My feet were dragging across a rocky single-track trail in the Superstition Wilderness east of Phoenix. It was nearly 90 degrees outside, and I was 43 miles into a 52.4-mile run -- a double marathon. The entire right side of my body was cramping, my legs were sapped of energy, and I could feel my heart rate climbing like a mountain goat up a scree field.
I hurt. I hurt bad. I was in what ultrarunners call the "pain cave," and I was trying to claw my way out.
As deep as I was in that abyss of agony, it was about to get worse. Tired from the accumulated miles and stress of the heat, my legs faltered, and my toe caught a rock. I tripped, face-planting into the dirt, crags, and cacti below.
It was then that I faced a choice: to pick up my sorry, spasming body and continue on -- or, to slither into the scant shade provided by a lonely piñon pine and hope that a hiker or runner would find me before I shriveled up into dust, disappointment, and despair.
That moment called for courage, and I didn't know if I had any to summon.
When most people think of courage, they think of bravery, fearlessness, or feats of super-heroic valor. And yet, despite what we think or imagine, courage is not about being impervious to fear, pain, or struggle. Instead, courage is something that emerges out of fear, pain, and struggle.
In fact, courage cannot exist without adversity.
We have seen it before. The runner that crumbles meters from the finish line and crawls across it to claim the win. The team that fights its way back to victory after a deep deficit. The amputee who not only learns to walk again, but also goes on to conquer mountains. The shy, awkward, nerdy guy who works up the pluck to ask out his secret crush despite being turned down so many times before.
What we see in these moments is courage. True courage. Courage forged in fear, built after burnout, and worked out in the wilderness of anxiety, pain, and loss.
This life is one that is full of struggle and pain, death and decay. Things go wrong. We hurt. We fumble, we falter, and we fall.
All of these difficult life experiences and tragedies threaten the very integrity of ourselves, our beings, our souls. At critical crossroads in our lives, we feel the weight of the world crushing in on us, and we face a choice: to pick ourselves up and carry on in courage or turn in on ourselves and shrivel up into the dust, disappointment, and despair.
Instead of trying to avoid anxiety or sidestep struggle, we should embrace these moments in our lives as opportunities for courage to be developed, practiced, and put to use.
Reflecting on the idea of courage, Paul Tillich wrote that true courage is not something that removes or rejects anxiety, but engages it and takes it into itself. Basically, Tillich argued, courage is embracing fear -- not avoiding it, ignoring it, or pretending it doesn't exist.
In fact, we could go so far as to say that courage is something forged in, through, and by our "wilderness experiences." The Hebrew Scriptures' book of Numbers tells the tale of the Hebrew people as they wandered in the desert between Egypt and Canaan after being freed from slavery. It was a place of terror and tension, of complaint and consequences, of danger and death. Thinking on Tillich and reflecting on the Hebrews' wilderness experience, Rabbi Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg wrote that this was the place -- not the land of their enslavement or the promised land ahead -- that served as "the stark theater in which human courage" was to be formed and practiced. Before they were to enter into the land promised to them, the Hebrew people had to learn what courage is by facing annihilation and anxiety.
So it is with us as well. When faced with the great challenges of life, we will need to pull on reservoirs of courage, miracles of audacity that emerge from our past experiences where fear has been transformed into faith, loathing into love, and hardship into hope.
What this requires is stepping out into the world. Going for it. Climbing that mountain, loving the unloved, asking that someone out on a date, standing against injustice, or finishing that run in the wilderness when your cramped legs and bloodied and blistered feet don't want to carry you any farther.
So try. Go for it. Even in the doing of the thing that fills you with dread, you are courageous. And if you don't feel courageous quite yet, your journey into the unknown wilds of this life will reveal it soon enough.
Written by Ken Chitwood
What strategies do you employ when your back is up against the wall? Does resolute determination or victory at all costs sound like you? Have you gleaned some helpful approaches learning from the lives or writings of others?
If so, we'd like to hear about it.
You can let us know what you think by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Tuesday, October 16, 2018
Sufficient, But Not Saving
I often notice that a lot of commercials and ads have one big message in common: if you're not buying or doing or subscribing to or wearing such and such, your life is not as good as it could be. There seems to be almost a moral pressure to consume the advertised thing. It's easy to wonder if I'm good enough, doing the right thing, living life the right way, or consuming the "right" things. These ads seem to advise that if I follow their suggestions, perhaps I'd be able to get control over a small corner of life-and in so doing, to live a little more abundantly, be a little more in the moment, and overall, enjoy life more.
One of the things that I feel pressure to be better at is saving financially, especially for the sake of retirement. My family situation, as of this writing, is such that I'm the only full-time worker. That means we're living off of my income alone. It's sufficient to live, to be sure. But it's not quite sufficient to save for the long term.
