hobgoblin of consistency
If someone were to ask me what my biggest challenge is, I would have to say it is remaining consistent over time, as my sensei has noted. In jujitsu, this has expressed itself as the tendency to not attend class regularly. I can give you any number of reasons why I have not done so, but the truth is, it’s a character flaw, plain and simple. I’m telling you this not because I’m proud of it, but because I need to think, and I do some of my best thinking while I’m writing, among other things. Maybe it would be more accurate to say I do some of my best thinking when I’m not actually thinking, or at least, not thinking about a particular subject.
I wish I could say it was just attending class where this is a problem, but it’s not. There is some part of me that seems to want to act in an inconsistent manner in regards to most things in my life, and so far I have not figured out how to overcome it. Of course, it’s entirely possible that like many things, I’m over thinking the problem, another tendency I’m learning to outgrow.
So far I’ve found two somewhat effective antidotes to these problems, and I’m sure as I practice them more they’ll become that much more effective. The first is to quit thinking! Yes, I know, that may be impossible, but I do know how to shift my thoughts so that they are largely focused internally and not spinning around, concentrating on an undesirable situation and making it worse. The second is movement – movement as in action, just getting up and doing something active. Whether that’s doing housework, working in the yard, or going to jujitsu class, action actually energizes me, rather than taking energy away. There does seem to be some sort of critical mass though, because below a certain energy threshold I find it difficult to get anything done. Maybe I just need to make myself do more that is active, in order to keep myself going.
One of the biggest ironies of this post is that I’m finishing it the day after a brown/black belt class that I did not attend because I was at home asleep on the sofa. I hate being that tired. Whatever the case, maybe I’ve been going about it all wrong – maybe I should be looking at things in a shorter time frame, rather than a longer one. When I look at things in a longer time frame, I think about how missing a class is not that big a deal. More accurately, it doesn’t appear to be that big a deal, though it may be a much bigger deal than I think.
Whatever the case, time to stop messing around and get down to business. I’ve been inconsistent nearly all my life, it’s well past time to fix it.