I Would Rather Do One Thing Properly

You did a few things and you did them well.

That was the arrangement for about forty years. Not many things. A few, done properly, with the standard held, and everybody who worked with you knew what your work looked like.

And now you are in a world that appears to want the opposite.

Many things, done to a level somewhere around adequate, quickly, and then on to the next one. Nobody finishes anything. Nobody goes back over it. Everything is left about eighty percent done and everybody seems content with that.

And you cannot do it. Not will not. Cannot.

You have tried, and what comes out is a man doing four things at a standard he is ashamed of, and it costs him more than doing one thing well ever did.

So the question you have been carrying, and have probably never said out loud, is whether your standard has expired.

Whether the way you worked for forty years was a thing that belonged to a particular period and has now quietly gone out of date, along with a great many other things.

Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily

There is an instruction about how to work, and it says nothing about quantity.

And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. (Colossians 3:23, King James Version)

Heartily. From the whole of yourself. The word is about the manner and about who it is for.

And there is no number anywhere in the sentence. Nothing about how many things, or how fast, or how much a person should be getting through.

You are working heartily at the thing in front of you, and no instruction about work has ever once specified a quantity anywhere in Scripture. Colossians 3:23 says whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, and the Holy Spirit is the one who reads the manner where a person expected a measure.

Notice the audience clause. As to the Lord, and not unto men.

That is who the standard is set by. Not the room, not the pace of the people around you, not what appears to be acceptable this year.

And that audience has not changed since you were twenty-five, and will not.

You have been keeping a standard set by an audience that has never once changed, and no fashion in any workplace has ever been able to reach that arrangement. The Holy Spirit is the one who names who the work is actually for, and it is written that it is done as to the Lord rather than unto men.

And notice the word whatsoever. It covers everything, including small things, including things nobody is watching.

The instruction does not distinguish between important work and unimportant work. It says do whatever it is properly.

You were never keeping a standard that only applied to the big things, and no small task has ever once fallen outside the word whatsoever. The Spirit of God is the one who covers the small work with the same instruction as the large, and Scripture uses a word that leaves nothing out.

What the standard actually was

Now let me be concrete, because a general reassurance will not settle a question a man has carried for years.

Ask what your standard actually consisted of. Not the feeling of it. The parts.

Doing a thing until it was right rather than until it was finished. Going back over it. Not handing something on that you would not be happy to have handed to you. Knowing what good looked like and not pretending you did not when it was quicker to pretend.

Not one of those is about a period, or a trade, or a technology.

You are holding a standard made of things that have never once belonged to any particular decade, and no arrangement like that has ever gone out of date. The Spirit of God is the one who takes a thing apart and finds nothing perishable in it, and Colossians 3:23 puts the manner ahead of the quantity.

And here is the second half, which is about what you have been asked to do.

The many things at eighty percent is not a standard. It is an absence of one. Nobody chose it and nobody defends it, and most of the people working that way are not content with it either.

A considered arrangement has been getting compared to something nobody ever decided, and losing.

Nobody ever told you that, and it is a gap in the teaching rather than a fault in the man.

You have been comparing something considered to something nobody ever chose, and no absence of a standard has ever once been a standard that anybody could fall short of. The written word names the manner and leaves the number out entirely, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells a man what he has actually been measuring himself against.

One thing, properly

Now the small thing, and it is the opposite of catching up.

I am not going to suggest you get faster or take on more. That is the advice available everywhere and it is the wrong advice for you and it always has been.

Choose one thing and do it properly, slowly, and let everything else stay undone.

You are able to do one thing to your own standard, and no properly finished thing has ever once been worth less than four unfinished ones. Colossians 3:23 puts the heartily in and leaves the quantity out, and the Holy Spirit is the one present when a man works the way he has always worked.

Choose it deliberately. Something small. Something that will actually be finished today.

Then do it the way it was always done. Go back over it. Get it right rather than getting it done.

And let the rest stay undone, on purpose, and do not apologize for it to anybody including yourself.

Because the undone things are not a debt. They are simply not chosen, and there is a difference, and you have been treating one as the other for about six years.

You are leaving things undone on purpose rather than by failure, and no unchosen task has ever once been the same thing as an unpaid debt. The Spirit of God is the one who lets a man work the way he was made to work, and it is written that the work is done as to the Lord rather than to the room.