Doing What We Want vs. Doing What We Should – An Unnecessary Contradiction
I have been reading, talking, and thinking a lot about what it means to live life authentically. How does a person – a person with responsibilities like a mortgage or a partner – negotiate the choices that arise when he begins to examine his dreams and hopes and nature. What does it mean to risk it all when you are taking other people along that journey with you? My friend Shawn addresses these ideas so eloquently here, and his words really got me thinking.
I am single, and I do not have kids; I’m pretty much a free agent (to try and use a sporting term that I don’t really understand fully.) What I do really only directly affects me (although I do recognize that I have probably caused my friends and family some genuine angst over my lack of health insurance and part-time job collection), so my choices are easier, in some ways. They are also harder, I think, in others; I have no one to move through these things with me as a partner; I have no one to catch me physically or financially if something doesn’t work. None of this is easy, and I don’t claim at all to have any of the answers for anyone else.
What I do know is this – last night, I watched a friend of mine play guitar. He is a good man with a good heart. He works forty-hours + a week and is starting his own business. He has come to a place where risks need to be taken, and he knows that these risks are huge – financially and personally. He is thoughtfully and carefully moving through this life, and for that, I commend him fully. But there’s something that happens to him when he gets onstage and plays; he seems to disappear into another place – maybe it’s that space I find when I write well – and he looks blissful, peaceful, happy. Now I’m not saying that he should do or not do anything in particular; what I am saying is that he, and I, and all of us, should find that place where our faces shine our bliss.
When we do, I honestly (and some will say naively) believe that everything else will fall into place. As Woody Guthrie wrote and Ellis Paul sang:
I didn’t promise you skies painted blue
Not all colored flowers all your days through
I didn’t promise you, sun with no rain
Joys without sorrows, peace without pain.All that I promise is strength for this day,
Rest for my worker, and light on your way.
I give you truth when you need it, my help from above,
Undying friendship, my unfailing love.I never did promise you crowns without trials,
Food with no hard sweat, your tears without smiles,
Hot sunny days without cold wintry snows,
No vict’ry without fightin’, no laughs without woes.All that I promise is strength for this day,
Rest for my worker, my light on your way,
I give you truth when you need it, my help from above,
Undying friendship, my unfailing love.I sure didn’t say I’d give you heaven on earth,
A life with no labor no struggles no deaths,
No earthquakes no dryspells, no fire flames no droughts,
No slaving no hungers, no blizzards no blights.All that I promise is strength for this day,
Rest for my worker, my light on your way,
I give you truth when you need it, my help from above,
Undying friendship, my unfailing love.I promise you power, this minute this hour,
The power you need when you fall down to bleed,
I give you my peace, and my strength to pull home
My love for all races all creeds and all kinds.My flavors my saviors my creeds of all kinds,
My love for my saviors, all colors all kinds,
My love for my races all creeds of all kinds,
My saviors my flavors my dancers all kinds,
My dancers my prancers my singers all kinds,
My flavors my saviors my dancers all kinds.
We have been promised all we need. Our only requirement is that we reach out and take it. How’s that for a promise in life?
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From a much more physical angle on this topic, we can choose to read all those books we keep putting aside because we have other things to do. Join our “Read the Books You’ve Always Wanted to Read” Challenge.
My progress has been slow, but I am making progress. I am working my way through The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and also through A Hell of Mercy by Tim Farrington. They make a nice pair – a book on happiness and one on depression – and so far they’re both lovely and vastly different.
So join our challenge if you haven’t, and if you have, let me know how it’s going. Yeah!