I bought myself this little card, matted it in front of its own envelope, and stuck it to the wall behind my desk. It’s a sentiment I’ve been thinking about for a long time, now - I think it’s an integral component to my faith - but I’m still not certain that I can adequately express that thinking in words just yet. Still, I’ve been compelled, by some of the things that I’ve seen happening around me, to try. Ready or not, here I come.
I’ve mentioned before that I believe we’re essentially spirit. These bodies, these hunks of meat that we use to house that spirit is, to my mind, more or less inconsequential; sure, we need bodies to have the experiences that we have here, but I don’t believe that this is all there is - or even that this is the most important part of what we, as spiritual beings, are going to experience. There’s far more to it than this and, while what we learn here is certainly important, I don’t think that everything we are hinges on here.
Everything that happens to us happens because we have drawn those experiences to us, whether consciously or unconsciously. There are a couple of quotes from one of my favorite books - Illusions, by Richard Bach - that say, quite eloquently, what I’m getting at here; the first is that ‘there is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.’ The other states that ‘every person, all the events in your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.’ While I believe that we draw our experiences (and our friends, and our families, and our enemies) to ourselves, I also believe in free will. I may have brought this particular person or experience into my life, but I get to make choices about how I interact with those elements. Those choices determine what paths those experiences take and, ultimately, what I get to learn from them.
This brings me to the question of how we define ‘failure.’ There seem to be a whole lot more ‘failures’ in our lives than there are ’successes.’ We don’t make the team. We lose our jobs. Our marriages end. We graduate with a 2.8 instead of a 4.0. We don’t see the stop sign and hit the guy in front of us. We’re always too: too fat, too slow, to lazy, too tired. We miss an appointment, we stay quiet when we should have spoken up, we get sick, we die.
When I stop to think about these things - this concept of failure and success - within the framework of my faith, though, they fail (there’s that word again) to have any real meaning. Success and failure don’t equate to the definitions we’ve given them. I may get the job I want, but while that may be deemed as a “success,” it may not teach me anything. You may have a “successful” marriage that doesn’t challenge you to grow or change. She might get fired from her job - something that we generally see as a failure - but that may spur her to try something that she never would have considered if she’d continued working there: she may move to a new place; she may meet someone who changes her life; she may find that the work she was doing in her old job was insufficient to her soul.
The trick, I think, is to stop thinking about the outcomes of our experiences in terms of this existence and to start thinking about them in terms of what they offer our spirits. How can I learn from my experiences - both the successes and the failures? What do I take away from a miscommunication with a coworker? How can I use the experience of an illness or an accident to learn something about myself? What does a “failed” relationship tell me about the kind of soul I am, and how can I take those lessons to become the soul I really want to be? Really, the only thing I can truly mark as a failure is an opportunity for learning and growth and reflection that I see, but that I don’t take full advantage of.
I’ve been trying to convince someone, whom I love very much, that the tough time she’s currently having isn’t the result of a failure. Yes, a relationship is ending. Yes, she’s having to re-think her entire future, and most of her present and, to a lesser extent, a decent chunk of her past. Yes, this isn’t necessarily what she wanted. My faith tells me, though, that while it may not be what she wanted, it is something that she needed. She and her husband were together long enough to teach each other what they had to learn, and their parting, while painful and complicated and difficult, will teach them even more. Even though it may not feel that way, everything is right with the Universe.
I’m not sure that I’ve done an even halfway decent job of expressing here in words what I just know in my soul. I hope that something that I’ve said here makes some sense to you, though, and that you understand, even just a little, what I’m trying to say.
I do understand what you are saying, and perhaps someday so will your friend. But if she’s not hearing you right now, maybe she just can’t. But keep on saying it.
I like this quote; “What would i do if i were not afraid?”
What a thoughtful post.
I have only the hope that there is more to life than our brief struggle on this “mortal coil.” I do not have a belief that such is the case.
At sort of a tangent to your post, I have always maintained that many things folks consider to be competitive human activities are not. I mean there is room for all of us, and things will go the way we want sometimes, more often not, but it’s not like I lost at a track meet. I know this is clear as mud, maybe I’ll address it further somewhere.
Odds are, what you are saying isn’t going to register at the moment. Hopefully, though, she’ll be able to appreciate it later. Seeing the disaster of my own parents’ divorce (which my mother went through pretty much alone), I think your friend will have a better chance of ending up in a place where she CAN appreciate your thoughts since she has such a caring friend.
The ‘friend’ in question is actually my adopted mother, who was instrumental in helping me to get a handle on how I see the Universe working and what my place is in it (as much as one can get a handle on such things, of course). She’s actually doing a pretty good job, most of the time, of understanding what I’m trying to say (because she’s the one who taught me to think this way in the first place), but it’s hard for her to not fall into despair and self-doubt. It’s those destructive things I’m trying to help her navigate away from.
It’s not just Mom who’s been inspiring me to reexamine this bit of my faith, but she’s certainly a big factor in it. I’m also looking at where *I* am in my life - am I doing enough? Is my little adjunct job in a little podunk-y community college challenging me sufficiently and/or making best use of my skills? Am I really being the best mom/wife/friend that I can be? Am I being mindful of the learning opportunities that are being presented to me, or am I getting caught up in the “success or failure” game of this existence? I try very hard to keep these things in mind - it’s difficult to see beyond the stage of this life, and I want to stay true to my belief that this really IS just a stage…
I was mulling over the “what would you attempt . . .” thing, and it dawned on me to wonder: if you knew you could not fail, would it still be an attempt?” Doesn’t reduce the impact of the thing, really, since inspirational quotes are seldom to be taken as instructions on how to pour milk into a glass, but I love semantics.
I suppose the idea, really, is that we quit defining outcomes other than what we first wished for/anticipated as failure.
The idea, that I’ve yet to be able to express in a way that is satsifactory to me, is that you really CAN try anything (and I’m going to do a bit about the idea of “trying” sometime soon, too - I had a long discussion with someone about the whole yoda “there is no try - there is do, or do not” thing not too long ago…). There is no such thing as failure - it’s all opportunities for learning.
The problem that I’m having - and that you noticed, Gerry - is that our language is insufficient to the task of capturing the ideas we’re trying to examine (and, to be fair, MOST languages are, that’s why we have a word for when we just don’t have adequate words; ineffable). The aphorism isn’t telling us that we can try something and never fail IN THIS REALITY, but that we can try things and maybe bomb spectacularly, but that we’ll always be better for it.
Even that’s not quite what I’m trying to say and, while my struggle with this language thing is making me crazy, but it’s also satisfying my geeky, English teacher side, which is why I haven’t given up yet…
I’ve given some thought to the enough question, am I doing enough for my family, community, country, world? It seems that the idea of grand things being the only efforts worthy of real praise is pervasive, but not true. Is it any better to address the UN than it is to address a group of students at a podunk-y CC? It it any better to try to feed the hungry in Africa than it is to donate food to feed a local family? Is it any better to help many than it is to help one? What is enough?
Yet another tangent.
I think enough is when you go to bed at night and say to yourself ” I did something great for somebody today.” Otherwise you would feel bad about all the things you could have done. There is always more to do and sometimes there is more you should do but as long as you are doing your part, I think you are all set. What did you do today?
To go a little further with what Weed Woman and Auntie said, sometimes it’s enough even if the only person for whom you did something great is yourself. That’s a lesson I’ve had a hard time learning over the past year… I’m worthy of my attention too.