Consistency. An Underrated Virtue

In just a few days, a new film adaptation of Homer's Odyssey will be released. But I'm not going to talk about the movie. In fact, I'm not even sure I'll watch it. Auteur adaptations of the classics have never particularly appealed to me. What truly interests me is the story that continues to move humanity almost three thousand years after it was written.

We live in a fascinating age. Never before have we had access to so much information, so many opportunities, and so much technology. Yet we also live under the rule of immediacy. We want quick results, instant answers, and visible success. Everything seems to be measured by how fast we reach our goals, forgetting that the things that matter most rarely follow that rhythm.

When we think of Odysseus—Ulysses in the Roman tradition—we usually remember the hero who outwitted the Cyclops, survived the Sirens' song, and confronted Scylla and Charybdis. We remember his victories. We remember the winners and forget those who failed. Yet I believe the true greatness of his story, of Odysseus' journey, does not lie in those extraordinary adventures. His greatness lies in the fact that he never abandoned the journey.

For ten years he endured loss, mistakes, defeat, and delay. He possessed intelligence and cunning, without question, but none of those qualities would have been enough without an unshakable determination to keep moving forward. Sometimes with confident strides. Sometimes barely dragging himself onward. But always in the same direction.

Perhaps that is the first great lesson. We are obsessed with arriving, when in reality we are shaping ourselves as we walk. We believe the goal is to reach Ithaca, earn a degree, build a company, learn a language, or write a book. Yet we rarely stop to ask who we are becoming throughout that process.

Centuries later, Aristotle developed an idea that seems to enter into dialogue with Homer from a different perspective. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he argues that excellence is not a single act but the result of the habits we cultivate every day. We do not become virtuous through one great decision, but through thousands of small decisions repeated consistently. That idea has stayed with me for a long time.

For years, I confused intensity with progress. Whenever I had a particularly productive day, I tried to accomplish in a few hours everything I had postponed for weeks. I laid one hundred bricks at once. When I finished, I felt the satisfaction of hard work... and the exhaustion that came with it. But more often than not, the next day I laid none at all. Then another day would pass the same way. And another. Eventually, I understood that this is not how anything lasting is built. It is built by laying one brick every day. Since then, there is one idea I try never to forget:

Speed builds moments; consistency builds structures.

This does not mean rejecting speed. Quite the opposite. There are times when we must accelerate, take advantage of favorable winds, and set every sail. But even then, speed only has meaning if there is a clear direction. Speed without direction creates movement. Consistency with purpose builds destinations.

Perhaps that is why I have become less interested in occasional bursts of effort and more interested in systems that allow steady, sustainable progress. You cannot learn a language in a single weekend. Character is not formed during a vacation. A deep friendship is not built through one conversation alone. Everything truly worthwhile requires time. And that time is never wasted. Because while we believe we are building a project, a business, or a dream, we are actually building something far more important: our own character.

At the end of The Odyssey, the hero returns to Ithaca. Yet I have often wondered whether that was truly the end of the journey. Perhaps the real Odyssey was never about returning home. Perhaps it was about becoming the person capable of returning.

We all have an Ithaca. We all pursue goals that, in one way or another, give meaning to our lives. Yet the day we finally achieve one of them, we discover an unavoidable truth: the result lasts only a moment. What endures is the person we have become along the way.

After all, life is a journey. A path along which we seek to find our place—our own Ithaca. And to reach it, we must continue walking our own road, one step at a time.