My grandfather took a walk around 4pm every day to our local drugstore to buy a newspaper, then he stopped at the donut shop across the street and bought a plain donut and a cup of coffee. It was his way to get a little exercise, read the paper, and enjoy a special treat. This was a habit he developed after he retired and moved in with my family. A pretty good habit if you ask me (especially when he would take me along!)
We all have habits in our daily lives. Some of them learned like brushing our teeth and hair. Others are ones that we developed on our own, exercising, and daily routines around our work and home are examples. A lot of us have developed habits involving new technology including our cell phone, computer, and television usage.
The current definition of habit is ‘a usual way of behaving: something that a person does often in a regular and repeated way.’ Habits can be good, like brushing our teeth and sometimes not so good as in having a drug habit.
There has been a lot of research, books, and discussions around the topic of habits. How to develop some, how to get rid of others, and how any of them can affect our lives.
Our Relentless Lent series is an exploration into different spiritual habits that we might already have or would like to embrace in our lives. As Henrieta and I move towards our Relentless Lent series we will be discovering more about habits, and we personally invite you to join us in the discussion.
As we prepare for Relentless Lent let’s take some time to examine the current and past habits in our lives. When and why they came to be. Was it a conscious choice or did they just happen? Are they beneficial? Healthy/unhealthy? Do they bring stress or joy? What habits are we interested in developing? Are there habits we would like to share with others?
We would love to hear your thoughts!