When we follow a custom or engage in customary behavior we’re adopting the practices of a specific time and place. A custom is both a natural development of what has come before as well as an arbitrarily decided way of organizing society.
Dress, manners, etiquette—these are common customs, and each country adopts their own particular way. But there are hidden customs. Customs we follow but never explicitly recognize. These actually are some of our most essential customs.
Language. Language as a custom plays an essential role, not only as a means of communication but as the method as to how we treat others. In a formal setting, we adopt formal speech—or at least we’re expected to. Titles of respect are anticipated when speaking to those older or in particular positions. Apart from meaning, merely the tone of how a language is spoken can define the relationship between two people..
Practices. The speed at which we drive our cars. The times of the day we eat and sleep. The amount and type of food we consume. These and many other daily practices we unthinkingly carry out as a matter of custom. A day comprises a series of small decisions, but each decision builds on what has come before. It’s thus probably a good idea from time to time to take a hard look at one’s customary practices and decide whether they should be continued, modified, or abandoned.
Health. While not typically recognized as such, health can be viewed as a custom. The value we place on health is a choice we make both individually and as a society. There is a cost associated with maintaining good health—often great cost. And like any other high value item, good health takes on worth only if others see it as uniquely valuable.
Once health is seen as a custom—akin to manners and etiquette—it can better be understood as something within our control as opposed to something that just happens to us randomly. The rate and severity of modern illnesses—cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc.—could probably be diminished, perhaps eliminated, if we decided as a matter of custom that prevention was to be a priority. So too with regard to the rate and severity of accidents.
“There are two kinds of blindness,” wrote Emerson, “one of incapacity to see; the other, of preoccupied attention.” The reason we don’t view health as a custom is not because of an incapacity to see, but because we’re preoccupied—we’re too busy to stop and look. Were we to pause and linger we’d see that many of our injury-causing practices could probably be reduced. But this would require seeing things from a fresh perspective—one where health is placed at the center rather than at the periphery.
