Habits Are Mental Pathways

Imagine a hiking trail that develops over many years as thousands of people walk on it. Your thoughts operate in a similar way, and it’s difficult to follow a mental pathway without some initial repetition.

You must turn mindful and compassionate behaviors into patterns when you first start trying to rearrange your life.

This is where the aspect of daily work comes in; people who want to build mindfulness can meditate every day. People who want to be more compassionate can work on building a sense of gratitude and thinking about what they are grateful for each night before bed. At the beginning of your spiritual journey, this stuff is remarkably important. Once the path exists, you may move into something new, or add a new path.

Some people who meditate stop doing it eventually after the mind has rearranged itself. A lot of people do psychedelic drugs to find some sort of spiritual wisdom and then keep doing them, which is like stomping on a path that already exists under the delusion that you’re making it a more clearly-defined path. Rational thought functions this way; people talk themselves in circles just to try to make a point and end up negating their initial intentions.

Alan Watts said, “Once you get the message, hang up the phone.” Develop peace through habit and then learn when is the appropriate time to break the habit and start off on making a new trail.