Above the doorway to the gym at my High School in Florida someone painted this quote from Emerson: "That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the nature of the thing has changed, but that our ability to perform it has increased." Sometimes people, students in particular, marvel at how I get out of bed early or read scriptures daily or do all that I have in my thus far short life. Well, when I was younger, I started entrenching good habits so that these things became a matter of course, like instinctual, so that I just do them naturally. It also taught me that there becomes a point where we see a level of diminished returns, where in order to achieve the same outcome we have to do more or push harder, not because we're not getting anything out of it, but that our ability increased. I find that the more I work, the more I must do or the more that other people require of me. In truth, this is part of growth, part of life, but it becomes arduous for me when I continually have to rise to the challenge just to maintain the status quo while others are rewarded for meeting the minimum expectations.
At my last job, I learned the risk of accepting extra responsibilities without an increase in pay. In anticipation of a putative promotion, I agreed to these extra rights, powers, and responsibilities, but when they passed me over for promotion twice, I transferred to a different unit. When I arrived, I didn't tell them about my previous experience. I didn't want it to become part of the expectation since that put me on unequal footing with my peers. I am currently sitting on information that demonstrates how coworkers received raises concurrent with a decrease in their workload while I received extra work without a commensurate increase in pay. They justify this by writing "other duties as assigned" on my work performance standards so basically they can make anything my job that they like, but I'm not cool with that. I have found that in order to keep on par with coworkers who belong to the GOBNet or certain protected demographics I must do work that exceeds theirs. I don't receive any kudos, but they do. I get to keep my job. I remind myself that the Kobiashi Maru is ultimately a test of character. Although others chart a different course, I decided a long time that the only thing in the world worth having is your integrity. No job or fortune or woman is worth becoming a boot-licking toady. Be true.
The reason I decide to do this and find capacity from those actions comes from principles I learned as a boy. My parents got me into the Franklin-Covey planner system which I used successfully for many years. It taught me to Plan your Priorities and encouraged me to rank things according to what they mean to me in my life. Most people prioritize things that are easy so that they can accomplish a ton of quesquilia rather than accomplishing things with their time and talents that actually count as worthy of accomplishment. It empowered me to be able to check off the things that mattered most and look back and see that day after day, week after week, month after month, I accomplished what mattered most. You see, people make time for the things and people that matter, so if you're not making it a priority, it tells me that other things matter more. Consequently, getting out of bed early to pray, read scripture, and exercise is easy for me. At the beginning of the day, I have accomplished the things that matter most in the day, and all before most other folks even get out of bed. Not to mention, I found that if I procrastinate those things until later I find an excuse to justify not doing them so that they never actually get done.
Unfortunately, I found that accomplishment and achievement are a game of diminishing returns in this life. Particularly now that I have a fitbit, it's evident that in order to meet the same exertion level and burn the same number of calories I find myself continually forced to raise the bar. Whether increasing the duration, the intensity, or the frequency, in order to increase in fitness, I must do more and more and more in order to have an effective outcome. This morning I rode my bicycle 12 miles with a 20lb backpack. Although I could feel the extra effort, the fitbit didn't register extra caloric output. I know it's a good workout, but you can't really tell. I'm not the physique that "gets ripped" by going to the gym. When I go hiking, people are frequently surprised due to my extra mass and lack of muscular definition that I'm not completely exhausted when we get to the summit. I don't look fit because I don't look lean, but I can go for hours and hours and hours, and I burn over 3000 calories per day. Do you?
While it is true that the more you do the more you can, the more you do the more is required. You may have noticed that when you successfully complete a trial that God gives you tougher ones with which to deal. This isn't a punishment, and it isn't a test. God already knows what you can do, but YOU don't know yet. He isn't content having a universe filled with automatons running helter skelter to and fro; He intends to fill the universe with copies of Himself. In order to be where God is, you must be willing to do what it takes to get there. The increased difficulty level helps reveal to us what our true character really is. What really matters to us? For what do we make time? What do we always manage to accomplish? Planning our priorities makes that automatic so that it's easy to keep good habits as well as adapt to changing circumstances and additional responsibilities. It is supposed to be the truth that as we increase in rank and pay we increase in responsibility and value to the organization. While that's not always the case on earth, God's most trusted servants are those who managed their ten talents or five well and magnified them to the Master's glory. The more we have done, the more we know we CAN do. It affords us the opportunity to become better than we were, to rise up, to do more, because the better we become the more we can increase. If you desire increasing returns, this is the law to which you must subscribe. The Law of Increasing Returns can be summarized as follows: be true to the royal within you, make time for what matters most to you, and be open to increase in difficulty because that's how we rise to new heights. You cannot reach the peak if you do not walk the trail that leads to it. If you desire to see the vista you must make the climb. I testify that the returns are worthwhile.
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