Did you know that in this day and age you can buy a toilet seat that closes slowly so it doesn’t slam down? That’s right! Instead of risking a toilet seat slam, as it’s known in the trade, you can release the seat at it’s apex, safe in the knowledge that 5-10 seconds later it will gently touch down without a sound. I know because I own one of these marvels of the modern world. Or I did until it broke. That’s right something has happened and now my slow close toilet lid is no more than a common gravity obeying lid.
The thing is I always forget that it’s broken until the very second I have let it go, and as it loudly crashes into the seat I have a moment of frustration at my ever decreasing capacity to remember important things like this. This unique phenomenon doesn’t affect me anywhere else, I am not a habitual toilet seat slammer. I generally assume that other people aren’t as up to date in loo seat technology as I am and place their seats gently down. But my seat was designed to be dropped! It was drop proof! I had become so used to it, that now it is hard to unlearn what I had learnt! It is hard to form a new habit.
As it is with my toilet so it is in life. Forming habits is hard, and is it me or are good habits much harder to form than bad ones? And although I may not have a noisy toilet seat to remind me of every time I fail to stick to a good habit, I do have my backstabbing mind to point out my every fault and failure. Surely there’s a better way? A way to form good habits quickly and effectively?
Matthew 11:29-30 ‘Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’
