The chain of habit is too light to be felt until its too heavy to be broken.

"The chain of habit is too light to be felt until its too heavy to be broken" Here goes a tale of modern day DIGITAL ADDICTION - "SCROLL! SCROLL! SCROLL! until its a DOOMSCROLL until is an insurmountable wall! - that keeps one within looping wall, & takes huge invisible - MENTAL TOLL!" The above lines depict the TRAGEDY that modern day Hyperdigital & Hyperconnected world faces - as a result of our habits - HABITS of addiction, the HABIT of doomscroll & HABIT of being constantly in loop of digital world.

Habit that begins off too small to be noticed, & becomes so big - so heavy, that its an UPHILL task to be done away with. So what are these habits? what do we mean by habits? when do these become heavy & how does that happen? Are all habits inherently bad? Do we need to back off or break the chain of all habits? we'll uncover all these aspects as we move further in this essay. Habits in very simple terminology & crude form is 'USUAL BEHAVIOUR'. Its a tendency where one repeats or performs an action so many times repetitively that it just becomes a SUBCONSCIOUS act rather than ACTIVE process of COGNITION, processing & further ACTION. Are habits exclusive to humans?

Absolutely Not - almost all living creatures have tendency towards HABITUAL ACTIONS. With repetitive mundane actions by choice or by coercion - slowly our brain posits it & our "muscle memory" feeds it that deeply - that no active engagement is required, IT JUST HAPPENS, IT JUST HAPPENS out of habit. So how does these subconscious actions then become PROBLEMATIC? When does it show the symptoms of CRISIS? To understand this, lets go back in history - to far end of COLONIAL era - Britishers which started off as Merchants & Mercantile policy, became too entrenched in Indian politics - gradually, but deeply, that we Indians almost GOT HABITUAL of SUBJUGATION, habitual of DIVIDE & RULE, habitual of COLONIAL EXPLOITATION. It wasn't realized until it was too late! until the country had slumbered from 'SONE CHIRAIYA' to 'impoverished state'. Similarly, the DIVIDE & RULE & COMMUNAL DIVISIVENESS creeped in too slowly, through various charter acts - until it was too heavy to be broken? THE RESULT?

HOLOCAUST OF PARTITION. And why just history? we're doomed as a result of 'VICE' practices as HABITS in Modern day too! For instance - from slow process of Industrialization that originated in great Britain & later DIFFUSED to whole world - creeped in habits of Fossil Fuel usage & exploitation, to an extent that we stand on BRINK of CLIMATE HAZARD, also depicted by statement of ANTONIO GUTERRESS - that era of Global warming has passed; we're in ERA OF GLOBAL BOILING." It's become such heavy of habit that numerous agreements & global conventions down the line - as we're still bound to MISS climate mitigation targets. Not just humans, even nature is habitual! Nature is a great leveller - such as rivers that move & keep moving & as a habit - keep eroding the path, until its too insurmountable to be reversed - the "GRADED STATE". Such similar trajectory of EVER MOVING & TRANSIENT RIVER, could be observed at politico-administrative realms too, where certain habits have become too deeply entrenched to be removed. The vices of corruption, red tapism, top to bottom & centralized bureaucracy, lack of accountability & transparency have been rooted at so many strata seamlessly - that they're heavy weights to be removed now: resulting in "SYSTEMIC rot" at various levels. This SYSTEMIC ROT as a result of NEGATIVE habits is visible at helm of our legislative architecture too - in parliament! As a result of gradual move towards lesser deliberation, lesser checks & balances, less referring of bills to parliament, the DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY has been subdued to great extent. For instance, Tribunal bill was passed in Merely 17 MINUTES! without effective opposition, it has become such huge giant - that it threatens democratic vibrancy today. These all aren't just SOCIETAL phenomena, Modern day humans have become HABITUAL of certain VICES that's slowly eating them away! eroding them away from within - For instance - obviously the practice of DIGITAL ADDICTION & DOOMSCROLL we discussed in former section to - NARCOTIC ADDICTION, to LIQUOR ADDICTION, drug addictions.

Its become so severe that Several areas report regular mortality owing to extreme addiction. As one tries to get away - what happens? - THE WITHDRAWAL symptoms, which keep oneself in loop of these SELF DETERIORATING practices. What starts off as small trial due to peer influence, or fantasy - ends up taking whole life & consuming the person itself. So one would wonder - are all habits inherently bad? Is habitual way - the ultimate path to extreme deterioration? Or are HABITS VIRTUOUS too? Aristotle would agree to the latter. Aristotle regarded that - one is born with possession of all virtues, its with CONSISTENT PRACTICE that these virtues come to HABIT. Thus, he regarded HABIT as ULTIMATE VIRTUE. Even in general, we keep hearing - "PRACTICE MAKES A MAN PERFECT". dont they push oneself towards HABIT? They certainly do. For instance, for an athlete - say Padma Vibhushan awardee & one greatest cricketer of era - VIRAT KOHLI. For him, habit of healthy diet, regular practice at Nets, & athletic fitness are ABSOLUTE "SINE QUA NON" for great tournaments & victory. Similarly, at administrative level - adherence to Constitutional Morality, codes of conduct, code of ethics, good governance principles are an ABSOLUTE NECESSITY to whole of societal development. Otherwise, as TN Seshan regarded - it leads to creation of WHOLE GENERATION BEREFT of "dharma," BEREFT of ethics! For an individual too, habits of MINDFULNESS, conscious actions, punctuality, transparency are of PARAMOUNT Importance to a HEALTHY LIFESTYLE. Thus Habits themselves aren't inherently bad. Its the character of habits that make them GOOD or BAD. Not every habit needs to be broken away, some need to be mindfully CULTIVATED for overall development. It's only through consistent practices that later form into HABITS - that HELLEN KELLER, born with blindness & deafness, went on to become first Blind graduate in United States.

It was a cumulative result of her habits of dedication, practice & consistency with help of DR SULLIVAN that she achieved this feat. So whats needed? whats need of hour is to be MINDFUL, be COGNIZANT of ones practices & habits. Its certainly not as simple to be that aware in the present FAST world, but is CERTAINLY imperative. From a child to adult - we should be AWARE of our actions, take active recourse to VIRTUOUS habits & try to get away from VICES until its too late to be broken. As Swami Vivekananda regarded - "YOU'RE THE CREATOR OF YOUR DESTINY?" Its in our hands, which habits we wish to adopt & make dominant in life. HUMAN HAND IS "TOOL OF TOOLS" we are active shapers of where we wish our life trajectory to head over - good habits are a PATH to ultimate goals While the bad habits might feel like an UNBREAKABLE SHACKLES, that bound oneself in endless loop, its certainly possible to get away - remember -> "NO MOUNTAIN large enough that it can't be climbed upon! No wall is big enough - that it can't be crossed, No barrier is large enough - that it can't be broken - "No habit is heavy enough - that it can't be broken" WHAT YOU NEED AT THE END IS SUNSHINE!

what you need at the end is "purpose"!