I'm still thinking about diligence and trying to discipline myself more. Here is a quote from James V. Schall in On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs, pg 109:
"The object of self-discipline, then, in the best sense, is not the self. That may sound strange. The classical writers used to relate self-discipline to liberty. The person who was most free was the one who had the most control over himself. The person who was most unfree was the one who was ruled by pleasures, money, or power."
This is so true - sin likes to portray itself as freeing, if only we would give ourselves over to it. Really, it would bind us tighter and tighter and never let go. Is a man addicted to alcohol really free? Could he give it up if he had to? Often not. True freedom comes (as the Puritan would say) by doing what you ought. Only by doing what is right are we free - sin is an enslaver.
The second quote I'm stealing from Maria's blog, so the credit goes to her. This paragraph is brilliant and reminds me that every day matters. There ought not to be any excuses for slacking "just this once;" because hard work is a habit that must be established through repetition.
"It was while rereading The St. Andrew's Seven tonight that it struck me. Here is the quote:
'...if at all ambitious of a name in scholarship, or what is better far, if ambitious of that wisdom that can devise aright for the service of humanity, it is not by the wildly...irregular march of a wayward and meteoric spirit that you ever will arrive at it. It is by a slow but surer path - by a fixed devotedness of aim, and the steadfast prosecution of it - by breaking your day into its hours and its seasions, and then by a resolute adherence to them; it is not by random sallies of him who lives without a purpose and without a plan - it is by the unwearied regularities of him who plies the exercise of a self-appointed round and most strenuously perseveres in them (p. 33).'
