What does it mean to you to be a slave to dress, friends, work , or habits?

You have asked one question and you have asked four questions. To be a slave to anything at all means to make it the more if not most important part of your life, so important that it overwhelms other interests and takes up much of one’s thoughts. In America, for instance, a large percentage of the population focuses on food, status symbols and money. One can even become a slave to exercise, denying his family his time in favor of satisfying his desire to go biking or swimming or hiking with the guys. A man may go as far as to deny his wife her connubial rights so as not to diminish the energy he needs or wants to have available for his exercise. When anything becomes so important that it takes over one’s life in some way that denies what is truly meaningful to his friends, family and community, then one has become a slave to it.
Workaholics do this. They may do it as an escape from family and problems at home. That’s a cop out that clearly shows a weak personality. Are friends so important that you insist on using certain language, dressing a certain way and flaunting some aspect of your person? Then you are worshipping your friends and whatever it takes to look “cool.” Is it so important to drink with your friends that you party to the point of becoming ill? Then that becomes a habit that is like a serpent biting at your heels. We can overcome any of these urges which crouch at your door. Not doing so is akin to worshipping them. We make idols of singers, of sodas, of dress styles, of Egyptian cotton, of money, of cars, of plaits or dreadlocks in our hair, of jewelry—you name it, it can become what we focus on and make more important than healthy eating, living and socializing.