A dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Elle Boon
Finbarr Saunders is a character in a British comics known for finding double entendres in anything and everything. His most common response to any even remotely inappropriate phraseology is, “fnar fnar!” He was still going strong when I began my training as an accountant. My friends outside the profession would ask, “did you do any double entry today? Fnar fnar!” I guess I have accountancy training (and my friends) to thank for embedding in me the very British qualities of euphemism and school boy innuendo.
My accountancy training came with many such tangential lessons, many of which stemmed from the concepts and principles upon which accounting is founded. The consistency principle, for example, says that once you pick a way of accounting for something you should keep accounting for it in the same way, because then your numbers are comparable from period to period. Another way of looking at this is to consider how much easier it is to correct your mistake when you’ve been consistently wrong than when you’ve been acting like a Tasmanian devil on a diet of Red Bull and acid. Such lessons continued throughout my articles of apprenticeship and by the time I emerged as a qualified accountant – equipped with such super powers as innuendo, consistency, … and confirmation bias – I felt ready to take on the world.
Wherever I looked I found consistency to be a winning element. It’s a notion aided by my participation in endurance events. I deem consistency to be the single most important attribute of marathon training. You can’t start out with a ‘run-like-a-puppy’ mentality, going full beans before totally knackering yourself into a heap after a couple of miles. You need to sustain not only your energy but also your desire. You have a long way to last, and a measured approach is essential in acclimatizing your body to the demands it will experience. This is true as much in training as it is in the race, arguably more so. My best races have been preceded by consistency in training – nothing spectacular, just persistent and almost boringly predictable monotony. (I’m not selling this very well, am I?)
The times in which I have felt most stress were when consistency was absent, usually in people. Many of us have worked for difficult bosses. We may not like it but we can handle it, most of the time. However, when the person is a total ray of sunshine one moment, and a fire-breathing dragon the next, every day becomes like the box of chocolates referenced by Forrest Gump’s Mama. You never know what you’re going to get; the uncertainty is exhausting.
“Be water, my friend.”
Bruce Lee
Water brings me calm. When I conflate water and consistency I imagine tiny, regular, incessant drips of water slowly wearing away rock. Even something as soft as water, when coupled with consistency, has the power to shape the most obstinate of objects. Of course when Bruce Lee spoke about water he was referring to the power afforded by its lack of rigidity, and the importance of responding to one’s circumstances. Is there something rigid in consistency, even if it’s a gentle form of rigidity? Is consistency always the answer?
One of my other sources of inspiration, Ralph Waldo Emerson, said, “The need for a rational consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.” I’ve been processing his words for several days trying to understand what he meant my rational consistency. (I’m happy to hear the thoughts of wiser minds than mine on this.) As I chewed on the possibilities of irrational consistency and consistent irrationality I began to wonder if he was observing that consistency seems rational to us human creatures, that we cling to it too tightly, and for longer than it might serve us.
Everything in moderation, including moderation.
Oscar Wilde, or Benjamin Franklin, or Mark Twain… I’m still researching.
Here I am extolling the virtues of consistency, only to now doubt myself. We like to read articles that validate our world view but deep down we know the world is more complex than we care to admit. The words of a person with a strong sense of conviction can feel compelling. I’m no such a person. Consistency has its place, but so does inconsistency. Maybe, like evolution, we are best served by finding a consistent rhythm for ourselves, but randomly interrupting the groove with occasional and unexpected surges. Fnar fnar.
