Proverbs 23:7 says “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Not to be confused with Descartes’ famous saying, “I think therefore I am.” This verse in Proverbs implies emotional awareness and conscience—an intuitive understanding that what is felt in the heart manifests from inside to out. What we keep in our hearts ultimately directs our actions, whether we know them to be good or bad. If what is in our hearts is pain, strife, suffering and vengeance, then our behaviors will only serve to create those feelings. If what is in our hearts is compassion, understanding, temperance and justice, then likewise, our behaviors will follow suit.
The author understands that it is absolutely crucial for the heart of children to be guided and tempered to keep them away from vices and temptation. There must be a solid foundation in place to prevent temptations from sinking in, a foundation that is built with virtue and integrity. Virtue and integrity are the sword and shield that help to combat temptation and vice. It is a virtuous heart that beats with the warmth of compassion and unshakeable spirit, and the way one can prevent their heart from becoming cold and hard is to establish good principles and good habits.
Principles
Let’s start with a definition of principles. I want to start out by saying that the author provides the definition of the word itself, but only implies what he means by “good” principles. The same goes with his definition for habits. In the next part, we will be discussing what can be considered as “good” principles and habits and where they come from, and we will be developing a working definition for virtues, vice, and temptation as well. For this part however, we are going to simply go along with the author and accept his implied meanings.
The author refers to principles as the “source” of moral habits, which indicates that what is right and wrong are implied and embedded within them. The author gives a great description of how principles are enacted: “Our principles may be compared to the roots of a tree, unseen, but the source of life; while our habits are like the branches, conspicuous to the world, but dependent upon the roots for their existence.” Roots provide the tree with a foundation from which to grow. The bigger and deeper the roots grow, the stronger the tree can become. There are a couple of key concerns when it comes to the formation of principles: the health of the soil, the time in which the roots are planted, and the habits that reinforce the roots.
The metaphorical soil in which a child grows is represented by the health and involvement of the parents. It is the parents that provide the foundation and nourishment in which the child can grow. If the relationship of the parents is unhealthy, then the development of the child will become tainted and disrupted. The growth of the child is entirely dependent on the parents’ ability to provide them with a stable, nourishing structure. A stable structure in this case is learning from an early age what will promote growth and what will promote destruction. That is why there is an element of morality that comes into play. A child who learns right from wrong early on is better equipped to avoid falling into pits of vice and temptation.
Principles therefore serve a particular goal and purpose. They have a specific target and means of striking that target. If the parents fail to instill their child with a sense of purpose, then that child is likely to wander down paths of vice and temptation. If the growing child still fails to be particular with their principles, they will very likely find trouble that could have easily been avoided—trouble that can have lifelong consequences. An adolescent coming into adulthood who still fails to develop their sense of purpose is ultimately condemned to unconscious possession—to be steered by inner forces in which they have little to no control over. Much like a raft in the middle of the ocean without any supplies or even a paddle. Principles are the groundwork, and they are reinforced by the development of habits.
Habits
The word habit comes from the Latin term habeo, which means to have or to hold. As a noun and a verb, habit means to dress or wear a garb. The author uses these definitions to create the understanding that habits are something that a person has, not what a person is. Much like the fact that our clothes are worn on the outside, they are not part of us. Habits are formed by repeated actions over time. We know that habits have the sense of being automatic, something that we no longer notice or give much thought to because of its regularity.
We are not born with habits, they are cultivated over time through repeated actions. When our habits form determines the strength of them later in life. A habit that is formed by age 4 will become deeply ingrained as that particular behavior is continually repeated into adulthood. This means that the kinds of habits that are established and when they are established are absolutely crucial to the development of good or bad behavior. This is why it is important to have proper groundwork via principles.
Habits serve to reinforce whatever principles (or lack thereof) are established in early life. They are the branches that grow and eventually develop the leaves that gather nourishment from the Sun. Toxic soil will produce sick leaves and sick leaves cannot gather or create nourishment. One bad action that is repeated becomes a bad habit. One cigarette can turn someone into a pack-a-day smoker. One pornographic video can create the need for daily consumption. One single temptation can be all that is needed to create a cyclic vice that saps the life of an individual. Very few have the ability to moderate their vices, and those who are young when the habits set in have no chance of being able to moderate them without serious intervention.
