I have been reading Erwin McManus’ book Soul Cravings. Skimmed it through once quickly, and now am going through it again more slowly, digesting it bit by bit. Good stuff. I highly recommend it.
Like all good writing, parts of it hurt when I read it. Like in Entry 1 of Destiny, where Erwin says “we thrive when we are optimistic about the future. It seems failure is no match for the person who believes in the future. When we see failure as personal, pervasive, or permanent, we become paralyzed.”
So I was reading along, enjoying the positivity and the Heinlein references, and hit the above trio. The first two sentences set me up for the sting of the third: I like to think I “believe in the future”, and I was once described by a former roommate as being “optimistic to the point of brain damage.” And I desperately want to “thrive”. I want to believe that “failure is no match for me!”
But I stopped reading when I got to that third phrase and just dwelt on it for a bit.
These last seven or so years of my life have seen a long string of significant failures. Nearly all of them can be rationalized away as “not my fault”, but I am acutely aware that the homeless people I’ve dealt with deeply and personally all say the same thing. They don’t want to own their faults. Or, they are possessed by their faults like a new testament character is possessed by a demon: controlled and destroyed by their faults, they embrace and become their failures.
I’m not saying I’m anywhere near that point.
But as I consider Erwin’s proposition, I realize that I am one adjective away from paralysis.
I do see my failure as personal: I own my responsibility for each of them, whether that’s a large share or a minor share of the total. And I am beginning to see my failure as pervasive: there is almost no area of my life where I am living up to my hopes and expectations of myself. The last bastion of will and strength lies with my refusal to believe that this failure is permanent. I cling to the hope that this is all just a season of life, and if I keep pressing on, I will come out the other side. I must. Things simply cannot go on like this forever, or even for another decade.
Can they?
Hmmm.
That’s an awfully important third adjective.
“Anxiety speaks in possibilities. Despair speaks in certainties.” — a wise counselor years ago
