Diligence

Follow Through

I remember when I took martial arts for several years, my instructor would teach us that on every punch, every kick, we must follow through. We were to imagine striking through the body so that no strike would fall flat. Following through gave completeness to the strike; following through the board or body gave the strike maximum power.

The Latin root for diligence, diligere, means love. To be diligent is to love. We know that someone who loves for half of the time, loves for none of the time. In the same manner, those who are diligent for half of the time are diligent for none of the time. “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich” - Proverbs 10:4. Follow through.

We naturally tend toward being slothful. Few days our hearts will be in our tasks, but in most they will not. In our modern times we give sanitized names to vices. We have given the name “procrastinator” to someone who is truly a “sluggard” or “sloth”. Because we dare not call a vice a vice, we look for “tips”, “tricks”, and “productivity hacks”, but all the while we know the simple, not easy, cure to sluggardness: action.

Diligence pushes through despite the waxing and waning of emotions. Diligence knows that the feelings come and go, but the duty still remains. Duty remains whether there is a laborer or not. Just as in martial arts, you may not have the motivation to strike through the board, but the board is still there. In these moments you do not rely on motivation, which is so fickle, but diligence because your love for the completion of the task is greater than the optimal feelings for it. If you push through, you will quickly find that the emotions pass away. Follow through.

Diligence is constant. It does not let up. It is a consistent plodding. Diligence returns to the task, again and again, with unrelenting efforts that are indifferent to difficulty and is hopeful of a triumphal outcome. And the triumph is not over a big, scary monster, but over the mundane. The mundane is the more common foe, and requires more strength than the monster will. You will only face a monster every once in a while, which gives you time to prepare, but you will face the mundane everyday. The dull, boring work demoralizes. As an accountant, I know that after doing months of repetitive work, I look forward to the big, scary beast known as “tax season”. But when you face the mundane for the 300th time, what do you do? You practice diligence. Diligence is what gets you through the making of big rocks into little rocks. And when you are finished, you will turn and see that you have conquered the mountain. Let diligence rule constantly. Follow through.

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