In praise of habits – so much more than mindless reflexes
Unveiling the profound significance of habits, we delve into their role beyond mere mindless reflexes. Discover how these ingrained patterns shape our lives, influence our decisions, and ultimately, sculpt our identities.
Habit is the foundation of the routines that comprise the vast bulk of our everyday lives
When we are not disturbed, we live our practical lives without engaging in anything like a cautious assessment of what it is we are doing at any given moment.
- Even our most mundane habitual routines actually display a great deal of intelligence
- They are often intelligently context-sensitive and flexible in such a way that can support and structure our goals and projects.
Habits are not intelligent, they are skills
Any attempt to construe habits as intelligence-involving straightforwardly confuses habit and skill
- According to intellectualists, a habit is nothing but a deeply entrenched belief of this form
- A clear-cut distinction between skill and habit, such that habitual doings cannot, by definition, be skilled or intelligent, is wrongheaded
- An alternative notion of habits can successfully explain their context-sensitivity without requiring a commitment to positing hidden, unconscious beliefs
As we become experts at completing some everyday routine, the world increasingly draws us to act in one optimal, appropriate way
In other words, we will, as our everyday routines become engrained, come to perceive nothing other than the possibility of pursuing a singular optimal course of action for each situation.
- Habits amount to a treasure trove of possible responses to our situated environment, highly constrained by circumstance, but genuinely open to the world.