I consider this cost against the fact that my wife gets to be a stay-at-home mom. My wife and I believe that her regular and reliable presence at home will be invaluable for our children as they grow.
But as a father and the one who is responsible (for now) for providing financially for everything my family needs, I inevitably have those days when I wish I could do more. When those feelings creep in, I get a little anxious about the future. Saving for retirement is supposed to be a form of control, at least somewhat, over a little corner of life that isn't here yet, but is coming nevertheless.
When I was growing up, I saw a lot of people who seemed to work all the time, taking little time off. For a while, this became a model to me, causing me to assume that this is what I was supposed to do with my own life.
Of course, one can be driven to approach work in this way for a variety of reasons. Perhaps one started with nothing, and never wants to let that happen again. Perhaps there was a time when one was out of work, and there's always that lurking fear that it could happen again; so, (over-) working becomes a way to protect oneself from future unemployment that may or may not come. Or perhaps they felt the same pressure that I often feel when I think about saving for retirement.
As I consider the various kinds of pressure that are always before us, calling us to improve our lot in life, I find myself wondering if there's something deeper at play. Perhaps there's a spiritual anxiety that gets hooked into everything that promises to make our lives better. I wonder if, in some unwitting way, we're all trying a little bit to save ourselves, to secure a future that is free from certain kinds of anxiety, pain, suffering, or lack of meaning.
For me, while I am undoubtedly haunted by a similar kind of pressure to do something about my own future by saving for retirement, I also feel a reticence to invest too much of my own emotional energy into it all. It may seem careless, but I'm fairly confident that there will come a day when I'll be better able to put some money away toward retirement, rather than only live off of my current income. (I hope I'm not wrong.) So, when the anxiety comes that makes me wonder if I'm doing the right thing for my future (or doing enough), I find it easier to shake it off than others might.
But this has nothing to do with carelessness. For me, it has everything to do with where I place my hope. As a Christian, I take seriously Jesus' call to worry less about the things of this life and more about the age to come. But I also admit that I don't always know how that's supposed to look or feel. And furthermore, my take on how to live it out might be rather different than someone else's.
Where are you struggling with these things? Are you anxious about having some kind of control over the future, perhaps in terms of financial security? What effect does that anxiety have on your daily life?
Or are you trying to live more in the moment, and worry less about the future (but not live carelessly so as to put it in jeopardy)?
Or is there some other approach we should all know about?
Written by Chad Lakies
You can let us know what you think by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
One of the things that I feel pressure to be better at is saving financially, especially for the sake of retirement. My family situation, as of this writing, is such that I'm the only full-time worker. That means we're living off of my income alone. It's sufficient to live, to be sure. But it's not quite sufficient to save for the long term.
I consider this cost against the fact that my wife gets to be a stay-at-home mom. My wife and I believe that her regular and reliable presence at home will be invaluable for our children as they grow.
But as a father and the one who is responsible (for now) for providing financially for everything my family needs, I inevitably have those days when I wish I could do more. When those feelings creep in, I get a little anxious about the future. Saving for retirement is supposed to be a form of control, at least somewhat, over a little corner of life that isn't here yet, but is coming nevertheless.
When I was growing up, I saw a lot of people who seemed to work all the time, taking little time off. For a while, this became a model to me, causing me to assume that this is what I was supposed to do with my own life.
Of course, one can be driven to approach work in this way for a variety of reasons. Perhaps one started with nothing, and never wants to let that happen again. Perhaps there was a time when one was out of work, and there's always that lurking fear that it could happen again; so, (over-) working becomes a way to protect oneself from future unemployment that may or may not come. Or perhaps they felt the same pressure that I often feel when I think about saving for retirement.
As I consider the various kinds of pressure that are always before us, calling us to improve our lot in life, I find myself wondering if there's something deeper at play. Perhaps there's a spiritual anxiety that gets hooked into everything that promises to make our lives better. I wonder if, in some unwitting way, we're all trying a little bit to save ourselves, to secure a future that is free from certain kinds of anxiety, pain, suffering, or lack of meaning.
For me, while I am undoubtedly haunted by a similar kind of pressure to do something about my own future by saving for retirement, I also feel a reticence to invest too much of my own emotional energy into it all. It may seem careless, but I'm fairly confident that there will come a day when I'll be better able to put some money away toward retirement, rather than only live off of my current income. (I hope I'm not wrong.) So, when the anxiety comes that makes me wonder if I'm doing the right thing for my future (or doing enough), I find it easier to shake it off than others might.
