The Chains of Life.

The other day there I was talking about my father in law learning to drive. He had come to it rather later in life but was anxious to learn. 

It was agreed that I would go out with him not to teach him but to help him reinforce the lessons he had had. The thing was that I noticed almost immediately that he had picked up a very bad habit. On approaching a corner he should have changed down a gear in preparation for taking the corner. He did not do this he waited until he was at the bend and changed gear while making the turn. No matter how often I told him about this he continued to do it.

Having passed his test, with this habit that must have slipped the examiners notice, he continued to follow this habit and frequently stalled the car on bends.

Bad habits are so easy to acquire and hard to get rid of. 

It is a well-known fact how easily a child of three or four picks up a foreign language if exposed to it without any formal teaching. Yet we are unwilling to admit that a child of the same age picks up our unconscious attitudes and prejudices without being taught and often retains these longer than any of the formal education.

Two tadpoles, Ted and Todd, hatched from the same batch of eggs.

They swam around excitedly, wiggling their little tails with great enthusiasm.

They swam up to their mum and exclaimed, “Look what we can do, look why we can do.”

The mother frog looked at the two tadpoles with great pride and called them closer. She then explained the process of metamorphosis and how they will eventually lose their tail and grow legs.

This news impacted the tadpoles differently.

Ted was excited about the future and continued to swim with energy and enthusiasm, occasionally looking back to see when his legs would start forming.

Todd, however, thought to himself, “What’s the point of exercising my tail? It’s only going to drop off eventually anyway.”

As a result, Ted kept strengthening his tail and increasing his stamina, but Todd’s tail got weaker and his energy levels dropped.

The mother frog took Todd to one side and suggested that he start using his tail more.

“But what’s the point? It’s only going to drop off anyway,” Todd replied.

After a little while, the two tadpoles’ tails dropped off and their legs grew.

Ted was excited and hopped around with energy and enthusiasm.  The consistent and energetic use of his tail had equipped him for this development.

Todd was less enthused. He was sort of glad that he now had legs, but he just didn’t have the energy to use them.

He didn’t know why, he just couldn’t be bothered.

There are times in life when we are being prepared for the future, but it’s not always in the ways we expect.

When we are learning calculus or ancient history in high school, we aren’t learning it because we are going to use it, but because the skills of learning will be valuable in the future.

When we start work, we do menial and low-level tasks, not because it’s the best use of our skills or because it’s what we learned to do in our previous studies, but because we will develop the necessary work ethic and level of initiative for later in our careers.

So the next time you think to yourself, “What’s the point? I’m never going to use this in the future,” remember the lesson of the two tadpoles.

Remember that the habits you form today will make a significant difference to your levels of success in the future.

Sadly I have in my life watched many a good person reduced to so much less than their potential because of the habits that became addictions. 

So one or two little thoughts about habits.

Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it every day, and at last, we cannot break it.

The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. 

Bad habits are like comfortable beds--easy to get into but hard to get out of. I suppose that is why I get out of bed at 6am every day.

Have a marvellous day.