Virtue Quest

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I’ve had much fodder for reflection on procrastination in the last week or so. I’ve managed to avoid both desired and necessary tasks (such as writing or laundry) while still staying awake till the wee hours with the important work of advancing yet another level in an online game.

If there’s one thing I’m truly expert at, it’s putting off what needs doing.

The nature of my procrastination

I used to describe my procrastination as “not wanting to do something.” As in, “I don’t want to do laundry; I’d rather advance yet another level in this stupid online game.” I would think of it as a competition between an immediate pleasurable good and a remote and/or difficult good. My vice lay in preferring instant gratification.

But this past week, I noticed something. It’s not so much “I don’t want to do {X} (because I’d rather do {Y})” as it is “I want NOT to do {X}.” That is, I’m actively avoiding some activity {X} that I know is good and even necessary – even enjoyable! – and will accept nearly any substitute {Y}, even things that are less enjoyable than {X}, rather than do what is good.

I’m avoiding laundry. I’m running away from laundry.

So … am I afraid of laundry?

Procrastination and fear

I honestly don’t know what I’m afraid of. My shrink calls this, “self-destructive behavior,” which is one of the few psychological terms I comprehend immediately.

But it is absolutely clear to me that I am not “preferring” one good over another. Instead, I am fleeing headlong from something I know to be good, and using whatever excuse is at hand to aid my flight.

It seems that I am intent on sabotaging my own desire and efforts at happiness. There is something about happiness, virtue, goodness, that utterly terrifies me and that I am unwilling (as yet) to face directly.

Virtue and psychology

Psychology and virtue approach the problem from almost opposite angles. Psychology starts with understanding the problem, its roots and causes, and proceeds to prescribe a cure. Virtue, on the other hand, starts with action, and expects understanding to follow upon developing a habit of right action.

I think both approaches are valuable – at least, they have been to me. They both have given me tools to live a better life than I have before, and to hope for a life better still in the future.

But neither of them works alone. Psychology without virtue leads to navel-gazing. And virtue without psychology leads to ignoring the underlying causes so long as they can be covered by mechanical action.

I know I’m over-simplifying. Classical virtue ethics, after all, is all about the formation of one’s character – and not about the mechanical “rightness” of one’s actions. And psychology ultimately seeks a healing of the whole person, including one’s choices and behavior.

Where I am, right now

So I have no profound advice to give here. All I have today is a new recognition of where I am, and a hope that this recognition will allow me to stand fast in the face of my laundry.

A New Year's Toast

About a year ago, I wrote a post about New Year’s resolutions on another, now-defunct, blog. The truth is, I’d been debating whether I should repost it here, and I’ve been afraid to because (like so many people) I didn’t really keep my resolutions very well. But a friend asked me about the post, so … here ’tis. It’s a reminder of where I was a year ago, and of the kind of progress I still want to make.

A quick disclaimer: the other blog was more explicitly aimed at my fellow Catholics than this one is, so in the post my assumption was that the readers were or knew something about Catholics.

For the Church, today, the First Sunday of Advent, is the beginning of the new year. It is also a penitential season, a time to repent, reform, and renew. Which puts me in mind of a more secular tradition: new year’s resolutions.

I’m going to make a new year’s resolution, and I’m going to begin now, at the beginning of the Church year. This is my resolution: to grow in my life in Christ. This resolution has three simple parts: pray, learn, and serve.

And I invite anyone to join me in this resolution. Grow in life with Christ: pray, learn, serve. After all, this is what we should be doing as Christians anyway.

Now, as for me, I know I’d fail by tomorrow morning if I left it as vague as that. So here are some concrete steps I’m going to take to fulfill this resolution.

Pray. I’m going to schedule half an hour of private prayer every day. I’m putting it in my schedule so that the time is protected, and so that I don’t come up with excuses to avoid it. I know myself well enough to know I’ll take any excuse I can find.

