Is it useful to think of bad habits and obsessions as manifestations of stubbornness?

This certainly can be the case, that these are the root cause of stubborn behavior because both bad habits and obsessions are belief-based behaviors. Habits are formed from engaging in certain ways with one’s energy, believed at the time to be productive and of value, and when repeated this is reinforced so, in a sense, it becomes something happening automatically without prior analysis. This is a tremendous efficiency, so there is much to be gained from creating habits for all kinds of situations and actions required because it streamlines things and allows quick, thorough, and effective action to be taken in many settings. The bad habits, of course, will be a burden and a liability but their persistence and force, as being the dominant result in many circumstances, turn the strength of what they represent against the person by working against them in some way to bring about a lessening or a liability. So this is not a flaw in the system, that something that is a benefit can be perverted in some way to become a liability, it simply illustrates the fact that every choice has consequences, so there must be growth, maturity, discernment, and ultimately wisdom being cultivated so that those things becoming habits are watched over and monitored to be sure they continue to serve and are appropriate, or need to be dismantled and replaced with something better. Stubbornness out of habit happens in many circumstances where there is a habit that has become less than desirable or may have occasional exceptions not figured in, and a knee-jerk response out of habit held to stubbornly becomes a liability and harms the person. So this is an aspect of routine maintenance that is part of the responsibility one has, to oversee one’s conduct on all levels. Obsessions are an aberration of the mind, often driven by inner emotion, to take on an overarching importance and have the danger of becoming a compulsion to be acted on with no checks and balances, and this can become a major liability when people lose control of themselves and act on an impulse from an obsession about something they cannot let go of that becomes a liability because it is an excessive preoccupation, and is often unfulfilled because it is not appropriate to hold in the first place, and a part of the mind knows this, so the situation never becomes resolved. So an obsession is a kind of preoccupation with an expectation of something that is unlikely to happen, and again, to allow that to dominate one’s thoughts can become unhealthy and a waste of time and energy, and is eventually quite destructive because of lost opportunities frittered away nursing an illusion of some kind that will remain unfulfilled. So here again we have the dynamic of knowledge leading to choices and if incomplete or faulty, the choices will reflect that and when driven by emotion, an unrealistic expectation, or perception that something needs to be satisfied, will leave someone unfulfilled and in limbo, in effect, and often helpless to change things, so it becomes a kind of imprisonment of thought, tying up the circuitry even as life passes them by. When something rises to the level of an obsession, this is an indication that there is a healing need present—an unfulfilled desire or vision based on faulty expectations and unrealistic dreams is not only wasteful but a danger in limiting growth and expansion in realistic and healthy ways.