Just This Once...

I finally cracked (pardon the pun) a life-long habit of cracking my knuckles. For the past year or two I've basically never done it once.

That is, until a week or two ago.

In a moment of particular stress, my hand was against my cheek and my knuckles were in just the right position, and I thought to myself, "Just this once."

The great lie.

Just this once...

Since that day my habit has resumed in full force. Quantity-per-day may not have reached peak production, but the habit has taken on life again. It's alive.

So now I have to kill this bad habit again. But it's so much easier to keep dead things dead than to put to death something that wishes to live.

My bad habit was dead. But thanks to me, it's alive again. And it doesn't want to die.

Thank God the habit involved is just the cracking of knuckles. But what a reminder of the power of a vice, and the deceitfulness we practice on ourselves when we give ourselves a "one-time treat" to that vice and indulge it.

Just this once...