StC News

Habits & Inertia

Upper School Chapel talk from September 18, 2017
Good morning.
 
I want to commend all of you, our faculty and especially our students, for a particularly strong opening to the 2017-2018 school year at St. Christopher’s. From the positive tone set by our seniors, to the enthusiasm of our underclassmen, to the commitment to excellence from our faculty, I believe that all of us have done our part to start the year in a manner that sets us up for success over the next many months together.
 
Students, already this year you have heard how your faculty will be placing a renewed emphasis on the little things, the details of school life that can have a surprisingly profound effect on the cumulative experience all of us are privileged to enjoy here at St. Christopher’s.
 
Little things, the common details of living, matter. That is what I hope to convey to you this morning.
 
For us here at St. Christopher’s, those little things may include details such as keeping your shirt tucked in throughout the school day; removing hats when entering a building; leaving common spaces, including our refurbished Active Lounge and Loud Library, in better condition than the condition in which you found it; and, importantly, parking where and how you are meant to park.
 
Also included on this list of the seemingly trivial at St. Christopher’s—not bringing food into classroom buildings without a teacher’s permission; paying for said food when you acquire it from our Café or Dining Hall; limiting your internet and cell phone use to academic endeavors when you are with us during the school day; and, possibly the most important habit of those I have mentioned this morning—taking the time and courtesy to engage in simple eye contact and greeting one another as we pass ways in our halls or grounds.
 
Yes, these details may be described as trivial. And, yes, from the eyes and ears of a 16- or 17-year-old young man, they may be nothing more than a nuisance, an unwelcomed imposition on the otherwise tolerable journey to manhood and independence that each of you so desperately seeks. I get it.
 
Gentleman, just 25 short years ago, I was there. I remember feeling deep frustration at the adults in my life who seemed to only want to control me, to instruct every small detail in my life. I can recall, by my junior and senior years, so wanting to break out, to scream and to cling to whatever independence I could carve out for myself, to do things my way, mistakes and all, but my way.
 
If you have those feelings, like I did, there is nothing wrong with you. It does not make you a bad person, at least I hope not, for I would certainly be one if it did. I’d like to think it makes you dogged and determined, yearning for something that is destined for you but not yet within your grasp.
 
I am also here to tell you that St. Christopher’s’ unwavering emphasis on the little things I have mentioned this morning but also the big things—like telling the truth, even when no one is watching; like being kind to everyone, including those who are different from you—our emphasis on these details is also right and normal, and it will continue this school year just as it has continued for 106 school years before this one.
 
I am fond of an oft-cited passage, which has been attributed to many prominent thinkers and goes something like this:
 
 
Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words. 

Be careful of your words, for your words become your actions. 

Be careful of your actions, for your actions become your habits. 

Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character. 

Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny.”
 
The little things matter, gentlemen, for they form habits in you and in others that can shape culture, character, and outcomes. Mind the details in your life, I urge you.
 
Now, at this risk of sending mixed messages in this Chapel, I have another concept I wish for you to consider, and that is the concept of inertia, as it relates to those very habits already mentioned but also in your general frame of thinking and being.
 
Inertia, as many of you have learned from your study of physics, is a “property by which matter continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force.”
 
I will repeat that last phrase, a “state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force.”
 
Digging a bit deeper into the etymology of this term, which is Latin in its origin, it comes to us from its adjective antecedent, “inert,” a term also with Latin roots that has been in English use for nearly 400 years. “Inert,” not surprisingly, means lacking vigor, inactive, static.
 
Gentlemen, I can assure you that neither your teachers nor I desire inertia from you even as we develop the habits of character that, while seemingly trivial today, will mold you into the kind of men we believe this world desperately needs.
 
Habits of thought and action can cut both ways. When those habits are positive—like the ones I have mentioned this morning—they can form desirable outcomes and character.
 
But when all of your habits of mind and action succumb to inertia, when they follow “uniform motion in a straight line,” they can become something less than desirable in a 21st Century world that demands nimble and agile thinking, adaptability, creativity, and, above all, an open mind.
 
Here is a trivial example, from the vault of my personal history.
 
When I was your age, growing up five miles west of here, I can recall learning how to drive and navigate my way around Richmond from three primary sources—I followed the same routes I had learned from my parents, my friends, or my friends’ parents.
 
Over time, without questioning it, I assumed I knew how to get to important places in my life, like from my house to Bernie’s Subs, or from a friend’s house to the Diamond, or from Richmond to Va. Beach. I thought I knew the best way, simply by following the patterns set out before me by others. These were all good examples for me to follow, they provided a foundation, but they were not necessarily the best or only examples.
 
Fast forward 22 years, and after leaving Richmond for Charlottesville, DC, Boston, and New Orleans, I return to Richmond to rediscover my home city. I returned, for better or for worse, with many of the same biases and habits that I held as a young man.
 
Imagine my surprise—and delight, really—when I discovered last year that my hometown had changed in the 22 years in which I was away, largely in wonderful ways. In addition, imagine my surprise, thanks to the advent of GPS technology, that all those paths I had forged as a teenager, driving from important point A to important point B, were not necessarily the best or most effective routes.
 
GPS does not care about the habits of my family or friends; it has no preference for pattern or for comfort—its objective is simply efficiency, which is largely a good thing though probably not exclusively so.
 
You may find, gentlemen, the world beyond St. Christopher’s to be something like the GPS in all of our phones today—focused more on efficiency and outcomes than comfortable preferences or habits. Don’t throw your habits or customs away—I sometimes still drive to Bernie’s on the path that I know and prefer, even though it takes me two minutes longer than if I followed my GPS—but also don’t give in to the moral and mental laziness of inertia that can put you on autopilot through what will be a challenging, unpredictable, and exciting life journey.
 
Will you please stand and join me in reading “A Boy’s Prayer,” found on page 33 of your Prayer Book?
Back