Posts Tagged: living

general / life — Comments Off
20
Sep 09

passive

During lunch today, I spoke about how my experiences in life have given me “permission” to be passive.  I’ve written about this before (read my entry from a couple of years ago), however it’s always interesting to revisit these thoughts to see how things may have changed, how I may have changed.

Since first having these insights, I’ve realized that this tension exists in so many parts of our lives and I’ve been trying to actively live my life by learning about myself, making decisions that reflect the person that I am, the values that have been developing in me, etc.

This has been most evident recently in my interactions with others.  Whereas before my self-analysis has revolved around decisions directly related to my own person (jobs, marriage, etc) I’m now beginning to see how I’m continuing in my passive ways at it relates to building relationships.

It has far more often than not been the case for me that because I’ve looked “the part” relationships have “just happened.”  In many cases, these relationships were often shallow but were convenient.  This is not to say that these relationships were of lesser value, just built on a passive foundation and were not long-lasting.  As time, distance, or difference began to separate these relationships, they were not actively preserved because they were not actively pursued in the beginning.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), it is very much the case that many of my experiences now require the opposite to be true.  In other words, to begin relationships, I have to begin to make decisions about which type of relationships (and perhaps people) I want to pursue.  Who are the people and what are the characteristics that I want to introduce to or reinforce in my life?  Even further, I need to “make the first move” in building these relationships – I need to strike up conversation.

This is a foreign concept for me.  I enjoy being around people, but as with the employment opportunities and other issues referenced in my 2007 post, my relationships have almost exclusively been built passively – out of convenience, or proximity.  Again, this is not to say that I do not value these relationships.  Rather, this highlights the fear and ignorance with which I am approaching new relationships.

Perhaps there is a lack of confidence, a fear of rejection.  I can’t rule them out.

Most likely though, I simply don’t know how to make friends.

But I’m learning.  I know it’s a problem and I know what to do to rectify the problem.

Now, it’s a matter of finding the motivation.

faith / general / life — 2 Comments
9
Sep 09

worry for nothing

Recently I’ve been reading “The Furious Longing of God” by Brennan Manning.  In it, he says this:

…I’ve decided that if I had my life to live over again, I would not only climb more mountains, swim more rivers, and watch more sunsets; I wouldn’t only jettison my hot water bottle, raincoat, umbrella, parachute, and raft; I would not only go barefoot earlier in the spring and stay out later in the fall; but I would devote not one more minute to monitoring my spiritual growth.  No, not one.

A funny thing happens when you come to know the freedom that being in touch with Jesus offers: you can potentially be overrun with guilt.  There is a checklist that may seem to descend from the sky (though, I now realize this checklist comes from somewhere very different) that outlines each of the many things that you have to do if you are to truly experience and relate to God.  You have to pray, and read your Bible, and confess your transgressions, and do a good deed everyday, and study, and sing, and reflect.

Herein lies one of the problems with Christianity as it is expressed in 2009.  There is so much to do that we miss the great intention behind it all:

Cease striving and know that I am God.
Psalm 46:10 (NASB)

Yes: a life being lived modeled after the way that Jesus lived his will involve self-improvement.  It is a good thing to read scripture in order to understand the way that people thought and processed things in and out of connection with God; to take the good, and the bad, and the confusing and incorporate these things into our own lives.  It is good to spend time in prayer.  Relationships are the means by which real change takes place and a relationship with God is no different.  Doing good is good.  Confession is good.

But when the redeemer becomes taskmaster, when guilt overpowers freedom, a core component of the whole system is jeopardized.  God’s intention has never been “Keep ‘em occupied so they don’t have time to bother me.”  Instead, God’s intention is that as much as is humanly possible we live in a type of union with Him.  Not performing for him.  Not doing his bidding and returning to the bell-tower a la Quasimodo.  Just being confident in His love, in the security of His relationship with you.

Manning finishes up this thought-process with this:

What would I actually do if I had to do it all over again?  Heeding John’s counsel, I would simply do the next thing in love.

As a person of faith, I struggled for a long time with wanting to look the part which involved doing all the things that were expected.  I know I’m not alone in this.  I saw certain things as bad and (*gasp*) unholy.

We can “do” ourselves in.  Don’t misread what I’m saying – I know that “belief” and “action” are as integral to each other as breathing is to life.  But preoccupation with the irrelevant minutiae of our spiritual lives is counterproductive to living like Jesus lived.

So, may you live with the confidence that Jesus is in the processing of reinvigorating your soul with life; that during this process, there are people that He wants you to meet and interact with, things that He wants you to do that bring just a little bit of heaven to earth; that he never intended for you to become preoccupied with the endless pursuit of self-improvement; and that He wants you to stop your striving, and know He is God.

life — 3 Comments
8
Sep 09

overboard

a friend of mine recently said this:

I think that when constitution says “We the people” it does not mean some collective, but rather a group of individuals. There are costs and benefits to this idea of individuality in governance by the people. One of the costs is that we have to either handle issues on our own OR create our own groups to deal with the issue.

