Just do it, and do it well

  • I thought that today’s read­ing of “Virtue in the Unseen War­fare” by St. Theo­phan had a real applic­a­bil­ity to the first work­day of the new year, so I pass along some excerpts:

    1. Don’t pro­cras­ti­nate — Big sur­prise, right? What else would you expect St. Theo­phan to say. But as always, he fol­lows up the exhor­ta­tion with a spir­i­tual diag­no­sis: “Let us never delay in under­tak­ing work we have to do, for the first, even brief, delay will lead to a sec­ond, more pro­longed, the sec­ond to a third, still longer, and so on. The con­se­quences are far-reaching … In sat­is­fy­ing this desire, we will, lit­tle by lit­tle, form a habit of idle­ness and lazi­ness, in which the pas­sion for doing noth­ing will pos­sess us … Though scarcely per­cep­ti­ble at first, this neg­li­gence per­me­ates every­thing. It infil­trates our will, plant­ing in it an aver­sion to effort of all kinds, includ­ing all forms of spir­i­tual activ­ity and obe­di­ence.” That’s exactly it! The prob­lem with pro­cras­ti­nat­ing on stu­pid lit­tle things that don’t mat­ter is that it begins affects my abil­ity to do big impor­tant things that do mat­ter. And even­tu­ally it even affects my abil­ity to do things that are pleas­ant and used to be fun, cre­ative and inter­est­ing to me.
    2. Do each thing well — “In addi­tion, it is not enough to per­form our work quickly. Each thing has to done in its proper time, as required by its impor­tance, and each needs to be done with full atten­tion and care — to make is as per­fect as pos­si­ble.” That can sound like a ter­ri­ble, ter­ri­ble curse to the women I know that are per­fec­tion­ists. But I think the kind of con­sid­er­a­tion to each work that St. Theo­phan is talk­ing about is worlds apart from the obses­sive paral­y­sis that makes all the Marthas think that they can’t relax for a minute until they’ve vac­u­umed the glove com­part­ment. I think that there’s a tremen­dous power in what Theo­phan says. I’m reminded of the doc­u­men­tary I saw back in Decem­ber of ’04 about the Shak­ers. This sect (now nearly obso­lete) believed in doing every chore, no mat­ter how hum­ble, as if it were your offer­ing to God. The result has been Shaker inno­va­tions and fur­ni­ture that are so ele­gantly con­ceived and per­fectly exe­cuted that they are a legacy that has increased in value over time. All the same, think­ing of some of the peo­ple I know, I guess I’d have to add that if you tend towards being overly obsessive-compulsive, skip this point.
    3. Know what to believe — Some res­o­lu­tions are just too ambi­tious. That’s the prob­lem with start­ing these lists; you always pile on things that verge on impos­si­ble. Pie-crust promises, as Mary Pop­pins said — eas­ily made and eas­ily bro­ken. But there are also things that only seem impos­si­ble. If you haven’t set an unre­al­is­tic goal, then don’t let any­thing deter you. “If an evil thought comes along … sug­gest­ing that the work nec­es­sary to acquire the virtues we desire is extremely long and hard; that our ene­mies are strong and numer­ous, while we are weak and alone; that we must do too much, even per­form great deeds, to attain our aim — if this thought of lazi­ness and care­less­ness makes such sug­ges­tions to us, there is just one word of advice nec­es­sary: don’t lis­ten to it.”
    4. Do the next thing — We get intim­i­dated by the immen­sity of tasks at hand, and our good inten­tions fail us. “Don’t think about the whole thing. Force your­self to take up the most imme­di­ate task and do it dili­gently as though the oth­ers didn’t exist. You’ll find it goes eas­ily and with­out dif­fi­culty. Then take the oth­ers one at a time, think­ing only of the one you have to do just now. In the end, you will prob­a­bly fin­ish them all calmly with­out becom­ing upset.” This is incred­i­bly hard to do, but like the oth­ers, it has a great power when­ever I can do it.

    These are the things that stood out to me. I begin to think as I type this of the peo­ple I know whose lives are so mer­ci­lessly and relent­lessly busy — would they find this as rel­e­vant as I did or would it just seem like lunacy and a recipe for dis­as­ter? I can’t tell. But any­way, I thought it was worth redeem­ing a few moments to write it down.


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    January 2nd, 2006 | Grace | 5 Comments |

5 Responses and Counting...

  • Mimi 01.02.2006

    That’s beau­ti­ful, Grace. Thank you.

  • Grace

    Good grief, you’re fast! I hadn’t fin­ished tweak­ing the entry to get all the typos out before you got here. Well, you win the prize for act­ing with­out delay (point 1), but I’ll give myself marks for try­ing to get it right (point 2). So between the two of us, we’re halfway thought the list! :-)

  • Mimi

    I’m the same way, I post, then re-read, then fid­dle, then repost.

    I’m on Blog­lines, I must have just hap­pened across it when you had just posted.

  • her­man

    I espe­cially liked #3; and for me, #4 reflected how this is done… one step at a time.

    Thank you for tak­ing the time to share.

  • Grace

    Her­man:
    What a relief! When I re-read this one, it sort of seemed like it went on a spell (and a half). So thanks for mak­ing it through. :-)

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