Better Making

This Week’s Good Work Insight

Fifteen years ago Lowes came out with the commercial and tagline of “Never stop improving.” I hated it. Where was rest? Where was leisure?

But I’ve learned that rest, leisure, liturgy–they can all be about improving.

Let’s start with the hard part first. I just started The Pope and The Economist: Human Action in the Thought of John Paul II and Ludwig Von Mises. My short hand of the first section: both Von Mises and St. JPII see all human persons as choosing action to replace some uneasiness with a good. Perfect for the first month of the New Year–this is better making as a response to a growing uneasiness.

I want to integrate that insight with the title of Flannery O’Connor’s compilation of her letters called The Habit of Being. The phrase—the habit of being—is one that I like because it reminds me of the many-many ways of better making (seeking to make things better). It is human. And it is a habit.

What are we working for? The habit of seeing goods before us is key. In the morning last week on the porch—warm this time of year for Colorado at 7,500 feet—two of my grandchildren were moving wood . . . loading wood from the wood pile by the fence onto plastic sleds and pulling them across the dry grass. Then carrying logs up onto the deck to stack it in a pile by the back door–the pile they made was surprisingly neat. There was a sense of festivity in their work. And because I paid attention, I got to see that.

So I have two questions for you:

1. Where do you need to be in order to see what needs to be seen?
2. What unease do you have in which you can exercise the habit of better making?

Blessings of many graces to you and yours in the New Year,

CEO & Founder

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