According to the Webster Dictionary – habit is an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.
We all have a lot of habits. Habits have a hand in constructing who we are.
As Virginia Woolf said in Mrs. Dalloway, “Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame.”
Technology, an integral part of our life, has become a habit. We check Facebook during lunchtime or when we are bored. Our phones, now navigators, search engines, cameras, and flashlights, have replaced conversations at the dinner table. When we wake up in the morning before we have even stepped out of bed we grab our phones to check our emails.
Don’t get me wrong. Technology is not bad.
Some parts of technology help us create healthy habits. Insight Timer, a meditation app, allows fellow meditators to see who is meditating worldwide!
Technology can also help people follow their dreams. Kickstarter, an online crowd- funding platform, has assisted filmmakers, artists, musicians, comics, journalists, and small start-ups all over the world bring their creative projects to life. $1,109,066,139 dollars have been pledged to Kickstarter Projects. Kickstarter launched in 2009.
With that being said, we have to remember:
Technology is not meant to consume our life. It is meant to enhance it.
As we go throughout our day, we have to be conscious of our habits.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
-Aristotle
Image credit: Anthony Baab, A Strenuous Nonbeing. Image courtesy of E.G. Schempf