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.
Personal Influence
"I shot an arrow in the air;
It fell on earth, I knew not where.
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I breathed a song into the air;