Remember this:
Society is set upon freneticism. Most move around unsettled, constantly adjusting to life as it unpredictably tosses around like a raging sea.
A man may be measured by what he unashamedly gives himself to. But if this is, in fact, the case, then the inversion must be counted true as well. We are all the sum of our days lived. Stated plainly, those who know us know us for who we reveal ourselves to be in and out of each passing day. But some are more than sum totals and calculative patterned behaviors. Those who find stability and constancy are those who’ve discovered Something much grander than their brightest moments and more lasting than earned by the sweat of their own brow. Due in whole of this discovery, they are much more than ever imaginable.
Here, a man may lay claim to infinite.
Of the greatest accomplishments to aspire to – success on varying individual levels and expectations – the one to unequivocally give oneself to must be consistency. This aspiration to consistency can, of course, be one of fruitless activity. That is to say, the one who is consistently bad remains bad if he is steady in his behavior. This is not the type of consistency to keep steady hold of. Rather, a man should identify the way to go and hold to the course, thereby establishing a rhythm to each day. The bored man is a dangerous man. Distracted and erratic he moves about through each day restless and out of sync. He is lost and unknown moving with the current of happenstance – carried about like a leaf pushed about by a wind – instead of making his way through the thick and thin of life. There in the activity of life in the thick and thin is where fortitude finds place within a man’s bones, the type of fortitudinous strength, which stiffens the spine and informs choices in difficulty leading him to the only reasonable route to take through difficulty, not around it. One finds strength through consistency. Countless stories of perseverance and endurance contain the same similar thread run through their fabric: consistency.
So not to mislead, consistency can be aspired to yet only partially achieved in our effort. You must give yourself to something bigger than your own life and happiness. That is why those who burn through days in pursuit of accomplishments also burn out. There is One infinite – God – behind each sunrise conspiring against society’s tossing to and fro.
This is a worthy legacy to leave behind, a blemish on society, a stance rooted deeper than surface and against freneticism.
If someday I have a son, he’ll know this truth as well.