Chase The Kangaroo

How Ordinary Culture Quietly Shapes What We Love

The Formation We Rarely Notice

If someone asked who has most shaped your life, you would probably think of your parents, a teacher, a pastor, a coach, or a close friend. We naturally point to people because their influence is easy to recognize. We remember the conversations that changed us, the books that redirected us, and the moments that altered the course of our lives.

What we rarely consider are the quieter influences.

The first hour of every morning. The order in which we check things. The stories we consume before bed. The habits we repeat without thinking. None of these moments seems especially important on its own, yet together they become a kind of curriculum, patiently teaching us what deserves our attention, what promises satisfaction, and what a good life is supposed to look like.

This is one of the insights beneath Paul Taylor’s ⁠The Hardiness Effect. Human beings are remarkably adaptable. We adapt to challenge, but we also ⁠adapt to ease. What we practice becomes easier, and what surrounds us long enough begins to feel normal.

That observation reaches beyond physical resilience. It reaches into appetite.

Most of us think of appetite in terms of food, but appetite is much larger than hunger. We develop an appetite for recognition, comfort, speed, novelty, certainty, and approval. We learn what to crave, what feels rewarding, and what seems necessary. Rarely does this happen through a conscious decision. More often, it happens through thousands of ordinary repetitions that gradually become the default settings of our lives.

Augustine understood this long before the language of psychology or behavioral science. He believed the deepest question about a person was not simply, What do you believe? but What do you love? Our lives are shaped by the things we pursue, trust, and expect to satisfy us. When those loves become disordered, even good gifts begin carrying weight they were never meant to bear. We ask achievement to give us identity, comfort to give us peace, entertainment to give us rest, and approval to tell us who we are.

Centuries later, philosopher James K.A. Smith gave modern language to Augustine’s insight. He argues that we are shaped less by the ideas we profess than by the practices we repeat. We become what we repeatedly give ourselves to. Every habit, every routine, and every environment is quietly teaching us what to love.

That explains why two people can affirm the same beliefs while living very different lives. One sincerely values stillness yet begins every morning with a frantic scroll through notifications. Another believes generosity is a virtue while living inside rhythms that constantly encourage acquisition. The belief remains, but repeated practice slowly trains the heart in another direction.

This is why formation is so difficult to notice. It rarely arrives through dramatic moments. It works through ordinary days. The phone on the nightstand. The advertisements we barely remember seeing. The entertainment we consume because we’re tired. The habits we dismiss because they seem too small to matter.

Eventually, they matter a great deal.

What surrounds us long enough begins to shape us. What shapes us long enough begins to feel natural. And what feels natural is rarely questioned.

That is why hardiness is about more than learning to endure pressure. It is also about becoming aware of the pressures that have been quietly forming us all along. Before we can resist them, we have to notice them.

The question is not simply, “What habits do I have?”

It is, “What kind of person are those habits teaching me to become?”

Scripture Calls It “The World”

The New Testament has a name for this quiet process of formation.

It calls it the world.

That phrase has often been misunderstood. Scripture is not condemning creation or suggesting that mountains, cities, music, or meaningful work are somehow opposed to God. The same God who warns us about “the world” is the One who created the heavens and the earth and declared them good. Creation is not the enemy. People are not the enemy.

“The world,” in this sense, is something different. It is the organized pattern of values, assumptions, and desires that teaches us to live as though God were unnecessary. It prizes appearance over character, consumption over contentment, speed over wisdom, self-expression over self-examination, and immediate gratification over patient faithfulness.

Paul describes this reality when he writes, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Conformity is rarely dramatic. It happens quietly, through repeated exposure. We absorb assumptions long before we examine them, and we imitate rhythms long before we recognize they have become our own.

John makes the same point from another angle when he writes, “Do not love the world or anything in the world.” He is not warning us against sunsets, forests, good meals, or ordinary human life. He is warning us against a system that continually redirects our loves toward lesser things and then convinces us those lesser things are enough.

