“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
– Aristotle
We’re told so often by gurus of various types to decouple our beings from our workaday actions. “You are not-” they say emphatically, “what you do.”
Bull.
Admittedly, most of these gurus mean to stop us pigeonholing ourselves in the dead wastes of dead-end careers that have nothing to do with who we really are on the inside. After all, very few of the people they work with are jumping for joy at the thought of being an actuary or a janitor.
Well and good – but when the gurus cut their clients off from “pigeonholing” themselves in an effort to jolt them out of their limited world, they also introduce a whole set of unnecessary baggage.
“We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.”
– Aristotle
If you write, you’re a writer.
If you paint, you’re a painter. If you parent, you’re a mother or father. If you’re helpful and generous on a daily basis, you’re a nice guy. If you’re not, you’re an asshole.
Repeat ad infinitum.
You can be all those things at once.
You could be a writer/painter/parent/nice guy. Or a philosopher/entrepreneur/writer/moral human. Or a waterskiier/uncle/mountaineer/asshat.
Here’s one thing the gurus got right: humans are multifaceted. Infinitely so.
Putting yourself in one “pigeonhole” doesn’t mean cutting off the rest of your humanity, in the way people often do in answer to the dreaded cocktail party question “So… what do you do?”
Here’s the good part about this:
So many of the things we aspire to be really don’t come with the baggage we try to associate with them.
Do you write on a daily or weekly basis? Poetry, fiction, nonfiction, memoir – even a daily journal?
Then you’re a writer.
By definition. Without the need to go out there and be Stephen King or P.G. Wodehouse or Jane Austen.
Do you act in a kind and gentle manner towards your fellow creatures? Try to live by a code of ethics consistent with how the universe behaves?
Then you’re a moral person.
By definition. Without the need to resort to organized religion or anything else which tells you in minute and guilt-ridden detail how to do what comes to you naturally.
And here’s the bad part.
It works the other way, too.
If you don’t write, you’re not a writer.
If you don’t act well towards your fellow human beings, you’re not a moral person.
No matter how much you think and wish and make excuses for yourself, and no matter how many excuses others make for you – if you don’t do the work, you can’t claim the glory.
“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly.”
– Aristotle
Chicken? Egg?
Which comes first – the actions or the label? And if the actions come before the label, then where do the actions themselves come from?
That’s a longer story than you probably realize – and not one I can easily get into in a blog post.
More good news: You are the person you are right now.
This might all seem a bit deterministic to you.
“I’m a lazy person,” you think. “Which means I’ll never be more than a lazy person. Thanks for the ‘help’ there, bucko! You suck!”
Not true. Not true at all.
Because what we are is based on our actions, we only need to change our actions to become a different sort of person.
If you want to be a writer, write.
If you want to be a gardener, garden.
If you’re a lazy person, talk to someone to figure out the cause of your procrastination. (It probably has nothing to do with what you’re actually trying to get accomplished.) Work on the source, and jettison actions that add nothing to your happiness and well-being. Become more effective.
If you’re an angry person, go to anger management classes. Stop blowing up at your wife and children. Take a minute to cool down when you feel the rage rising. Become a better man.
If you’re a depressed person, go to counseling. Figure out where the depression comes from. Work on those causes, and improve your self-esteem by realizing that you’re a delightful, effective human being who good people genuinely want to be around – if only they could see who you are.
I only say this because I’ve done it.
A few years ago, I was a lazy person. An angry person. A depressed person.
It’s taken me a couple of years and a great deal of introspection and help from many, many people. (And lord knows, I’m still not perfect by any stretch.) But I have improved myself and my life.
It’s possible – whether your life (or even your day) needs a massive overhaul, or just little tweaks.
In large part, you determine your destiny.
You’re in the driver’s seat. Go out and be the type of person you admire.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
THANK YOU ! I’ve been telling this to my students for years. Writers write, potters potter, photographers take photographs. Its simple. Thanks for expanding this so elegantly.
Action is. Yes!
Hayden Tompkins´s last blog ..sensitive (adj.) deeply perceptive