Formed by our Habits
We are all living according to a specific regimen of habits, and those habits shape most of our life. A habit is a behavior that occurs automatically, over and over, and often unconsciously. A study from Duke University suggested that as much as 40 percent of the actions we take every day are not the products of choices but of habits.
As William James put it, “All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.” The problem is, as Wallace suggested, that much of what is fundamentally shaping our existence is happening unconsciously. But just because we don’t choose our habits doesn’t mean we don’t have them. On the contrary, it usually means someone else chose them for us, and usually that someone doesn’t have our best interests in mind.