Habitual Creatures

When I first started thinking about writing this post, I decided to do what I do best ... research my subject as best I could. So I did a lot of reading about habits and how long it takes to form them and found that there's a generally accepted range of time, 21 to 66 days, much longer than I thought. And then I did a lot of reading about how long it takes to break a well-established habit and found that most folks agree that it takes around 30 days to undo an action that has become part of a person's daily routine, much less time than I thought. And the reason the whole habit thing has been on my mind is because I just spent 10 days at home with my two dogs ... my two dogs who are most definitely creatures of habit. I spent most of my time off hanging around the house with the exception of Black Friday shopping with Brad and Shelby and meeting a friend for lunch one day, and perhaps it's because I was home so much that the habits of my hounds caught my attention in a big way. I'm not going to recount all of the things they do every single day, but I am going to mention some of them for two reasons ... to support my theory concerning habitual behavior and because the dogs are just stinking cute when they do these things each day.

A while back, I started what my kids would say is a bad thing with my dogs. Each time they go out in the yard to go potty, I give them a Cheeto ... or two ... or five. And each time I touch the bag of Cheetos, both Ollie and Julie come flying to the back door to go outside. They don't come running for the bag, they come running to the back door because the sound of the Cheetos bag means "outside" to the two of them. And yes, it's adorable to watch them both when they bolt outside, and it's even more adorable to see them sit in unison when they come back inside as they wait for their Cheetos. One more food-related behavior ... each night before I go to bed, I take my nighttime medications, two pills that I keep in their original prescription bottles on the kitchen counter rather than in a pill organizer. When Julie and Ollie hear me open the bottle and start to shake a pill out, they come racing into the kitchen. Even if they are both sound asleep in my bed, they come running when they hear the pills because they know that after I take my pills, I always eat a piece of cheese before I go to bed ... and I always give each of them a piece of cheese, too. And when we turn in for the night, Julie has her spot and Ollie has his. Julie stretches out and sleeps on the side of the bed next to me, and Ollie burrows under the covers until he is down by my feet where he then flips over on his back ... and they sleep in the same spots in the same way every single night. My hounds are most definitely habitual creatures.

In watching my dogs over the last week, I couldn't help but think about my own habits and routines. There are many things that I do at the same time in the same way every single day. Take breakfast, for example. I always eat between 7:00 and 7:30, and I have three eggs over easy with cream cheese and a glass of almond milk ... every single day for the last two years, I have eaten the same breakfast at the same time. I even cook the eggs in the same skillet every morning. I never used to be such a creature of habit and routine, but I certainly have become one over the last couple of years. I have a routine that I follow each morning as I get ready to leave for work, and I have a routine that I follow when I come home each evening. The more I think about it, the more I realize that aside from things that may pop up at work, all of my days are pretty much the same ... doing the same thing the same way over and over again.

I couldn't get the whole habit thing off of my mind today, and as I was driving home tonight, God placed a thought deep within me. Habits can be good, or they can be bad. Routines can be a source of stability in life, or they can cause life to become dull and joyless. Just like He has so many times over the last year, God reminded me once again as I drove that it's about perspective ... it's about keeping myself focused on Him rather than the habits or routines of my daily existence. And as I greeted Julie and Ollie when I got home and we began our nightly routine, I whispered a prayer ... Make me habitual when it comes to You, Father ... make me a creature of habit when it comes to loving You, to serving You, to talking with You, to being in Your Word ... make those things be the things I do every single day ... make me a creature of habit, Lord.