Meditations Upon an Ironing Board
I still have a white dress shirt that I bought a few years ago. I don't wear it very often. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice shirt. But it's 100% cotton and of a very light fabric, which leave it susceptible to wrinkles. So every time I want to wear that shirt, I have to iron it first.
It's been a while since I've worn that shirt. I thought I'd like to wear it tomorrow to church. Since we have the early block at our building, and since the choir is meeting half an hour before church to practice for our song tomorrow, I decided I'd rather iron tonight than early tomorrow morning. So I got the ironing board set up, got the shirt in question (and one other) out of the closet, and started to work.
It was a little more difficult than I remember. I probably haven't ironed anything in 3-4 months, and I found that I had lost a little of my touch. I was ironing out creases that I had inadvertently put in, that sort of thing. And I was wondering, "Why is this so difficult?"
One of my favorite quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson came to mind: "That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do; not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased."
In other words, I was having difficulty ironing because I was out of practice.
Back in high school, I was one of the "brainy kids". (And Derek will back me up on this, there weren't many at my high school.) My mind was like the proverbial sponge, soaking up any and all knowledge it was exposed to. My lifelong mastery of useless trivia started way back then. One useful side effect was that I hardly ever had to study. I could go to class, listen to the lecture, and have the material down. In fact, other than writing papers for Ms. Schulz's Research Class From Hades, I can't really remember doing homework much in high school.
That changed a little in college, where the material was a lot harder. Still, I managed to do minimal studying away from class, and in most cases, did well enough on the tests to make it through.
Well, the past year or so has been an entirely different story. I'm learning that my mind doesn't retain things the way it used to, and that the intuitive learning style I used to rely upon no longer works very well. For really the first time in my life, I have to study and do my homework if I'm going to be successful. Practice and persist, and eventually the hard stuff becomes easy. I hope.
Maybe I need to iron more often.
It's been a while since I've worn that shirt. I thought I'd like to wear it tomorrow to church. Since we have the early block at our building, and since the choir is meeting half an hour before church to practice for our song tomorrow, I decided I'd rather iron tonight than early tomorrow morning. So I got the ironing board set up, got the shirt in question (and one other) out of the closet, and started to work.
It was a little more difficult than I remember. I probably haven't ironed anything in 3-4 months, and I found that I had lost a little of my touch. I was ironing out creases that I had inadvertently put in, that sort of thing. And I was wondering, "Why is this so difficult?"
One of my favorite quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson came to mind: "That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do; not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased."
In other words, I was having difficulty ironing because I was out of practice.
Back in high school, I was one of the "brainy kids". (And Derek will back me up on this, there weren't many at my high school.) My mind was like the proverbial sponge, soaking up any and all knowledge it was exposed to. My lifelong mastery of useless trivia started way back then. One useful side effect was that I hardly ever had to study. I could go to class, listen to the lecture, and have the material down. In fact, other than writing papers for Ms. Schulz's Research Class From Hades, I can't really remember doing homework much in high school.
That changed a little in college, where the material was a lot harder. Still, I managed to do minimal studying away from class, and in most cases, did well enough on the tests to make it through.
Well, the past year or so has been an entirely different story. I'm learning that my mind doesn't retain things the way it used to, and that the intuitive learning style I used to rely upon no longer works very well. For really the first time in my life, I have to study and do my homework if I'm going to be successful. Practice and persist, and eventually the hard stuff becomes easy. I hope.
Maybe I need to iron more often.
posted by Michael at
9:18 PM
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