Confronting Unpleasant Reality

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

An outburst is a sign that we need help, but people generally don't experience outbursts that way.  It tends to be that people on the receiving end of an outburst see the person who "outbursted" as a person to avoid.  

In other words, living unconsciously sets us up for rather severe consequences.  We blow up as an unconscious reaction to unpleasant realities and these tantrums create the opportunity for isolation.

It is never easy to confront an unpleasant reality, and that is why we develop extensive defense mechanisms that protect us from its effects.  We may need that for a time, but if we refuse to confront whatever the difficult circumstance is forever then we continue to perpetuate a cycle of harm done from unconscious living.  

But, perhaps more importantly, we will not know ourselves and others will not have the opportunity to know us or walk alongside us in the midst of difficult times.  If we're content to react to whatever is beneath our surface unconsciously then we miss the opportunity to listen to ourselves, deal with pain, share the pain, and find community.

New me vs. Old me:

I don’t really disagree with this post- though I would highlight in a more obvious way a really complicated push-pull dynamic in life when it comes to trying to manage our own reactivity. Yes, on the one hand, it’s important to find ways to regulate ourselves so that people enjoy being around us (or have the potential to). On the other hand, wouldn’t it be nice if we could all be gracious with and to one another when we’re struggling? 

We need both.

A New View of Letting Go

For a month’s worth of posts, I (Scott) am critiquing my own past blog posts. I’m viewing this as an experiment in being willing to admit when I’m wrong, change my mind, and to do so publicly.

When we speak of "letting go" we are, on the one hand, saying something about the release of control but, on the other hand, we're suggesting that we don't release control just for the sake of releasing control.  We "let go" so that we can see the world clearly.  It is only through proper orientation to that which is "ours to do" that we can live in the reality of what is and resist the temptation to ground ourselves in fantasy.  

Fantasy is what happens when we're utterly disoriented over what is "ours to do."  

Scott’s updated take as of 2021:

I wish I would speak more positively about you (us). I like the idea that we “let go” for a purpose, and not just to say that we let go. The phrase “letting go” is a nice little shorthand that describes the process of realizing how one thing in our lives is maybe getting in the way of our ability to maximize thriving. 

But, as of today, I see no reason to frame this in terms of “Fantasy v. Reality.”  It’s hard to let go of things. Often enough we have a long history with the things that we’re clinging so tightly to and this means it’s easy to be afraid of letting go. So I’ll close today by asking you a few questions instead of making more comments:

Are you holding on to some things that you wish you could let go of?

If you could let go of them, how would you do it?

When you let go of them, what else would you like to be doing with your time?

This is Not Suffering…This is Whining

Suffering is a great killer of faith. For people who are not only used to suffering but can also not avoid it? They perhaps handle it better. But for those of us who are reasonably comfortable? I wonder if we have gotten too out of touch with reality. I notice an awful lot of people acting like suffering should not exist at all.

Take me for instance. I ordered this piece of furniture on January 1, 2021. The handy email receipt told me to expect delivery on March 1st. I would have preferred it in January - but ok, I think, I can be flexible. I am a reasonable person; I realize that we are in the first year of a pandemic and I know that history teaches us that pandemics last two years. I can wait until March.

March and April come and go but still I do not have my piece of furniture. Estimated time of arrival? End of May. I start complaining about this as if it is a hardship. It is not. It is an expected result in the middle of a pandemic.

We humans have been complaining about our suffering since the beginning of time. God couldn't work fast enough to get Eve created and handed over to Adam. He did not need a single dating app or dating ritual - God just provided. Still with the complaining. One tree out of a whole garden off limits? Those two could not bear it. They had to nibble at its fruit. You know the rest of the story.

Ending suffering is a worthy cause. I spend parts of every day praying and pondering - how can we do more to end the suffering of families struggling with the epidemic of substance use disorder? If I had a magic wand, I would wave it.

But waiting on a piece of furniture is not suffering, it's called waiting. Suffering is when I think I am too special to have to wait - which reminds me too much of my toddler grandchildren who at least have age as an excuse for their need for immediate cookie gratification. A garden full of delicious offerings with one lousy tree considered out-of-bounds is not suffering, it's called denial of limitations. I confess that today I realize that if my sideboard never arrives, I'm still one blessed human.

Adjust as Needed

I love traveling through life with my friend Jean because she pays attention to people and she has seen me at my worst. I know I can be a pain in the neck, but she has somehow managed to put up with me without actually making me feel like she is enduring waterboarding as my friend.

Our friendship started with some magical affinity that drew us together but it has endured because we have not let our humanity pull us apart. If you have friends who have taught you that they start fights but lack the courage to actually resolve them, if you have friends who gossip about you - folks, these are not friends. I know it is sad anytime we discover this, but we must live in reality.

Troublemakers start fights; gossips break up friendships. Proverbs 16:28 The Message

Do you have any relationships that need to be adjusted?

Too Many Friends?

The man of too many friends [chosen indiscriminately] will be broken in pieces and come to ruin, but there is a [true, loving] friend who [is reliable and] sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24

How could too many friends possibly cause us ruin? It's easier than one might think. Here's why. Friendship is hard; if you think you have a ton of friends, you might be misidentifying friendship; it is too hard to be a friend who is reliable and sticks closer than a brother to have but so many friends.

My grandson was telling me last night about his friend at school who he plays with all the time. Yesterday, this friend did not want to play with him. Does that make him an enemy? No! It gave me a chance to teach a toddler about boundaries. Afterwards, I considered how often it seems to me that we adults need to learn this stuff too.

Over the course of our lives we will have many opportunities to explore whether or not a person is a true, loving friend. Their (and our) limitations in the area of friendship is nothing anyone needs to judge. It's not always about whether or not someone is a 'good' or a 'bad' friend. More often, it is a question of discernment - is this person a friend to me? Do they have the capacity to stick closer than a brother? This is a high bar for me because my brother Bobby has set a high bar for my friends. I'm lucky that way.

The trick is to live in reality and not illusion. What does it look like to stick close? Tomorrow we'll explore that topic.