www.andrewmackay.net:

Aristotle supposedly said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

I don’t know if that’s entirely true, but it feels like it is. I do know that I desire a life characterized by excellence. It’s easy to look at life — even in one week chunks — and to think, Well, it’s just another week. Ho Hum. I guess I’ll put in what’s required of me, make it to Friday, and then… Weekend!

That’s lame. Entirely not what I want for my life this week, that’s for sure. No matter the task, whether it’s cleaning a toilet bowl (likelyhood: 15%), changing a diaper (likelyhood: 100%) or resolving a customer’s problem (likelyhood: 100%… I almost did 110%, but I realize that 110% is not a real number. It’s like saying I’m one and one-tenths of a human being. Just unrealistic), I want to be excellent at it. I want to condition myself to the point that my responses aren’t just excellent, my entire behavior is excellent.

A more profound quote (not) “Be excellent to each other”… said by these guys:

A special Monday Motivator for writers: for goodness sakes, go find some people to write with. Find real people, find internet people (most likely a 48-year-old man named Carl masquerading as a 22-year-old emo writer named Claire), find people at random in the phone book: find people you can encourage to write, find people that will encourage you to write.

A little tidbit from my own life: I had the privilege of sitting down with a couple of friends of mine who are writers struggling for structure and discipline, much like yours truly. The discussion was spirited — as they often are when all participants are excited about the topic — and resulted in some good goals being set. Will they be met? I sure hope so. In fact, I need to go work on that now.

My point, though, is that I haven’t been this excited about writing in several months. It’s good to have goals and accountability. If you’d endeavor to be a writer, go find some people who can help!

I hate to rub it in, but… I’m on Vacation! The skyline I’m looking at is, admittedly, nothing at all like the one in the picture. That’s okay though… I’m in my home and native land, Canada. It’s good to be in the Great White North. I’m working on things like diction and accent to make sure I don’t stray too far away from my roots.

Vacation is a time to sit down and reflect on things that take place when the world is moving at it’s usual frantic pace. Work, family life, time wasters, time consumers that aren’t wastes… during this week of “chillin’ out”  (I felt so cool typing that), I’ll have time to think constructively about all those things. Plus, I get to enjoy my family, play with my little boy whenever I can, and drink too much coffee and eat too much ice cream.

Yeah, you gotta love vacation!

I was reminded yesterday, after gathering as the church, of an important truth. A brother told me that the reason his wife is so good at what she does is simple: she is passionate about it. She was passionate about it before she started doing it as a job. A great reminder as far as both doing a good job at what I find myself doing and also about the direction I should be oriented toward.

Mondays are always tough. You roll out of bed, not at all ready for what is to come. If you’re like me, you grab a cup of coffee; then another. You go through the motions of a morning routine, all of it rushing headlong into a day at work. Once you’re there, you attack the pile of things that you know must be done before Friday ends. Eight hours pass. You go home, content that another Monday is done.

All that negativity brings me around to what I hope to accomplish this morning. My intention is to self-medicate. Since there are no hard drugs around, I figured that a little reminder of something good would be a great way to start my morning:

My wife is the best wife a man could have. You could say that all this writing stuff is almost the equivalent of a very early mid-life crisis. My priorities have changed. I’m spending a significant portion of every day on writing and blogging and developing those abilities.

It is not without a cost for both me and my family. Even as I endeavour to do it after the rest of the family goes to bed, I can see it start to creep into other time slots.

My wife has always been supportive of whatever I’m “on about.” If she thinks I’m crazy, she’s done a fantastic job of not letting me in on it. She supports me, encourages me, and generally makes me feel like I’m better than I actually am. Wait. Rewrite: she genuinely makes me better than I actually am. She makes space for me to do things I think are important. She gets on board and makes them important to her, too.

So, this Monday morning, as I dive into cup number 3 and 4 (and 5 if there’s still any in the coffee pot,) I’m going to stop and remind myself of just how blessed a guy I am.

Rebecca, thank you. I love you.

The rest of you, have a good Monday.