Learn. I’m going to read through at least one article of St. Thomas’ Summa Theologica every day. St. Thomas is still regarded as the most comprehensive theologian in the history of the Church, and he has a certain pride of place in the Dominican order. And moreover, he has a way of surprising me every time I read him closely. This will be a good way for me to make sure I’m growing in my knowledge of Christ.

Serve will be a bit trickier, since most of the Christian life can be seen as some kind of service. But the part I struggle most with is time management: I spend time I should be working for other people on distracting or entertaining myself. So I’m creating a fairly comprehensive schedule for myself, to hold myself accountable to actually spending my time serving other people. I’m also making sure that my leisure time is protected, and plan to use it in truly recreational activities — but more on recreation vs. distraction in another post.

In short, I’m focusing on one simple way I can improve my prayer, my learning, and my service. It won’t make me into the perfect Christian, but that’s not my goal right now. My goal right now is to grow in my life in Christ. Maybe I’ll grow more than I’m laying out here; but at least I’ll do this much. And I will trust that God will use all my efforts — and even my failures, since I know I’ll fall short from time to time — to draw me deeper into his life.

I’ll try to reflect on how it’s going for me over the course of the coming year. And I’ll welcome comments from you if you decide to join me. I’m doing it now, but maybe you’ll try it at some other point: for Lent, or starting on your fortieth birthday, or whenever. Just remember, the goal is simple:

Grow in life in Christ.

1. Pray
2. Learn
3. Serve

You just can't stop!

You do remember Tetris, don’t you?

Of course you do. Those blocks keep coming, faster and faster… at a certain point I would just give up and let them stack like a skyscraper. But apparently there were Tetris experts who could play for twelve hours straight! Cuh-ray-zee.

So I was thinking about how to explain the process of building a habit, and it was Tetris that came to mind.

The blocks don’t stop!

In real life, as in Tetris, new situations keep appearing and they have to be fit into life as it is, whether we like it or not. There’s no choosing what shows up on the horizon. And there’s no stopping it. Life will keep coming at us, at a steady pace of twenty-four hours every day, for the rest of our lives.

But, there are ways to deal with it, to keep from being overwhelmed, even to use the strangely-shaped situations that life throws our way to the good. It’s like clearing a line in Tetris: when we arrange the different parts of life into the proper order, they cease to cause problems.

And, as we practice arranging our lives, we get better at it. Maybe we even begin to see new “problems” rather as “opportunities” to fill a gap, or to discover a new way of ordering life.

Perseverance is a virtue

Now, I’ve already mentioned that, in playing the game, I eventually give up out of frustration. I have to admit that I’m tempted to do the same in my life. I have friends who always get going whenever the going gets tough. I admire them tremendously. For myself, I tend to avoid the situation, to procrastinate, or even to hide.

That’s because, at root, I’m basically a coward. And perseverance is a kind of sub-virtue of fortitude. It’s the courageous act of facing every obstacle as it comes, no matter how many obstacles there are. It’s the refusal to surrender in the face of ongoing adversity.

Growing in perseverance

So here’s what I’m doing to overcome my cowardice: I’m setting a schedule. I’m pacing myself. I’m writing a to-do list, and putting the tasks in order of priority. In short, I’m taking a little time to strategize, to arrange my life as it exists, and to plan out where those incoming events can fit into it.

But just as importantly, I’m giving up the fantasy that someday it will all become easy. I think that’s the ultimate root of my fear: I think that life ought to be easy, and I’m frustrated when my dreams don’t arrive on a silver platter.

That is a lie. It’s time to face the fact that, whatever I might want, life will keep coming at me. I can’t put the game away; it’s not a game. But I can start looking at life as a series of opportunities rather than as a series of problems. I can look for how new situations can fit into some kind of order – even if it’s an order I hadn’t planned on.

If you want to find new ways to bring order to your life, too, please join the quest for virtue! We can learn from each other, and grow together!