In continuation of our consideration yesterday, I’d like to join William George Jordan in offering a few starting points for coming to the point where you can express unconscious grace in all that you do.
To begin with, Jordan observed:
“The man who is slipshod and thoughtless in his daily speech, whose vocabulary is a collection of anaemic commonplaces, whose repetitions of phrases and extravagance of interjections act but as feeble disguises to his lack of ideas, will never be brilliant on an occasion when he longs to outshine the stars.”
Your words, carefully selected and fitly spoken, should be as lustrous pearls to the world you center. Whether they are well-received or not is beside the point, the fact that you gave it your best is the point. Jordan continued:
“Living at one’s best is constant preparation for instant use. It can never make one over-precise, self-conscious, affected, or priggish.”
“Living at one’s best is constant preparation for instant use.” Isn’t that a wonderfully motivating phrase? When you live at your best you are constantly learning, pushing yourself, refining every aspect of your body, mind and heart. You learn to grow accustomed to the awkwardness that comes when you are new to something and have confidence in the fact that if you stay the course and continue to give your best, that which was once difficult becomes secondhand. If you’re really good, you stop thinking about it consciously almost completely.
“Education, in its highest sense, is conscious training of mind or body to act unconsciously. It is conscious formation of mental habits, not mere acquisition of information.”
This phrase alone could be used as the basis for an educational program that could overcome the painful and increasingly obvious limitations of our present knowledge-based, test-centric system.
We’ll have to explore that thought further some time!
Gregory Hake 
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I’ve noticed with children that every stage of developing a skill may be rewarding and enjoyable to them. Education that encourages a love of artistry and precision in any field is a life long blessing.
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The casualness and predictability that surrounds and infuses most conversation is the precursor of so much of human experience overall. Words are our children, born of the content of our hearts and sent out as a forming legacy.
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As I get older I find education is not just acquiring, it is also a continual scrapping of some things that have become habit. If the attitude is , “I am what I am”, it is quite like saying I’m done living. One of the joys of living is continual change in ourselves. If the heart is deeply committed to being the best person we can, it not only remains open to change but assists with the creative atmosphere, that is essential to this transformation of our proclivities; which in turn reveals visible metamorphosis.
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Yes, living at one’s best seems to prepare you to welcome new challenges, relish in the challenge and become a better version of yourself. That attitude will help overcome any tendency to shy away from something new or uncomfortable. It is reasonable to me that being consistent and thoughtful in all you do earns you the privilege of a higher job or a greater set of responsibilities or some other greater function – it is rewarded somehow and life’s reward is growth and when you grow, your body and your mind are more capable and that is an amazing feeling. You are simply doing the best with what you have, and that I really believe is what allows you to progressively become all that you can become. I don’t know what that is for myself or anyone, but it’s exciting to see it happen. It’s sad to see it stop happen too, if a person stops wanting to do their best. Blind spots are given ample time to be illuminated and made aware of, but I know there’s a certain limit where if you continue to dishonor this code, then well I guess growth is stunted and we never get to see the ultimate potential of what could have been. Sometimes we see what never should have been.
Great stuff to think about – !
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I think the preparation of living one’s best really allows you to be at ease and begin really living. I sometimes see people who I think of as over-preparers. Everything has to be just so; rehearsed endlessly so that they can control every facet of what they are preparing for. Yet when I have observed this, I see that these people are never really living life; they have no unconscious grace.
On the other hand, there are those who are always “winging it”, and who never prepare for anything. Sometimes you can get lucky and this will work, but eventually you will find the rug has been pulled out from under you.
However, if you have the constant preparation of living life the best you can, there is a certain rest that you can achieve that allows for that unconscious grace. You will not be an “over-preparer”, but you will be prepared for anything that is thrown at you.
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I look forward to these pearls from your blog every day. Thank you!
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