Braces

It finally happened!
At long last, after three and a half years of agony and annoyance, the long-awaited salvation has arrived- my braces are off!
it was such a strange feeling, not having braces anymore. at first, my mouth felt so funny. it felt really uncomfortable, like something was missing. you know that feeling? that first day, i almost wished that my braces were still on, because the feeling of not having them was so weird and foreign.
this got me thinking. sometimes, we feel this way about other things, too. take a bad habit, for example. sometimes, we grow so dependant on the habit that we can't imagine life without it. it's like an addiction. this habit becomes so ingrained in us that we feel like it is a part of our essence, part of what makes us who we are.
and then, when someone tries to remove the bad habit, we cling to it. we aren't willing to let go. we are so used to it being there, we cannot handle it leaving us. we manage to convince ourselves that the habit is a good thing, that we need it. we tell ourselves that the habit is a part of us, and if it is ripped out, there will be nothing but an empty void, a feeling of missing something.
what we fail to realize is that, yeah, the habit is a part of us. but it's a bad part, and in order to become a better person, we need to be able to let go of it. the longer it stays a part of us, the worse off we will be. (i guess the braces isn't a perfect analogy, because braces are actually very helpful.)
if we get rid of our less-desirable traits, we aren't creating an empty hole in our essence. actually, we're doing just the opposite- we are cutting away at the rotten parts, in order to make ourselves into a more complete and perfect person.