Recently, I was reading the story of the Good Samaritan and made a connection to a concept I read about in Atomic Habits.
In Atomic Habits, the author explained the concept of habit stacking, in which a person uses an event as a trigger to do something.
For instance, if you want to develop a habit of exercising each workday, you might say, “Every time I change out of my work clothes, I will put on my exercise clothes”.
The advantage of doing so, as the author explained, is that you don’t have to decide each time whether you’ll exercise or not; it would be automatic, triggered by something you already do.
Now, as it relates to helping others, one of the reasons we may not help others consistently is because of the mental calculation we do each time there is an opportunity.
Consider the people often asking for money at stop lights. In my experience (which may also be yours), each time I encounter someone new asking for money on the street, I begin to wonder if they will do the right thing with it.
Though I probably shouldn’t, I judge them based on their appearance and mental state, and often the light turns green before I decide to give.
This brings us to the story of the Good Samaritan and the two supposedly righteous people who didn’t help.
Though it was just a parable and the reasons weren’t given for why they didn’t help, we can imagine that they already had a habit of avoiding people in such a state.
If that’s the case, to avoid being like them, it may serve us well to use the technique of habit stacking to get in the habit of helping others.
Maybe that looks like always taking a snack or fruit from your house when you go for a drive. When you encounter someone claiming to want money for food, your immediate response can be to offer them what you brought.
As I conclude, remember that the power and danger of habits is that we usually don’t realize we have them.
In our minds, we may know we should be helping others, but by not making it a habit, we risk leaving this earth having helped others far less than we could have.
So, if you need to get into the habit of helping, consider using the technique of habit stacking. The Wise Believer doesn’t leave their doing of good works to chance; they leverage the power of habits to do it consistently.