This is where Taylor’s work and Scripture meet. Human beings adapt to their environment. If an environment rewards hurry, hurry begins to feel normal. If it rewards outrage, outrage starts to feel justified. If it rewards comparison, contentment begins to feel naïve. If it rewards comfort above all else, ordinary inconvenience starts to feel like suffering.

John Mark Comer describes the world as a system of formation. Every day it tells us a story about what matters most. Success should be visible. Happiness should be immediate. Comfort should be constant. Identity should be self-created. More is always better.

We hear those stories so often that they begin to sound like common sense.

That is why this conversation is not really about culture wars. It is about discipleship. Every day something is teaching us what to notice, what to admire, what to fear, and what to love. Long before behavior changes, desire has already been trained.

The deeper question, then, is not simply, “Is this right or wrong?”

It is, “What kind of person is this teaching me to become?”

The Small Rituals That Shape Us

Most of us imagine our lives are shaped by the big decisions.

Where we live. Whom we marry. The work we pursue. Whether we follow Christ.

Those decisions matter, but they are sustained by hundreds of smaller ones that rarely command our attention. The first thing we reach for each morning. The way we respond to boredom. Whether every quiet moment must be filled. What we watch before bed. What we do when we’re lonely, anxious, or disappointed.

Those small decisions become habits.

Habits become rhythms.

Rhythms become a way of life.

James K.A. Smith calls these patterns “cultural liturgies.” The phrase may sound unfamiliar, but the idea is remarkably ordinary. Every culture has repeated practices that shape what people value. Every environment tells a story about what the good life looks like. We don’t simply think our way into that story. We rehearse it.

Consider an ordinary weekday. Before your feet touch the floor, your phone is already inviting your attention. Notifications suggest urgency. Advertising whispers that satisfaction is one purchase away. Social media quietly encourages comparison, while the workday rewards speed, efficiency, and constant availability. None of those moments feels especially significant, but together they teach us what deserves our attention and what we should expect from life.

The issue is not that these things exist. Technology is a remarkable tool. Work is a gift. Commerce has always been part of human society. Entertainment has its proper place. The danger is not the tools themselves.

The danger is the training.

Pascal saw this centuries before smartphones. He observed that people instinctively seek diversion, not because recreation is wrong, but because distraction keeps us from facing ourselves. We would rather remain occupied than confront our fears, our longings, or our dependence on God.

His observation feels remarkably modern. We carry endless diversion in our pockets. We no longer have to wait in silence, stand in line without stimulation, or end the day alone with our thoughts. Every empty space can be filled within seconds.

The result is not simply that we become more entertained.

We become less practiced at stillness.

That is how formation usually works. It rarely demands wholehearted devotion. It asks only for repetition. A glance here. A scroll there. Another notification. Another evening spent consuming instead of reflecting. None of it feels decisive, yet over time these small rituals begin shaping what we expect life to feel like.

Eventually we notice the effects. Silence feels awkward. Prayer seems scattered. Reading becomes harder. Rest feels unproductive. The smallest inconvenience feels strangely unbearable.

We assume we’ve lost something.

Perhaps we’ve simply been practicing something else.

Hardiness, then, is not only about enduring pressure. It is about recognizing the quiet pressures that have been training us all along. Once we can see those small rituals for what they are, we are finally free to choose better ones.

Resistance Begins with Attention

If the world’s system trains us through repetition, resistance begins by noticing what is being repeated.

That sounds almost too simple, but most of us try to change behavior before we understand what has been shaping it. We ask why we are impatient without examining the rhythms that reward speed. We wonder why prayer feels scattered while filling every quiet space with noise. We long for deeper relationships while giving our best attention to devices that promise connection without requiring presence.

Awareness does not solve the problem, but it changes our relationship to it. Once a habit moves from the background into the light, it no longer feels inevitable. We begin to see that many of our reactions are not simply personality. They are practices we have rehearsed.

The Stoics understood this well. Marcus Aurelius reminded himself that there is a space between what happens to us and how we respond. Epictetus urged his students to examine their impressions before accepting them as true. An impulse may arrive with urgency, but urgency is not authority. We can pause long enough to ask what is happening before deciding what deserves our obedience.

