It is always said that your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, and repeated actions develop into habits which sum up to make your character that speaks more than a volume about who you are. Habits are integral building blocks in the construction of your life; be it a majestic edifice of sound, covetable personality profile or a dented, substandard and wobbly structure resulting from a pile-up mixture of negative behaviours which of course heads straight for destruction. Simply put, your habit makes or mars you.


There is a story about a man who so hated his wife’s cat and decided to get rid of it. One day, he put the cat in the car and drove it three streets away, dropped it in a nearby bush and drove back home. Before he could get home, the cat had found its way back. Next day, he decided to drive the cat ten streets away, he pushed the cat out and headed home. Driving back to his compound, there was the cat! He kept taking the cat further and further and the cat would always beat him home. At last he decided to drive a few kilometres away, turn right, then left, past the bridge, drive up a flyover, then right again and another right turn, then left turn until he reached what he thought was a safe distance from his home and left the cat there. Hours later, the man called home to his wife: “Clara, is the cat there?” “Yes,” the wife answers. Frustrated, the man shouted, “Put that beast on the phone, I am lost and need direction home!!!”


Funny huh? But I won’t want you to laugh away the moral I choose to deduce from it in relation to what I’m telling you– your habits. Like the man in the story, so many of us have the habit of criticizing, hating, hurting, maligning people, even the innocuous ones who have done us no wrong. Many of us can go any length to tongue-lash whoever gets us angry. And what have you got in return? Dump accumulation of malice, hate, wrong notions, mind-restlessness which have all made your heart hyper-rotten like a six-day pie and with an overpowering stench like that of dead bodies.


There are many of us who have mastered the habit of lying, cheating (even in exams), stealing (church money, public funds, etc), and running after the opposite sex with all passion and vigour to bed him/her. So many people love skipping classes, playing soccer video games to the extent of dreaming new goal-scoring strategies while sleeping. Yet, some are not just voracious feeders but gluttonous eaters too. Some of us are highly volatile and irritable; some are habitual late-comers and excuse-givers. While some will not take their baths regularly, some will not brush their teeth before taking breakfast. Some don’t know how to say, “Thank you”, “I’m sorry”, “Please forgive me”, “It’s my fault, I’m to blame”, etc. It’s a pity that these things are what short-circuits us from reaching the level we should get to because in one way or the other, we have hurt people that matter a lot to our destinies, I mean people that should help us. Worse still, we might have sent them away, having truncated their stay, with terrible and putrid mindset towards us. There are those who are heavy sarcastics while some are hardcore sour sardonics. What a habit you need to do away with! Assess yourself now.


Why not take a one-eighty degrees turn to what’s good and right? Why not pick up new sets of beautiful habits in your thoughts, sweet words (positive confessions), morally sound ethics and actions which make up a superlatively adorable habit that finally results in a stupendous and colourful character trait. Make new friends but cherish old ones. Smile always. Be happy per moment on your journey on earth (don’t have a sunken boring outlook towards life). Return borrowed properties on time and well presentable too. Always leave everything better than you found it. Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated- with respect, understanding and consideration, with gentle words soaked in highly concentrated kindness, ribboned with love. Keep your promise no matter what. Keep appointments. Keep secrets! Don’t condemn people (even when they are at fault). Appreciate others a lot. Give compliments and complement people too. Be a “Thank you” fan, “Please” addict and an “I’m sorry” agent. Like I always say; do what is right, for the right reason, when it’s right, where is right, how it’s right and to whom it’s right. This is because there’s an old saying that if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.


Stir up the habit of being a staunch optimist no matter what. Have a positive disposition towards life and people. Be disciplined! Be responsible! Above all, fear God in all that you do, honour Him in all your ways, spend quality fellowship time with Him and obey His instructions. They say it takes twenty-one days to form a new habit and twenty-one days to break an old one, start now and be persistent. You know why? It is because we first make our habits and then our habits make us. The Lord is your strength! You can do it! Happy habit reform and rebirth! Meet me on the top of the ladder of excellence! Ciao.

Nice one there