Being is becoming

Remember the adage about your thoughts becoming your destiny? Often attributed to Lao Tzu, it goes

Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.

I’ve been thinking about my habits and wondering where some of them arose. For a benign, simple example, I prepare and eat the same breakfast every day, but, even though I can’t quite pinpoint when, I certainly didn’t always eat this breakfast. Thing is, it’s been so long now that it feels like always. It has become my habit.

I do know that I dropped or picked up some of my habits when external events happened. Moving out of my childhood home, getting married, divorced, married again. Taking on a different job. Gaining or losing family and friends over the years. But other influences are less obvious, and that is what I’m thinking about today. Because if habits have seeped into my practice without me actively choosing them, then I have to ask: Why have I accepted this practice? Why do I think that I’ve always been this way, done this thing, when that is clearly not so?

This is particularly important to me as I age for two reasons. One, there may be things about myself that I have accepted without question for well more half a century. And I didn’t actively choose that habit or belief or principle. That’s a long time to be unconscious. Two, by biology, my time to consciously choose – and, therefore, consciously live – grows shorter.

I like to think that the adage is true, that we can choose our destiny, our character, our habits by watching our words become actions and our actions become habits. And I like that we can always, by active participation in our own lives, change a thing that no longer serves us well. We can assess, keep or discard. To become a conscious being, life requires regular, conscious choosing.

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9/23/2024