The Christian tradition carries that insight further through the language of watchfulness. Scripture does not call us to become suspicious of everything around us, but attentive to what is happening within us. The heart usually drifts before behavior becomes visible. Desire is trained long before it becomes a decision.

That is why ⁠the old disciplines still matter. Silence exposes the noise we have grown accustomed to. Fasting reveals appetites that have learned to speak like commands. Sabbath uncovers our dependence on productivity. Prayer interrupts the automatic movement from pressure to reaction and returns us to the presence of God.

None of these practices earns God’s approval. They simply create enough space for honesty. They slow life down just enough for us to ask a question our culture rarely encourages:

What is shaping me right now?

That question changes everything because small acts of resistance begin to appear where we once saw only ordinary routines. We can let a moment of silence remain quiet. We can wait before speaking. We can practice gratitude before comparison. We can take a walk instead of reaching for another distraction. We can choose ⁠the harder road when the easier one has become automatic.

None of these choices looks heroic. That is part of their strength. The world formed our appetites through ordinary repetition, and they are usually retrained the same way. A small pause becomes a different response. A different response becomes a practice. A practice, repeated long enough, becomes character.

Attention is where that process begins. Once we learn to notice what is training us, we are no longer merely reacting to the world around us. We are beginning, by God’s grace, to choose who we are becoming.

A Different Training Ground

If the world trains appetite through repeated practices, then the answer cannot be information alone.

We may understand that distraction weakens attention, that comfort narrows courage, or that comparison reshapes desire, and still continue living inside the same routines. Knowledge matters, but knowledge does not automatically become love. The heart is usually changed more slowly, through practices that teach it to desire differently.

This is one reason the traditional spiritual disciplines have endured for centuries. Prayer, Scripture, silence, Sabbath, gratitude, worship, hospitality, confession, and service are not religious decorations added to an already full life. They are a different training ground. They place us inside rhythms that patiently teach another vision of the good life.

Brother Lawrence understood this without making it complicated. He did not retreat from ordinary life to find God somewhere more spiritual. Instead, he learned to meet God in the middle of ordinary work, returning his attention again and again to God’s presence while washing dishes, preparing meals, and carrying out the unnoticed responsibilities of the day. As I wrote in ⁠The Practice of the Presence of God, holiness often grows in ordinary places before it is ever seen in extraordinary ones.

That repeated return is important.

When the mind wandered, he returned. When work became distracting, he returned. When his attention drifted, he returned. Spiritual maturity, for Brother Lawrence, was less about achieving perfect concentration than cultivating a willingness to come back, again and again, to the presence of God.

C.S. Lewis approaches the same truth from another direction. In The Weight of Glory, he writes that we are “far too easily pleased.” We settle for comfort when we were made for communion, distraction when we were made for attention, and consumption when we were made for worship. Augustine would say our loves have become disordered. Lewis simply reminds us that we were created for something greater.

This is why the Christian life has always valued practices that slow us down enough to remember what is true. Gratitude teaches us to receive without grasping. Sabbath teaches us to stop without guilt. Silence teaches us to listen without demanding constant stimulation. Worship reminds us that the self is not the center of reality. Hospitality turns our attention toward others.

These practices do not earn God’s love.

They help retrain our loves.

The world forms us through repetition, and so does the Kingdom of God. The difference is not that one forms us and the other does not. The difference is the kind of person each is forming. One quietly bends our loves inward, toward self, comfort, and immediate gratification. The other patiently turns them outward, toward God, toward our neighbor, and toward a life marked by faithfulness instead of impulse.

None of this happens overnight. The world did not train us in a day, and our loves will not be reordered in a single burst of enthusiasm. But they can be retrained through ordinary acts of faithfulness: a quiet return to prayer, an unhurried meal, a Sabbath imperfectly kept, a generous act that interrupts acquisition, or a walk outside that reminds us, as we explored in ⁠Recovery in Plain Sight, that God’s ordinary gifts often restore us more deeply than our favorite distractions.

