5 February: Unpraised Hours (i)

If you’ve never seen the basketball movie, The Pistol, I recommend you put it in your queue to watch. It’s the story of basketball superstar, Pete “The Pistol” Maravich, and tracks his childhood and development into the star he would one day become. His father, himself a former professional ball player and his coach, has some great lines in the movie. In a private conversation with Pete, Mr. Maravich paints the picture of putting in hard work, “When you’re in the gym, across town or across the state, your opponent is in his, too. When you take a day off, when you go in early, when you’re not working on your shot, he’s working on his.” The Pistol listened and his rise to excellence came not from some phenomenal talent, ready-made for success, but from cultivation.

Davis reviewed a book last year called Outliers. The latest study by Malcolm Gladwell looks at those individuals who break away from the pack in terms of achievement and performance. One of the key characteristics of some of these individuals was a certain mark, 10,000 hours of practice. These individuals, focused on learning something or becoming someone saw one thing and chased after it. For almost all of us, if we want to grow or improve at anything, repetition is irreplaceable. A Kansas City pastor occasionally reminds his congregation, “We often overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in a decade.” The longer I live life, the more convinced I am in our inability to do too many things, but in the attainability of getting a few things done well. Knowing this, I will occasionally reflect on who I want to be and what I want to see happen through my life.

Pistol Pete died in 1988 of an undetected congenital heart defect at the age of 40. He still holds the NCAA’s all-time scoring record of 3,667 points and averaged 44.2 points a game (in 3 years of play). This was before the league introduced the 3-pt shot. If 3 pointers had been recorded as they are today, he would have averaged 57 points a game. Hundreds of hours of game successes came from tens of thousands of hours of practice. Whenever we see a public display of excellence, what we are also seeing is the fruit of a private discipline.

Who do you want to be?
Prove it.

For Reflection:
1. Write out a few things you would like to be true of you at the end of your life (whenever that comes). Be specific. For instance,
‘holiness’ is a worthy goal, but holiness in what area? Holiness in finances, speech, remembering the poor? What?

2. What would you have to do to improve in these areas?

3. Ask yourself these questions: Now that I’ve answered the above, am I really going to do anything differently? This will help you see who you really want to be in an honest light (i.e., if you don’t want to do the work required to become who you say you want to be, then you don’t really want to be that person). Second question: Now that I see more clearly who I truly want to be, do I want to be that person?