But this has nothing to do with carelessness. For me, it has everything to do with where I place my hope. As a Christian, I take seriously Jesus' call to worry less about the things of this life and more about the age to come. But I also admit that I don't always know how that's supposed to look or feel. And furthermore, my take on how to live it out might be rather different than someone else's.
Where are you struggling with these things? Are you anxious about having some kind of control over the future, perhaps in terms of financial security? What effect does that anxiety have on your daily life?
Or are you trying to live more in the moment, and worry less about the future (but not live carelessly so as to put it in jeopardy)?
Or is there some other approach we should all know about?
Written by Chad Lakies
You can let us know what you think by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Tuesday, October 2, 2018
Binging, Self-Control, and the "Great Life-Waster"
I'd like to take a moment and consider the word binge. According to Webster's dictionary, a binge is "an unrestrained and often excessive indulgence." Another definition is "an act of excessive or compulsive consumption." Of those definitions, I find the word "compulsive" to be the most significant and the most frightening. The implication is that if I'm binging, I literally cannot stop myself.
When I was a kid, the word had an inherently negative connotation, and was typically associated with food or alcohol. Modern technology has changed all of that. Netflix, and other streaming mediums, have very much changed how we consume entertainment, and how we discuss it. We laugh about how we may binge a new TV show, or YouTube channel, or video game.
At our house, after the kids have been put to bed and the long hours of two full-time working parents start to fizzle out, we often use Netflix, et al., for detoxing our day. The problem I find is that when I intend to take a short break, maybe an hour (or an episode), suddenly I've watched four and it's well past when I should have gone to bed. And those papers I needed to grade now need to be squished into tomorrow's responsibilities. I almost always regret my choices and wonder what kind of example I am setting for my kids. (Do as I say, but not as I do.)
We've all heard about the literature for what technology does to the brain, specifically children's brains. It has been studied and documented to negatively affect their growth and development...but I didn't need that empirical evidence because I have watched it firsthand.
After two separate week-long stays in our local children's hospital, my eldest daughter was early-diagnosed with asthma at 18 months old. Prior to this, TV wasn't really a part of her life. She never seemed interested in it, and since we basically have strong emotions of disdain for most kid-themed music and cartoons, we never really pushed the issue. But post-diagnosis, she was required to sit still for 45 minutes of breathing through a nebulizer, sometimes more than once in a day. If you have ever attempted to get an 18-month-old to sit still for 5 minutes, you'll understand the dilemma we faced.
TV quickly became integral to this process, and initially we were watching educational shows (hello, Baby Einstein). By the time she was two, she could contentedly sit through the first half of The Sound of Music, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, or Mary Poppins in its entirety.
Fast forward a few years and television is now engrained into our family function. We routinely would all sit in front of the TV first thing in the morning (especially weekends), while eating, or as the final slow-down from our day (like my frequent nighttime Netflix binges). Some days, all of the above.
We also had a very temperamental and strong-willed 3-year-old with, it seemed, anger issues.
One day her behavior went too far too many times and she was "grounded" from TV for an entire weekend. I won't lie to you and say that it was easy to hold our ground. Her initial tantrum was of epic proportions. That Friday night was awful, and eventually she cried herself to sleep. The following day, when we would normally have watched some cartoons in the morning, we saw another monster tantrum. By that evening, we could tell she was starting to lose some steam. Sunday was a glorious day that was not only tantrum-free, but also was generally a good day. After this, she didn't even ask to watch anything for several weeks.
The change in her behavior was palpable. We could see immediate reactions to any exposure to television or electronics. When we used a movie or short TV show as a reward, it almost always backfired into bad choices and tantrums. Even now, the same behavior vortex has proved true with phones and tablets as well.
We see that when Grandma comes over and hands her an iPad (which we don't do), in less than 30 seconds she becomes so zoned into what she is doing that I often have to physically remove the device from her grip to bring her back to the real world. This is true even if her screen time is educational or artistic in nature.
Removing technology from both of our daughter's lives has been a change for the better. We do watch TV together sometimes, as special treats...and of course when they are sick it can help to stave off the boredom. But we have never once regretted adding a layer of separation from what my childhood friend calls, "The Great Life-Waster."
I'm not naysaying the value or opportunity that is possible when technology is correctly utilized. I'm not saying we should never let our kids near a screen. But my observation has been that it can easily control us more than the other way around.
At our elder daughter's recent 6-year checkup, the doctor wanted to confirm that she was getting "less than two hours of screen time a day." We were surprised. That seems like a lot for a six-year-old. But when I sit back and think about my own methods of daily detox, or exposure to "screen time" in general...I almost always exceed the two-hour mark.
