri­ence is dri­ven by invol­un­tary ten­den­cies and habits? Under­stand­ing the nature and essence of habit in our lives is an essen­tial task. Habits are both inevitable and unavoid­able. They are a medium of per­cep­tion; a com­plex net­work of fil­ters that influ­ence how we inter­pret and ori­ent our­selves to every­day life. The effect of an invol­un­tary pat­tern of behav­ior can be pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive. How­ever, for learn­ing to evolve we must be fully aware of and develop the abil­ity to evolve the habits that influ­ence us.

What is a habit?: The are var­i­ous senses of the word habit. One of the most com­mon senses of the word describes habit as a repet­i­tive and invol­un­tary pat­tern of behav­ior that oper­ates out­side of our own aware­ness. In this sense, a habit is some­thing that is con­trol­ling, or at least influ­enc­ing, our thoughts, feel­ings and actions. The col­lec­tive ver­sion of a habit is a prac­tice, cus­tom or tra­di­tion, all of which describe rou­tines used by groups of peo­ple. All habits are forms of con­fine­ment.

An addic­tion describes a kind of habit that orig­i­nates in a phys­i­o­log­i­cal and/or psy­cho­log­i­cal need for a habit-forming sub­stance. How­ever, all habits are in an impor­tant sense an addic­tion. Regard­less of the spe­cific nature of a habit, the brain always pro­duces spe­cific chem­i­cals in response to spe­cific expe­ri­ences (or more accu­rately our own unique inter­pre­ta­tion of expe­ri­ence); chem­i­cals do not need to be intro­duced exter­nally for an addic­tion to develop. In other words, we can be addicted to our own thought-patterns and emo­tional responses. All habits there­fore have a phys­i­o­log­i­cal as well as a psy­cho­log­i­cal foun­da­tion; the phys­i­ol­ogy and psy­chol­ogy of a habit are a sin­gle uni­fied entity. All habits are body­mind phenomenon.

An addic­tion also involves the idea of com­pul­sion or com­pul­sive behav­ior. When we are addicted to some­thing we feel an seem­ingly irre­sistible attrac­tion to act often in irra­tional ways. An addic­tion is the space in which we can know some­thing is wrong yet con­tinue to per­form it time and time again. This reen­act­ment can range from a depen­dency on a nar­cotic, to a depen­dency on a spe­cific emo­tional response. In the midst of an addic­tion, knowl­edge becomes frail and all too often fails us.

Why do habits mat­ter?: Learn­ing, or at least edu­ca­tion, is often thought of as a process of acquir­ing knowl­edge, skills, and/or atti­tudes. Mys­te­ri­ously, the sig­nif­i­cantly more pow­er­ful idea of habit is largely ignored. Learn­ing, in its most essen­tial sense, does not ignore habit as a tar­get for our fac­ul­ties per­cep­tion and awareness.

How many peo­ple that might be con­sid­ered advanced in their knowl­edge, skills and atti­tudes fall vic­tim to irra­tional habits and addic­tions? How is it pos­si­ble that we can know how to act in the best inter­ests of self and oth­ers, yet all to often fail to do so? Under­stand­ing the nature of our habits is a pre­req­ui­site to under­stand­ing knowl­edge since it is through the lens of habit that we both appre­hend and comprehend.

How do habits relate to learn­ing?: How do habit­ual rou­tines of thought, feel­ing, and behav­ior, sup­port or under­mine our capac­ity for learn­ing? Every­thing that we think, feel and do is in some way touched by the influ­ence of habit. Habits are learn­ing envi­ron­ments that offer the pos­si­bil­ity of chang­ing how we choose to expe­ri­ence the world around us.

Habits deter learn­ing if they serve to cre­ate a lim­i­ta­tion or con­fine­ment of expe­ri­ence. That is, if the lock us into cer­tain kinds mode of expe­ri­ence while deter­ring us from explor­ing other modes of expe­ri­ence. In this sense a habit is a lim­i­ta­tion and a source of expe­ri­en­tial impris­on­ment. Edu­ca­tion is a habit from which we have not yet recovered.

If the habit is unknown to us, in other words we con­sis­tently enact the habit with­out know­ing we are doing so, then we are in effect act­ing mind­lessly. In a sense, we don’t really know what we are doing. Aware­ness is the capac­ity of mind that serves to reveal a habit and expose it to our pow­ers of obser­va­tion. With­out the abil­ity to become con­sciously aware of the habits that con­trol us, the pos­si­bil­ity of advanc­ing our learn­ing is at least impaired if not com­pletely devastated.

Habits there­fore form an impor­tant envi­ron­ment or medium for learn­ing; they are both an essen­tial class­room and trusted men­tor. The inter­face with our habits is our power of aware­ness, that abil­ity to train our atten­tion inward in order to observe what is really hap­pen­ing within our­selves. A habit exposed is a tri­umph of learning.

Learn­ing Habits: Habits are a nec­es­sary con­di­tion of liv­ing. With­out them our minds would suf­fer from per­sis­tent over­load and we would be men­tally and phys­i­cally inca­pac­i­tated. Some habits are ben­e­fi­cial while other habits are detri­men­tal. Any habit we are unaware of is a prob­lem as well as an oppor­tu­nity for advanc­ing learn­ing. The inter­sec­tion of learn­ing and habits involves the fol­low­ing notions:

• Learn­ing must serve to help reveal our habit­ual responses in life, oth­er­wise we remain vic­tim to mind­less routine;
• Learn­ing about habits involves: a) reveal­ing them through aware­ness; b) alter­ing or cre­at­ing them through inten­tion; c) elim­i­nat­ing those habits that do not serve us; and d) man­i­fest­ing new forms of action and behavior;
• Learn­ing, with­out under­stand­ing how our own habits influ­ence and affect us, impairs our abil­ity to inter­pret our expe­ri­ences in life;
• Any habit is simul­ta­ne­ously a phys­i­o­log­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal entity;
• Cul­ture is a sig­nif­i­cant source of habit for­ma­tion and dis­sem­i­na­tion. When we undo habits we are also undo­ing our cul­tural conditioning.