Habits and Traditions

Habits and Traditions

The diversity of the world makes us each unique, but not necessary different. We are distinguished by our sex, age, nationality, but also by our habits and traditions. Not only individuals have their own traditions and habits, but also bigger social institutions, such as cultures.

When doest a habit become a tradition? It is all a question of time and influence, as for a tradition it takes more time to grow among a social group or a nation. Tradition is something, what is believed to be one’s manners or an unwritten code of life. What is more important and specific for traditions is they are handed over from one generation to another.

However traditions keep coming and going, so their statutory may change throughout the years passed. A great example, for a very popular tradition in Slovakia, is greeting foreign guests with salt and bread, the meaning behind this tradition differs, as some people say that this used to be a Jewish tradition decades ago. But on the other side, many people argue that the tradition refers to the Book of Genesis, which at one point, points out the importance of bread and salt as a pair.

While traditions are mainly respected and followed by a lot of people, habits are something people develop individually during their life. Simply said, habits are things which are done automatically, without us even noticing it. Habits, like anything else, also have two sides. You can either develop a good habit, or a bad habit. Development of each of these types of habits is heavily influenced by our personality.

For instance, what young people suffer from nowadays is a phenomenon called procrastination, which means ignoring your tasks and telling yourself that there will be enough time to do them later. Be aware of the fact that procrastination is nothing like laziness, so called procrastinators can do a lot of work, but these people usually must have a detailed plan of their work. This example shows how an amateur procrastinator can become a professional in his domain in relatively short period of time.

Habits unlike traditions might be weak at first but once they grow strong, they are sometimes extremely difficult to get rid off. Logically, if bad habits can make people’s life worse than good habits can help people to succeed in their life. It is a necessity to cultivate and support the habits which are good, progressive for us or make us feel satisfied and simply, happy. In my opinion, the best time to install good habits into people is in their childhood, when they are not able to fully think for themselves, this way we will do a favor for them.

Another, very important and actual topic related to habits and traditions is multicultural society and life in this type of society. Cosmopolitan society offers people the chance, to mix up with other nations, but most importantly, with people from different cultural backgrounds. There are many positive effects cosmopolitan society has, but it is also a great danger for many smaller cultures. It is so, because smaller cultures might be destroyed or absorbed by more influential cultures with their own traditions, and this way, many cultural treasures such as traditions might be lost forever.

To respect traditions is the question of all of us, to esteem all traditions, national or foreign, should be natural. In the case of habits, it is up to us to develop such habits, which will be of help, not to pose a barrier in our life.