“Quick, show me the Mona Lisa! I’m double parked.”
–American in a hurry, Louvre Museum in Paris
All of us appreciate a good shortcut. Shortcuts can save us time, aggravation, and gas. I remember in graduate school a friend explaining a nifty word processing shortcut on the computer that has served me well every week of my life since. I am always looking for wise shortcuts that allow me to work smarter, not harder. However, there are some endeavors where shortcuts can be costly.
In the business world, for example, an apt criticism of modern business is that it is so short-sighted. Immediate profitability is usually the bottom line in most business decisions. Yet, there are abundant creative business ideas that require long-range, patient discipline to groom consumer taste for the product. Sadly, many great ideas die for lack of long-range corporate vision. A classic example is Starbuck’s Coffee. Love it or hate it, Starbucks is an example of a business that actually created a market for itself. Before Starbucks, American culture settled for an “off the shelf” style of coffee because it hadn’t tasted variety where coffee was concerned. Starbucks introduced a richer, darker style of coffee that was new and different, and sought to nurture an appreciation for this type of coffee within the culture. Obviously, with sometimes two or three Starbucks on many suburban streets, the strategy worked. Long-range thinking. Disciplined effort. Saying no to shortcuts.
There are other, significant areas of life as well that do not lend themselves to shortcuts. Most of them involve sacrifice and an appreciation for process. But our culture tends to shun process in favor of product, instant value over disciplined effort. Imagine a group of people trying to write a vision statement or to codify a set of core values; their temptation would be simply to take a mission statement from another group they esteem or simply to have one of their members write their statement for them. However, it is the PROCESS of writing the statement that is just as valuable as the final product, if not more so. It is in the process of discussion, disagreement, resolution, further refinement, and final agreement that ambitious and unified vision is born. I’m sorry, but such process defies shortcuts.
Important areas of life require disciplined and enduring action over time to produce the lasting and worthwhile affect we desire. Playing a musical instrument requires years of patient practice to make the rudiments instinctive, opening doors for creative, spontaneous, and enjoyable music. Beautiful dance requires years of practiced movement to make for the seemingly effortless performance. Scientific research requires careful and attentive experimentation and scrutiny to produce trustworthy results for advancement. Yet, I fear that our entertainment-oriented culture is losing its appreciation for discipline. Guitar Hero provides the thrill and exhilaration of successful musical performance without the years of dedicated effort. Virtual reality robs our appreciation for the mundane and necessary disciplines to enhance our ACTUAL reality.
