“If You Always Do What You’ve Always Done You’ll Always Get What You’ve Always Got”

Editorial by Robert Kirwan

   
I recently saw a documentary on television about Alcatraz Prison. It was a famous fortress that housed some of the most hardened criminals of all time. The cameras followed the person doing the show and he explained how many men had tried to escape, but only one was known to have succeeded.  He went on to point out how the prison was built on an island in such a way that it was virtually impossible to escape.
 
   As usual, my mind wouldn’t just let me enjoy the show and I soon started to think about how this show was so much like an article I had just finished reading. The article was about the other prisons that are equally confining in this world. But those prisons have doors that are never locked; there are no guards around the perimeter; and escape is not only encouraged, it is actually possible.
 
   As the host of the show continued to talk, I could clearly see the similarities in both prisons. First, there was Alcatraz , which was man-made and constructed on an island to keep criminals away from the rest of the world. Then there was the other prison, which is self-made and tends to keep us away from the rest of the world where we might be able to enjoy the best that this life has to offer. That second prison is called Habit.
 
   In the article I was reading, Dr. Jay Dishman described Habit in the following way:
 
   “Habit is thinking about ourselves and our environment as a jail or paradise. We need only to look around us and we will see people who are rich emotionally and materially because they think and feel rich. We also see people who are laden with emotional and material debt because they think and feel poor. Some are inspired with vision, others are encumbered with doubt. Some are moved by ambition, others feel safer in monotony. Some reach for the mountain tops, others huddle in the pits. Some seek opportunity, others wait for it to knock. The sad fact is that we find far more people who are confined by their thoughts than we find people who are fed by them.”
 
   What Dr. Dishman was describing is so true. Many of us are locked inside a prison by negative thinking. And yet all we have to do to set ourselves free is to renew our mind. By renewing your mind and your thoughts, you change your habit of thinking and you renew your life at the same time.
 
   The title of this week’s editorial is a quote I actually  have taped on the top of my computer screen. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
 
   Each time I find that I am beginning to lock myself inside a mental prison, afraid to be inspired by some new vision of mine, I glance at the quotation and ask myself if I am becoming a victim of habit. I ask myself if there is a better way of doing what I want to do…if there is a faster way of doing what I want to do. I don’t want to be trapped by Habit. I want to feel the freedom and exhilaration that comes from being inspired by a vision that few others can see. I want to reach for the mountain tops. I want to reach out and take hold of opportunities, not sit back and wait for opportunity to come knocking.
 
   Habit is safe. Habit is predictable. Habit keeps your life on an even keel and allows you to “fit in” with the rest of society. Habit is also appreciated by those around you who need predictability and who want to know what to expect from you at all times. That is why we spend so much time teaching our young children routines, so that they become habit forming and controlling.
 
   Most certainly you will encounter your share of failure and disappointment, but as the saying goes, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the tradewinds in your sails. Explore! Dream! Discover!”
 
   Don’t allow yourself to remain trapped inside a prison with no locks, no doors and no guards. Escape today…
 
   Have a good week!