I have to admit that I had never thought the words “we the people” to mean a group of individuals.  “We” to me has always meant many people together in some set of circumstances: we partied all night; we took a wrong turn at Albuquerque; do you remember where we parked?

We are all in this together.

So this newfound interpretation of “we” took me back a few steps.  I’d never assumed it to mean “We were all waiting at the DMV” – together in essence, but only in the sense that we were all in the same physical location.

What took me back is that this is a perfectly legitimate interpretation of “we.”  While my humans-making-humanity-better idealism says that we cannot exist in a vacuum, perhaps in reality we can.

As I thought some more about this individualism a few more pieces started falling into place for me.

Firstly, this individualism that is so highly favored and accepted based on the “we the individuals” is on the other end of a scale from a something that resembles what we’ve popularized as “socialism” – “we the collective.” Socialism itself is actually an economical system – not a political system as seems to be the general understanding.  Instead, the other end of our scale will be collectivism.  In any event, individualism in the broadest sense favors individual rights above the rights of community – my rights are more important to me than yours.  In check, it promotes self-reliance and independance.  Approaching extremes, individualism promotes a “selfishness” mentality, a protect-the-empire-of-self-at-all-costs mentality.

Secondly, this individualism is evident when contrasted against other people groups.  A perfect illustration centers around the H1N1 pandemic.  It has been reported on NBC as well as other networks about how some Asian travelers wear masks when they are sick in order to prevent passing the virus on to others.  In contrast, western travelers wear masks to prevent themselves from becoming infected.  The very stance of how individualists live their lives is quite different from that of collectivists.

Finally, as with much of life, we can’t live approaching either of these extremes.  Approaching “extreme” individualism we cannot “create our own groups to deal with the [issues]” because true individualists would say “That’s not my problem!”  Now as a one-time Psychology graduate, I know that Self-actualization is an important part of life – finding your individual identity is crucial to a mentally-healthy existence.  At the same time, I believe strongly that at the very core of humanity is a need for interconnection.  It is the reason that thousands of years ago humans organized themselves into tribes: not completely out of selfish ambition (though I’m sure that more hunters meant larger kills and bigger returns on investment) but rather to benefit the community (risking your life chasing down an elephant was more dangerous that blowing a dart at a two-toed sloth).

Ultimately, as I’ve said before, we are not enemies here.  It would serve us well – as individuals and as a people at large – to learn just a little from those around us.  While “We are all Individuals!” and “We can think for ourselves!” (Yes, that was a Monty Python reference) we mutually benefit when we are a people and not a group of persons.

general — Comments Off
21
Aug 09

guilt

“We’re not doing anything out of guilt anymore” she said.

I’ve only recently started living on my own. Not in the physical sense – it’s been over 10 years now since leaving high school for college life.

Granted, it’s probably been about 2 years since I started living based on my own motivations, pursuing things that I wanted to accomplish, decisions that I wanted to make. That road was long…. with many a winding turn, introspection, blogging, and the like. For a long time I was a sort of “Yes Man” but not in the adventurous, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants sense….

I just couldn’t say no when someone asked me (or otherwise expected me) to do something.

Really, it was more of a “Yes-By-All-Means-Walk-All-Over-Me-Man.” That sort of implies that the people who were asking me to do things for them had nefarious motives and I don’t believe that to be true. But in my heart, I would rather be put out than to see somebody else put out.

To be disappointed rather than to disappoint.

Now, I can’t say where this came from. My guess is that it developed because of the fact that as a younger dude who could do some things well, I developed many functional relationships – relationships that were based on me being able to do something for someone else. We do this all the time – many strong friendships are built on a premise that one can do something well for the other and through the jigs and the reels a beautiful thing emerges on the other end.

Couple that with my Oprah Winfrey quality tender heart and you’ve got a “Yes-By-All-Means-Walk-All-Over-Me-Man.”

What I am not saying is that doing things for others is bad or that you should put yourself before others.

What I AM saying is that unless you motivation is true (i.e. non-guilt related), what does it really mean? Kristy just had a birthday and we had a discussion about getting a gift out of obligation (i.e. I’ll feel guilty if I don’t get you something) versus out of true love (i.e. I saw this, thought of you, and wanted to show my love).

Of course I believe that there are obligations, and responsibilities and things that we have to do. But, my point is that even these responsibilities expand your heart when they’re remembered and completed by a giving spirit. In reality, acting out of guilt is really just a cleverly masked form of selfishness – I’ll give you a gift to make guilt go away – to make myself feel better – to not have to deal with the aftermath of not getting you a gift.

That scenario: it’s no good, sir.

To move towards selflessness is to move away from living and choosing and responding out of guilt and moving towards something much, much more freeing.