Philosopher du Jour: Aristotle (Regarding Habits)

I enjoy the writings of the philosophers and glean a ton of helpful wisdom from them. Recently, quotes from Socrates and Confucius were discussed in my blog. Today, it's Aristotle's turn:


We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.


This quote is so deep, I need diving gear even to ponder it. But let's break it down, philosophize it, if you will. To say that we are what we repeatedly do seems to be obvious, but this part requires all thinking people to reflect on what they do, day in and day out. What do you do with your day? What habits, good or bad, do you have? Those ARE you, the essence of what describes you as a person. Your habits are how you are defined, both by yourself via your expression of free will, and by others via what you project to the world about your character via your actions. If you sit in front of the television--or computer--all day long like a vegetable, for example, your habit is being a vegetable. And hence, you are a vegetable.

Excellence is brought into the equation with the understanding that it is a desirable and noble descriptor one wants describing one's actions. And who doesn't want to be excellent?

It does no good to repeat bad, poor, or incorrect actions, as you limit your ability to improve. I had a wonderful tennis teacher/freelance philosopher, Mr. Freund, in college who used to always say, "Practice doesn't make perfect. It's only perfect practice that makes perfect." Quite sage, indeed. In tennis, during a serve, for example, if your form is off, if your racket is in the wrong position, or if your toss of the tennis ball over your head is sloppy, no matter how many thousands of hours you practice serving, your serve does not have the ability to improve. How could it? Only perhaps by divine intervention, as the technical ability for the perfect serve is fully and completely absent.

I hope you reflect, as I have and will continue to do, on your daily habits and improve them where you see they could use it. Reflect and pray on it; let God help. And God will.