The word repent is interesting. This word used to be very popular, probably back in the religious revival days of the 1800s. Today this word is almost non sequitur, having lost its meaning and when the word is used, it is used in a comedic sense. I heard someone yesterday say, you need to repent – referring to the accidental spilling of an IPA. As if this was some horrible sin that had to be atoned for. The word is actually a shortened form of the word penitence, which is the concept of restitution. The latin root for this concept is paeniteo, which is the concept in latin etymology that describes the feeling of regret.
Regret. This is the destroyer of habits. Regret, shame, feelings of inadequacy, fear of failure, loathing of self due to not meeting expectations. All of these are thoughts that look backward, and all of them will, if left unchecked, destroy all your hard work at keeping habits. Therefore, you need a mechanism to repent daily. Call it religious hocus pocus, but seriously, consider this. Religion – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist it does not matter – they all without exception have a concept of forgiveness and repentance built in. Why?
Because it is a truth. Forward progress in our society is dependent on the relentless pursuit of perfection by us humans and at the same time the continual renewal and forgiveness for failure. This is a concept that is so true, that all the major religions have created, rehearsed, developed and retold countless stories that serve as archetypes for this constant renewal process. Funny, this evening I was talking with a group of colleagues about the process of incorporating failure into the software development life. The process of accepting progress by iteration. Religious systems have figured this out for centuries. In fact, if you wanted to create a religion, here is what you do. Step 1 – create a impossible goal. Step 2 – create a mechanism for your membership to repent. Step 3 – Create a mythological story that the adherents can follow that remind them constantly of the need to forgive themselves.
I do not mean to belittle religion. I am in fact very religious myself, and something I am not ashamed of either. It is very much part of my daily existence, and if you are a religious person then I would recommend embracing your system of religion whole-heartedly. I have seen over my time on this planet that the most productive, inspiring, and effective people that I have known have had a religion that they subscribe to and follow. I steer clear from advocating any religious dogma in these blogs, because I am driving toward a self improvement paradigm, and I am just not going to allow any set mindset to get in the way of that ambition. I have actually rather enjoyed exploring the benefits of different systems, and feel better because of it. Today was day 300 of my daily meditation routine, and I have learned an incredible amount from followers of the Hindu faith as I have tried to get better at this. I am not Hindu, but I recognize that this faith has done its part in preserving this highly valuable form of self healing, self guidance, and self mastery. Just because it is foreign to me, and different, does not make it wrong.
Having said that, I will say unequivocally that you need to repent, daily. You should not allow feelings of doubt, loathing, guilt to build up. A day should not go by that you do not reflect on your failures and that consider how to improve. Part of that process should be accepting that you failed, committing to do better next time, figuring out how you can make up for it or repair it if possible, and then letting it go and allowing yourself to move on. I am not talking about the concept of moral sin, I am talking about your failure to achieve your goals, to accomplish your objectives. I have become convinced that one of the reasons that I have had so much success this last 569 days is that I have built in a very simple process for allowing myself to repent everyday.
This is a simple process, at the end of each day I review what I wanted to get done today. I check off the ones that I did, and I put a circle around the ones that I did not. I think pray/ponder/meditate on how the day went. Where did I go wrong, why was I unable to get to those things? What got in the way? If I repeated today, what could I have done to make today awesome? I then forgive myself, commit to do better tomorrow, close the book and go to sleep. That is the last thing that I do everyday and this practice has had a profound effect on me. So in risk of losing you because I am using a religious word like “repent,” I think we should consider that thousands of years of human history got something right. There is a need to figure out a way to forgive ourselves so that we can move on and continue to strive forward.
Guy Reams (569)
