“Kindness can build on itself as well as violence.”
- Anne Herbert

Both kindness and violence are reinforced by repetition. The more you practice, the easier it becomes. It’s very similar to exercising a muscle. The more you exercise a muscle the stronger it becomes and the easier the exercise becomes.

The part that is easy to overlook about all of this is to be careful about which action you choose. Whether you choose kindness or violence, it will become easier each time you repeat it. What I’m talking about here is something called a precedent.

Once you set a precedent, it is very difficult to change it. The best way to learn this lesson is to have a dog. All dogs are basically the same when it comes to setting a precedent. If you do something the dog really likes, it immediately becomes a habit. It doesn’t matter what the activity is, if a dog likes it, it just became habit. The only problem is you are often the last to know!

One morning while eating breakfast I started rubbing my dog’s head. Now I have only one hand to use when I eat breakfast. One hand is needed to rub the dog! As soon as I sit down to eat breakfast, the dog magically appears at my side, head within reach, waiting.

You never know when your next activity will start a precedent. Look at me, several years ago I started saying, “for what its worth.”