On Direction

And so he did not resist in the small ways that a man might, and in time the accumulation of such daily choices of acquiescence hardened into a kind of moral muscle memory, such that resistance was no longer even a possible option. For almost nine years the man had been rehearsing his surrender.

~ The Places Beyond the Maps, Douglas McKelvey

If I were required to pick the single most important idea I’ve come across during the 8 years of this reading project, it would be the importance of direction.

The idea is quite simple. We’re all moving in a particular direction that is mostly dictated by the small, seemingly insignificant choices we make on a daily basis. Nearly all of these choices are unseen in that they take place in our minds and oftentimes when we are alone.

It’s at once a deeply encouraging yet frightening idea. Your very next decision could change the trajectory of your life yet your “daily choices of acquiescence” could alternatively be weakening you to a point of no return.

The most important paragraph I’ve come across regarding direction was penned by C.S. Lewis in his masterpiece Mere Christianity:

“I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature…Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”

As a child, I would spend hours pretending that I was saving my classmates from the bad guys. Fueled by action films starring Van Damme, Schwarzenegger, and Seagal, I would play out the role of the hero. I hoped that should the occasion arise, that I would rise up to meet the moment in the real world.

As I grew up, I learned the hard truth that my heroic ideals oftentimes did not play out in real life. Cowardly unseen “choices of acquiescence” would spill out with harmful public consequences. The “muscle memory” of those poor choices made any public heroics all but impossible.

I came to understand the statement by Archilochus that "We don't rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training." Put another way, we don’t rise to the level of our heroic ideals; we continue in the direction of our daily choices.

The books I have read for Books of Titans have provided an incredible view into the direction of the lives of both fictional and historical characters. Robert Caro shows us how the stated ends of Lyndon B. Johnson were corrupted by the very means he used to attempt to reach those ends. Douglas McKelvey shows us a father who lacked the strength to save his own daughter, to be the hero when it absolutely mattered, because of the “accumulation of such daily choices of acquiescence.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn shows us that survivors of the Soviet Gulag had decided upon a certain path during easier times and that “those people had been corrupted in camp who had already been corrupted out in freedom.”

I knew in my own life that were I to be the man I wanted to be, to be someone who could be counted on in the most difficult of circumstances, that I would need to start moving in that direction in small, unnoticed, daily decisions. I needed to begin creating a “moral muscle memory.”

David Goggins was once running when a driver pulled up and asked what he was training for. Goggins replied that he was training for life. He knew that avoiding the run that day made it easier to avoid it the next day and the day after that. That run was setting a direction for his life. It was an important daily choice.

The great thing about viewing life through the prism of direction is that it applies to so many areas. Health, faith, work, exercise, raising children, self-improvement. Direction can take what seems like an impossible future and break it down to your next decision. To be a hero in a tough circumstance can start with what my friend Garrett Gravesen calls 10 Seconds of Insane Courage.

Direction is not just a helpful mental model for yourself, it’s also a great litmus test to evaluate a church, school, business, or political party. Simply look at the stated ends of a group and see if the means are leading in that direction. Crooked means will corrupt utopian ends.

There are very few overnight successes. Very few heroes of the moment. The truer story is that of the person slowly moving in a particular direction, day by day, decision by decision, over a period of years. There will be many diversions along the way. The direction will not be a straight path. But the beauty of this idea is that your life can change direction with your very next decision. If you screw up, make the next right decision. This is the lesson of some of the world’s great literature.

“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. The trick is to focus on the first small thing. Starting small is still starting, and small beginnings often lead to extraordinary endings.”

~ Vincent Van Gogh