Harnessing Habits - NCCG.ORG Ning Network Archive 2008-10

HARNESSING HABITS

Harold came into the dining room with brow knotted thoughtfully, and silently took his seat by the window. His father glanced at him sharply.

"What is it?" he asked.

Harold looked up. "I was just thinking," he answered.

"About what?"

"I heard two fellows talking on the street as I came home," Harold replied; "I couldn’t hear all they said but one of them was talking about bad habits. He said he believed in ‘harnessing habits.’"

Mr. Cox smiled. "Well?" he interrogated.

"That was a kind of new thought to me," Harold went on. "I thought bad habits always ought to be destroyed or banished entirely. I didn’t think a person could harness them."

‘I suppose he meant ‘control’ them," Mr. Cox answered, taking up his paper.

But Harold was not satisfied, and all through dinner he pondered over the subject. After the meal was finished, his father asked him if he would finish putting the coal in the basement.

"Won’t tomorrow do?" asked Harold; "I don’t want to do it this afternoon."

His father regarded him over the top of his paper. "There is one habit you will have to control or it will run away with you some day," he remarked; "if habits are horses, as your friend seemed to think."

Harold flushed, and went out of the room without answering. The basement had no convenient chute, and the quarter ton of coal remaining must be put in by hand.

"Oh, I’ll do it tomorrow," he decided finally, and sat down upon the wheelbarrow to think.

"I don’t see what that fellow meant," he said to himself. "A person ought to be rid of a bad habit altogether. People only harness things that they can use, and how any one can use a habit, I can’t see."

He buried his head deeper in his hands. "I know procrastinating is my worst habit," he ruminated, "and I can’t seem to break it off short as I ought to do. I wish I could harness it some way and make it work for me instead of against me."

So engrossed was he in thought that he did not hear footsteps approaching or notice a chum of his until he stood at his elbow.

"Got the blues?" asked a voice, and Harold started.

"Oh, it’s you, Bert!" he exclaimed.

"Course it’s I," answered the other; "didn’t I say I’d call for you this afternoon to go over to the river?"

"I didn’t say I would go," Harold answered. "Father says he does not think the ice is quite safe yet."

A lot of the fellows tested it this morning," said the other boy, impatiently. "Come on and go with us."

"Father wants me to carry in the coal," Harold continued.

"Did you say you would?"

"No," hesitated Harold.

"Then come along."

But Harold shook his head. "Tomorrow or some other time," he answered. The other boy stared.

"Procrastination seems to be your forte," he sneered; "but I never knew you to deny yourself anything you really wanted to do before."

Harold stared back at him for a moment, and then shouted.

"Why I’ve done it!" he cried.

"Done what – gone crazy?" asked the other boy disgustedly. Harold did not answer immediately, and seeing some of his friends passing, Bert leaped the fence and hurried unceremoniously away.

"I’ve done it; I’ve practiced self-denial and harnessed my bad habit," Harold repeated; "I’ve always put off doing things that I didn’t want to do, and now I’ve put off doing something that I wanted to do, and that I knew I oughtn’t to do. If that isn’t harnessing a habit, I don’t know what is. I’d like to ask that fellow if that’s what he meant."

He looked at the heap of coal speculatively. "I wonder how I could make that work here," he said. "I guess I’ll put the coal in now. The next load I can put off carrying down to the cellar if I want to. I’ll put off passing work by until another day. Here goes!"

In the course of an hour the coal was all stowed away. Just as he was finishing, his father called him. He was standing by the window looking at the sky, which was clouding over.

"I am sorry," he said to Harold, "but I am afraid I must insist on your putting the coal in, for there is going to be a storm."

"Can’t do it today," answered Harold briskly, lowering his head to hide a mischievous grin.

"What!" his father exclaimed.

Harold laughed. "I just got through with it," he chuckled.

"Harold! You don’t mean it? Have you banished old Procrastination already?"

"No; I’ve harnessed him," amended Harold, "and he makes a pretty good steed if you know how to manage him."

His father sighed in relief. "Well, I am glad if you have," he said heartily; "you do not know how you have disappointed me at times in that respect."

"After this I’ll put off disappointing you to some future time," said Harold eagerly; "do you see how it works?"

"I see!" answered his father.

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