People and birds are creatures of habit

Every evening, just before sundown, the most magical thing happens in Janet and Jerry Deland's back yard.

There are doves in a tree on the southwest corner of their house. It looks like they may be bedded down for the night when quail begin appearing from the southeast corner.

When the doves notice the quail, they fly from the tree.

At first a few quail fly to the tree, and then, if the dog is out or people are in the yard, they creep in and fly up the moment they don't feel safe or fly from the Delands' waterfall to join their braver friends.

If no one is in the back yard, they run on land then fly into the tree. A few more will peek past a bush and follow their braver friends. Each night the number differs.

Once the quail are in the tree, the doves will return and try to nest with them but are given no berth. Then the quail settle in for the night.

The Delands think the birds choose that tree because it is protected on two sides by the house, so even in a windstorm the birds will get a restful sleep.

Most people are not much different from birds. Take for instance the first time we walk into a new church and sit down in the congregation. Where we sit will be where we head the next week.

It becomes easy to know who is there as they will usually be right where they belong.

One day I asked a friend if she had attended church that day. She replied that yes, she was there but someone had taken their seats so they sat somewhere else. The next week, there she was with her family right back where she thought she belonged.

Creatures of habit, I believe that is what we are called. Likely many crimes are solved when investigators figure out a criminals routine and then catch them "doing what comes naturally."

Probably that is why it is so easy to get in a rut in life.

Motivational speaker and author Denis Waitley concludes, "Habits begin as off-handed remarks, ideas and images. And then, layer upon layer, through practice, they grow from cobwebs into cables that shackle or strengthen our lives "

"It's not that some people have willpower and some don't," says James Gordon, M.D., "It's that some people are ready to change and others are not."

People fear the unknown.