Repeat

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
--Aristotle


I'm not a fan of doing things over and over. I'm impatient and long to be done, already! But so much of life is repetition. I get up and get dressed, every day. I make dinner. I wash the dishes. I write papers. I read textbooks. I sweep floors. I practice piano. I do the shopping. I put away books.

Little of it has real lasting value, and all of it will have to be done over again. Sometimes it seems so pointless. None of it is as annoying as the "people work" we have to do every day, though. I watch what I say. I catch myself thinking something unpleasant and have to choose not to think it. I apologize. I put on kindness when I don't feel like it. I choose not to pass on the gossip. I choose to forgive.

Again, all things that have to be done over and over. By themselves, they can be irritating and even depressing. Why do I have to keep doing this? Why do I have to be the nice person?

Oh, right, because of who I am. If I claim to be Christian, then I ought to live like one. And living like one means forgiving. And being kind. And loving others as I would love myself.

Here's the thing, though: I don't think it's just repetition that makes us excellent, any more than it is just desire to be excellent. They have to work together. Just wanting to play the piano doesn't make me any better at it. On the other hand, just sitting there and pushing the keys for ten minutes a day doesn't make me better, either. I have to have a goal, a desire, and repetition, all three.

I love getting the books put away at work, so I work at it. I have a desire: to get them put away correctly and quickly. I have to repeatedly, then, work at putting them away and work at doing it more quickly, more accurately, every time. The process of putting the books away in the right place trains my mind and my eye only if I encourage it to do so by giving it my attention.

"People work" is no different. I need a goal: I want to be like Christ. I need a desire, based on that goal: I desire to be a safe, kind, humble, genuine person. And I need repetition. I need to repeatedly do the things that get me closer, while NOT doing the things that move me further away. Because ultimately, I don't want to have a facade of niceness. I want to be nice, to be genuine, to be good all the way through. To draw the analogy, I don't want my life to be like a library full of books that look nice on the shelf, but are in no order and are falling apart. I want my life to be full of neatly-kept books that are in perfect order.

To do that, I have to do it over and over again...and I have to give it my whole attention.