I'm sad to see 2011 ago. It was a beautiful year for me, and one that I have been able to say that I did not waste. What a gift. Thank you readers, for helping me become a more honest writer in the process.
During this time between grieving the old, and enjoying the new, I'd like to share some things I have learned. Granted, I have not experienced these enough to understand these things entirely, but a year lends plenty of experience to grow.
This is what I've learned in the past year. Here is to a good year with hard lessons and hopes of many more.
1. Your decisions determine your destiny, your dreams don't.
I have a lot of dreams for my life, and it seems like each new experience births a new dream. This summer, I went to a five star beach and when I came home I talked about moving and living on a beach house for months. Part of me still wants to live in my dream beach house one day. But I have to realize unless I take the necessary and practical steps, living in a beach house will never happen.
Dreams are great, but they don't make things happen. It's like my girlfriend who wants to be in a relationship, but keeps isolating herself from people. She can dream about a guy all day long, but she has to break her habits before she gets anywhere anytime soon. You can't isolate yourself and expect intimacy. You can't be lazy and expect to achieve things that matter. You can't be greedy now and expect to be generous tomorrow. You can't be selfish today and expect to have healthy relationships when you're done being selfish.
Your destiny is determined by your decisions, and your decisions are determined by your heart, and the place of your heart is determined by your habits. I am what I repeatedly do.
2. Sometimes you have to take your heart by the throat.
Emotions can be as destructive as they are helpful. The problem isn't as much that we experience the wrong emotions as much as we have no idea how to process them. For example, with anger we are told to either suck it up or constantly rant and get it out. However, neither one of these theories actually cause us to be more mature people.
What feels right often times is not what is. As much as you feel like you enjoy someone, if that person has no character, they will not make a good friend. What you feel could change tomorrow, but your habits, your character, your decisions and your consequences last long after the feeling has subsided.
Sometimes what I know and what I feel act like two boxers in a ring, and this past year I've learned that what I know is usually more in tune with reality than what I feel. And if I constantly love people simply on what I feel, I will never love and I will never grow.
Maturity is not about ignoring your feelings. It is about understanding what your feelings are, and then gently rebuking them with the truth. Sometimes your heart needs a pat on the back, other times it needs a graceful whisper, and other times it needs to be taken by the throat and pointed in the right direction.
3. Character is more important than personality.
I am shocked at how many people cannot recognize the difference, and I am ashamed that it took me so long to figure this out.
Personality is your Meyer-Briggsness. Your personality is tells you whether or not you are introvert or extrovert, or thinking, emotional, judging, intuitive, and a host of other big words psychologists have made up. That is what personality is - it is our natural bent on how we interact with the world.
Our character is more. Character originates in virtue. I like Aristotle's definition of character; he defined character as the virtues (or vices) that we repeatedly display. Things like honesty, integrity, trust, mercy, compassion, piety, courage, are all virtues. Whereas greed, gluttony, anger, dishonesty and agnst are all vices. Determining the virtues and vices of my habits determine my character.
I love extroverts, and I just happen to be one. But just because you are an extrovert does not mean you know how to earn trust. Just because you have an intuitive personality does not mean you deserve respect. A girl can love a boy because he's funny, but his humor is a positive personality trait, not necessarily a character trait. Personality is what is revealed in the day to day routine; but character is what is discovered over a lifetime of trial. We can temporarily change our personality, but we cannot turn the switch on our character so easily.
If you want to get to know someone, look behind their personality and ask to be acquainted with their character.
4. Always being right is not important.
I'll admit, wanting to be right all the time is just how I was raised. I can be competitive. And being on the debate team for five years has not helped my constant obsession over being right. And while I can be a bad looser, sometimes I can be an even worse winner.
The truth is, in the real world, people do not care if you're always right. And God doesn't care too much either.
People who feel they are right in their theological and political beliefs scare me. I doubt any of us human beings have a monopoly on the truth, and believing that we do just makes us shallower human beings. So often what I label "the truth" is simply a product of my environment, and that is very humbling. Understanding that always being right is not important has helped me become more understanding to people who have different experiences than I do. And in the process, I've learned that some opinions need to be let go of completely, other opinions do not matter at all, and other opinions need to be held with an open hand.
5. Never forget to dream.
Yes, I know, I did say in point one that your dreams don't necessarily determine your destiny. And I still stand firm on that point. However, I do have to condition point one with another point I have learned: never forget to dream.
We stop dreaming when we stop asking ourselves why. We stop dreaming when we forget why we do what we do, and the original point of it was. We stop dreaming when we wake up and have no idea where we are going because we never stopped to think about it. We stop dreaming to become merely robotic.
Oftentimes we forget to dream because social and religious barriers get in the way. Of course, boundaries are good, but I find that oftentimes boundaries have to be questioned and refuted so that we can be free. For me, seeing college and career dreams come true has been broken a lot of barriers, and yet fulfilling those dreams has made me a better person. Sometimes I'm glad I don't listen to tradition simply because it's tradition.
Don't waste your life just because you never knew where you wanted to go. Know what you want, and make steps to do it right now.
6. Treasure beauty.
My friend once said he thought efficinicy was the highest value, and I disagree. Being efficient can be an honorable virtue; but it cannot be the highest one. Efficiency may be able to produce more, create more and grow more, but it cannot explain the exasperation of our souls. But we sometimes overlook that the best things in life are not the efficient ones.
The way I see it is, if the Church was a corporation, God would have given us the pink slip a long time ago. If Jesus had come to earth to start "Christianity INC" most of us would already be fired. People in the process of redemption are not very efficient, in fact, we are usually the opposite. We're like children in constant need of discipline and a lover in constant need of love. Our growth lasts our entire lifetime, and our failures are more than the days we are alive. It's a long - and inefficient - process.
But God loves us and grows us despite our inefficiency. That's because God is not a boss; God is a Father. And that means he cares more about your soul than simply getting a job done.
Maybe that is why being in a relationship with Him is what makes life more beautiful.
Several weeks ago, I was driving to work on an early Monday morning. I hate Monday mornings because everyone on the road acts like they're angry to be alive. Not to mention on this particular morning I had woke up late and somehow managed to let my coffee go cold. But while I was traveling and relishing my firm belief I am the only person on the road on a Monday morning that can actually drive, I noticed the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen in my life. It was a bright red, and made the sky look like it could smile with a warm glow. I felt like I couldn't breathe for a long time.
I wonder if God is ever upset that no one stops to admire his hard work. Sunrises, good music, long walks, long road trips, and art are some of the most inefficient things on earth. We really don't need a sunrise - God could have created the sun like a flashlight you just switch on and off. God could have created us content to listen to nature sounds, but he gave us music as well. God could have made falling in love a whole lot easier, faster, and less painful.
But he didn't. And every time I stop to look at the beauty in the world, I am reminded of one thing.
God is a romantic.
So here is to a new year. I hope the next twelve months teaches me as much as I have learned during the last twelve. But more than that, I hope this next year allows me to experience God more genuinely, love more honestly, seek more reverently and live more radically.
No comments:
Post a Comment