Does my marriage benefit from those three hours watching Game of Thrones, or could we have used that time to sit outside and actually talk? How present was I while "playing" with my kids? That probably depends on whether or not I had my phone out the entire time. Did I sleep better or worse as a result of falling asleep while scrolling Facebook or Twitter? The list goes on.
Perhaps I should start holding myself accountable to the same restrictions that I have for my kids. I think the mere act of asking myself these kinds of questions (however uncomfortable I may find them) is a good place to start.
Written by Aaron Roose
You can let us know what you think by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
When I was a kid, the word had an inherently negative connotation, and was typically associated with food or alcohol. Modern technology has changed all of that. Netflix, and other streaming mediums, have very much changed how we consume entertainment, and how we discuss it. We laugh about how we may binge a new TV show, or YouTube channel, or video game.
At our house, after the kids have been put to bed and the long hours of two full-time working parents start to fizzle out, we often use Netflix, et al., for detoxing our day. The problem I find is that when I intend to take a short break, maybe an hour (or an episode), suddenly I've watched four and it's well past when I should have gone to bed. And those papers I needed to grade now need to be squished into tomorrow's responsibilities. I almost always regret my choices and wonder what kind of example I am setting for my kids. (Do as I say, but not as I do.)
We've all heard about the literature for what technology does to the brain, specifically children's brains. It has been studied and documented to negatively affect their growth and development...but I didn't need that empirical evidence because I have watched it firsthand.
After two separate week-long stays in our local children's hospital, my eldest daughter was early-diagnosed with asthma at 18 months old. Prior to this, TV wasn't really a part of her life. She never seemed interested in it, and since we basically have strong emotions of disdain for most kid-themed music and cartoons, we never really pushed the issue. But post-diagnosis, she was required to sit still for 45 minutes of breathing through a nebulizer, sometimes more than once in a day. If you have ever attempted to get an 18-month-old to sit still for 5 minutes, you'll understand the dilemma we faced.
TV quickly became integral to this process, and initially we were watching educational shows (hello, Baby Einstein). By the time she was two, she could contentedly sit through the first half of The Sound of Music, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, or Mary Poppins in its entirety.
Fast forward a few years and television is now engrained into our family function. We routinely would all sit in front of the TV first thing in the morning (especially weekends), while eating, or as the final slow-down from our day (like my frequent nighttime Netflix binges). Some days, all of the above.
We also had a very temperamental and strong-willed 3-year-old with, it seemed, anger issues.
One day her behavior went too far too many times and she was "grounded" from TV for an entire weekend. I won't lie to you and say that it was easy to hold our ground. Her initial tantrum was of epic proportions. That Friday night was awful, and eventually she cried herself to sleep. The following day, when we would normally have watched some cartoons in the morning, we saw another monster tantrum. By that evening, we could tell she was starting to lose some steam. Sunday was a glorious day that was not only tantrum-free, but also was generally a good day. After this, she didn't even ask to watch anything for several weeks.
The change in her behavior was palpable. We could see immediate reactions to any exposure to television or electronics. When we used a movie or short TV show as a reward, it almost always backfired into bad choices and tantrums. Even now, the same behavior vortex has proved true with phones and tablets as well.
We see that when Grandma comes over and hands her an iPad (which we don't do), in less than 30 seconds she becomes so zoned into what she is doing that I often have to physically remove the device from her grip to bring her back to the real world. This is true even if her screen time is educational or artistic in nature.
Removing technology from both of our daughter's lives has been a change for the better. We do watch TV together sometimes, as special treats...and of course when they are sick it can help to stave off the boredom. But we have never once regretted adding a layer of separation from what my childhood friend calls, "The Great Life-Waster."
I'm not naysaying the value or opportunity that is possible when technology is correctly utilized. I'm not saying we should never let our kids near a screen. But my observation has been that it can easily control us more than the other way around.
At our elder daughter's recent 6-year checkup, the doctor wanted to confirm that she was getting "less than two hours of screen time a day." We were surprised. That seems like a lot for a six-year-old. But when I sit back and think about my own methods of daily detox, or exposure to "screen time" in general...I almost always exceed the two-hour mark.
Does my marriage benefit from those three hours watching Game of Thrones, or could we have used that time to sit outside and actually talk? How present was I while "playing" with my kids? That probably depends on whether or not I had my phone out the entire time. Did I sleep better or worse as a result of falling asleep while scrolling Facebook or Twitter? The list goes on.
Perhaps I should start holding myself accountable to the same restrictions that I have for my kids. I think the mere act of asking myself these kinds of questions (however uncomfortable I may find them) is a good place to start.
Written by Aaron Roose
You can let us know what you think by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
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