In the end, hardiness is not simply becoming more resistant to pressure.

It is becoming the kind of person whose deepest loves are being patiently trained toward what is true, good, and beautiful.

The Seven-Day Attention Audit

The purpose of this field guide has not been to convince you that the world is bad. It has been to suggest something both simpler and more unsettling: you are being formed every day, often without realizing it. The question is whether that formation is moving you toward the life Christ intends or quietly pulling you somewhere else.

Before trying to change everything, spend one week simply paying attention.

Don’t begin by deleting every app, rebuilding your schedule, or making a list of ambitious resolutions. Lasting change rarely begins with dramatic gestures. More often, it starts with honest observation. For the next seven days, become a student of your own habits.

Notice what captures your attention first each morning. Notice what you reach for when you feel bored, anxious, lonely, or frustrated. Pay attention to what promises relief, what actually provides it, and what leaves you feeling more restless than before. Watch for the moments when habit moves faster than intention and when desire quietly begins directing your day.

Each evening, take a few minutes to reflect on five questions:

• What captured my attention today?
• What did I most often turn to for comfort or relief?
• What quietly shaped my imagination or my desires?
• What left me feeling more restless, and what left me feeling more whole?
• Did today’s habits move me toward God and toward the person I hope to become?

Don’t rush to evaluate your answers. Simply tell yourself the truth. Awareness is not the whole work of transformation, but it is almost always where transformation begins.

By the end of the week, one pattern will probably emerge. You may discover that your phone isn’t the real issue but your discomfort with silence. You may realize that busyness has become a way of avoiding deeper questions, or that an hour spent scrolling leaves you more exhausted than a walk outside, a conversation with a friend, or a few quiet moments in prayer.

Choose one of those patterns and replace it with a better practice. If your day begins with a screen, begin instead with Scripture, prayer, or a few minutes outdoors. If every quiet moment is filled with noise, leave one intentionally undisturbed. If hurry has become your default pace, take one walk without your phone. Keep the replacement small enough to repeat, because the goal is not dramatic reform but deliberate retraining.

The world has been shaping your loves through ordinary repetition for years. By God’s grace, they can be reshaped the very same way.

What Is Training You?

If there is one lesson I hope stays with you after this field note, it is this: formation is rarely dramatic.

It happens quietly through the ordinary rhythms of ordinary days. The person you are becoming is shaped less by a handful of defining moments than by the countless practices you repeat without much thought. Every habit, every environment, and every repeated choice is teaching you something about what is worth noticing, pursuing, fearing, and loving.

Recognizing that truth should not make us suspicious of the world around us. It should make us attentive.

The Christian life is not an invitation to retreat from culture or reject every good gift of creation. Technology can deepen relationships. Work can become an act of worship. Beauty, creativity, and human ingenuity all reflect something of the Creator. The question is not whether we participate in the world, but whether we are awake to the ways the world is shaping us as we do.

That is why discernment has always been one of the great Christian virtues. Some habits quietly enlarge our capacity for gratitude, patience, courage, and love. Others slowly train us toward hurry, distraction, comparison, consumption, and self-protection. Most of the time those movements are so gradual that we notice them only after they have become part of our character.

The good news is that formation works both ways.

If repeated habits can shape our loves away from God, ordinary acts of faithfulness can patiently draw them back. Every return to prayer. Every unhurried conversation. Every act of gratitude that interrupts comparison. Every decision to choose presence over distraction. None of these moments seems remarkable on its own, but together they begin forming a life that is steadier, freer, and more capable of love.

Perhaps that is one of the deepest insights beneath The Hardiness Effect. Human beings are remarkably adaptable. We become capable of what we repeatedly practice. The deeper question is not simply what we are becoming capable of doing, but what we are becoming capable of loving.

That is the question I hope you carry with you after this field note.

Not, “How do I become tougher?”

Nor even, “How do I become more disciplined?”

But, “What is training my heart today?”

Because sooner or later, our habits become our character.

And our character becomes the life we live.