Actions that are performed thoughtlessly can create unconscious patterns in which an individual doesn’t realize a habit has been formed. Mental illness and other comorbidities create situations like these. Hoarders are good examples. Their compulsive need to collect and retain things drives that behavior. They are typically not aware of the negative consequences until they have amassed such a number of things that normal life becomes impossible to navigate. Even then, there are those who remain unaware of the damage that their compulsive habits have caused. Thoughtless actions occur more often when one has no particular goal or purpose (principles). There are many pitfalls that lead to temptation and vice, and thoughtlessness is just another way that bad habits take hold.
Because habits are something that we have and not something that we are, we ultimately assume responsibility for their perpetuation. They are a choice, even if they are driven by compulsion. Compulsion makes it very difficult to stop a certain behavior, but not everyone with compulsions has the mental disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder. Compulsive habits may be formed because the behavior has become entrenched and bolstered by a defense mechanism, which makes it even harder for one to change any bad habits. Much like the first part, “On Receiving Advice,” a person must be willing to change a habit before anything can change. Even a willingness to change sometimes isn’t enough to make it happen. What happens is that people will say that they want to change, or even start to act in different ways, but real change can only happen with dedication and follow-through.
Mental illness starts to settle in when habits are conflated with the self, which is essentially a surrender to one’s compulsions. This may sound harsh to say, but anything else is an excuse to keep engaging in bad behavior. The only way to be rid of bad habits is to replace them with better ones, and that requires one to do the spiritual work needed to form a foundation of principles.
To summarize, habits formed early on in life have a lot of time to grow in strength and develop. A lack of guidance (principles) on what habits are worth developing can lead one to develop poor habits that can lead to a myriad of unwanted consequences. Habits serve as a means to enact principles and once formed, are carried throughout life. Remember what I said in the beginning about what we keep in our hearts. If we want to live a meaningful and rich life, then we must do what we can to develop goodness, love and responsibility in our hearts. Those virtues are the antidote to bad habits, even those that are compulsive. Ultimately, a crisis of faith may be the key needed to break free from old and destructive habits.
What is Done, Cannot be Undone
I want to talk now of the consequences that having had habits can bring about. There is the saying, “What is done cannot be undone.” Even if the cycles of bad habits are broken, there is still the damage that has been done. No matter how badly one wants to remove the damage, it simply cannot be undone. One must learn to live the rest of life with the wounds that have been created; a curse that also bears a blessing of potential healing and repentance.
The author tells a story of a boy who, for every bad deed, drives a nail into a wall. “The boy who drove a nail into the wall every time he committed an evil deed, and drew one out when he performed a good act discovered this sad truth: In time, the nails which once thickly studded the wall were all drawn out, but the black and ugly holes were left, to remind him of his evil deeds.” It is not as simple as stopping a bad habit and creating new, better ones. Every bad act leaves a lasting impression that one will have to reconcile with eventually. The holes that are leftover are forever embedded in the wall that is our, and other people’s lives. A life full of holes mars the essence of one’s character and it becomes something that has to be lived with and managed on a daily basis. The negative consequences are but seeds that may bear fruit even years later. Even worse if the seeds were able to propagate in the time that the bad habit was taking place. Once a tree grows, not only is it hard to remove its roots, the many other trees that were created from the original have roots that might as well be inextricable. This is why the author places so much emphasis on the timing of the development of principles and habits.
The transition from adolescence to adulthood (12 to 18 years) is an incredibly sensitive time where prior habits and influences begin to take physical form. It is a time when the child starts to become more independent and reliant on peers. Any ideas possessed by the adolescent will now be tested and tempered to see if they will withstand adulthood. If those ideas are formed from toxic roots, they will bear toxic fruit. It is around this time that if the child doesn’t have strong principles and good habits, they may lead a more dangerous life that will put many nail holes into their wall. Only when the damage is done will that grown child potentially realize the mistakes that they made in youth and they will come to know that the damage done cannot be altered, but must be lived with.