Summary Of On Habit By Alain De Botton

The essay “On Habit” was written by Swiss-born writer Alain de Botton. In his essay De Botton discusses several subjects related to a particular mindset. He raises many questions in his essay for example: how people think when they go away on vacation, what forces us to look at the environment and our surroundings in a different way, how our surroundings causes changes in our behavior. The subject matter of De Botton’s essay was “Travelling Mindset.” Alain de Botton also shares with us his experiences while travelling, he went to Barbados and he listed all the activities that he had partaken in. He also shares with us other authors who have written about their journeys before. De Botton talks about Alexander von Humboldt but he mainly concentrates

The De Maistrean journey which De Botton took made de Botton look the whole world differently. The second essay in question “In the forest of Gombe” was written by Jane Goodall. Dame Jane Goodall also shares with us through her essay many of her personal experiences and many of her personal opinions and feelings. She talks about religion, spirituality, scientific beliefs etc. She shares with us the tragedies that have befallen on her, she also talks about how she lost her faith and how she rejected God. “In the forest of Gombe” the author takes us on journey to her spiritual awakening in the forest side to side with the chimpanzees. Alain de Botton and Jane Goodall both talk about their awakenings and realizations. The essays relate to each other very much as the travelling mindset that de Botton was talking about proves to be vital in Goodall’s realizations. According to de Botton’s definition of a travelling mindset, it was this mindset that served as a lens through which Goodall had her experience in the forest of

De Botton states, “What, then is travelling mindset? Receptivity might be said to be its chief characteristic. We approach new places with humility. We carry with us no rigid ideas about what is interesting” (62). This mindset allows us to be more progressive and explore and discover far more possibilities than before. As a result of this mindset the universe seems more interesting and not boring anymore. Before being inspired by De Maistre, De Botton did not appreciate his surroundings nor did he like his neighborhood. When he used to walk around in his area he did not find anything interesting, it was inconceivable to him that there could be other things he could discover and explore. As a result he did not notice anything other than what his true objective was. He used to look at things according to their functionality rather than their aesthetic value. De Botton said that, “I had imposed a grid of interests on the street, which left no space for blond children and gravy adverts and paving stones and colors of shop fronts and expression of businesspeople and pensioners” (63). Due to the “grid of interests” that he had imposed on his surroundings he was blinded. He was blinded by the fact that he was just concentrating on his own objective. Regarding this De Botton said that, “The power of my primary goal had drained me of the will to reflect