Because I Want To

Is selfishness a virtue? Depends on how you define it, I suppose.

A few months ago, I re-picked up a life coaching podcast that had been helpful to me last year. While browsing through the list of episodes one title caught my attention: “Because I Want To.”

It sounded so empowering. “Do what you want because you want to. Don’t worry about everyone else’s opinions or feelings about your actions. Take control of your destiny and define your life on your terms.”

After listening to the episode I just felt sad for the host and everyone else in her life. My sadness was increased even more after listening to another one of her episodes on the virtues of selfishness. The message of the podcasts was essentially “screw everyone else, because you aren’t responsible for them, do what you want. Be selfish, it’s virtuous.”

Maybe it wasn’t quite that harsh. She did define selfishness as “taking care of your own needs so you can better care for the needs of others.” But this definition conflates selfishness with self-care. I don’t disagree with the concept of self-care at all, but there is a fine line between self-care and selfish narcissism.

What happens when you take care of your own needs just because you only care about yourself? There is a blurry boundary between (bad) selfishness and (good) self-care. It is one thing entirely to say “I’m going to take a break to recharge my batteries so I can be better at taking care of my responsibilities.” It is quite another to say “I’m going to walk away from my responsibilities because I want to.”

The entire ethos of the host is basically “I do what I want because I want to. I don’t care how it makes others feel (after all, I’m not responsible for their feelings, they are). My selfishness is a virtue.”

But what if everyone lived like that? She has a rather optimistic view of humanity. Like so many humanists today, the host believes that most of us deep down really want to care for others. It is common to believe that most people are intrinsically good.

However, It doesn’t take much time among the general population to see this just isn’t true. Most people are looking out for themselves. They live her ethos every day. People are naturally selfish and inclined to look out only for number one.

The result is that most of us live in misery.

Podcasts teaching people that selfishness is virtuous only serve to validate narcissists, not that a narcissist needs much to validate himself. By his very nature a narcissist believes he is always right. He looks out always and only for himself. He makes himself an island and declares himself king. He does what he wants because he wants to, no one can require anything from him.

This is all fine and dandy until relationships get involved. Narcissists are incapable of mutually beneficial relationships. They only want relationships that “serve them.” If anything is required of them they immediately shut down the relationship.

Depending on the type of narcissist, they may require something physical or emotional from the other person, or they may pretend to require nothing (whatever “serves them”). Either way, they themselves contribute nothing, unless it’s begrudgingly.

Everyone is familiar with the overt kind of narcissist. This one is a noisy leech, the overt narcissist demands the world revolve around him and takes takes takes.

The lesser known kind of narcissist is the kind who requires nothing of those around him. This one is a bit more insidious. He gives nothing and validates himself by saying that he requires nothing in return. They put on airs of self-sufficiency and generally take care of their own needs. In their mind they are completely independent. They project this independence on everyone else. If they can be an island, so should everyone else.

Worse yet, when they do have needs they don’t express them, preferring to play a “victim” of the “selfishness” of others.

But needs are a bit more complex than simple air, water, and food. Humans require emotional support and affection as well. We are social animals. This is why we form mutually beneficial bonds in marriage or friendships. We give and we get in return.

As I mentioned before, narcs aren’t capable of mutually beneficial bonds. Not only are they not capable of such bonds, they thrive on destroying such bonds. Narcissists feed on chaos and controlling the emotions of others. So when some respected podcaster tells them that they should do whatever “serves” them, they naturally gravitate towards destructive behaviors. They can walk all over others and claim it’s healthy behavior because after all, selfishness is virtuous.

All the Providences

Four months of silence? Really? Has my life been silent? Not at all!

Though all the facets maybe shining differently, God certainly never allows my life to be dull. There are dark corners and bright ones. What would life be without all the Providences, good and bad?

Sometimes we think God must not be listening. We think He is forgetful of our needs. Things don’t turn out the way we want and we get angry. We feel as though life should be a constant state of elation, that permanent happiness is the greatest commodity God can bestow.

But is God not sovereign even in His “no”? Sometimes it is in the “no” that we find God’s best blessings.

I’m learning one day at a time to accept the “no” and look for the blessings instead of lamenting the “losses”.

The Trimming of the Vine

“‘Rid me, good Lord, of every diverting thing.’
What prodigal waste it appears to be, to see scattered on the floor the bright green leaves, and the bare stem, bleeding in a hundred places from the sharp steel.
But with a tried and trusted husbandman, there is not a random stroke in it at all; nothing cut away which would not have been loss to keep, and gain to lose.”

-Amy Carmichael, quoted in Sinclair Ferguson’s “Maturity”.

We often get angry with God for taking away the things that we love. But why?Because losing things sucks, whether it be money, people, or health. When we grow attached to things (or people) we often get tangled up in unhealthy affections for them. When they are ripped away we feel disoriented. We feel as though a part of us has been removed.

But God knows exactly what He is doing. As the quote above states, nothing is random. God knows what we need, and when He takes away, it’s for our growth. Like I said in my last post, pain is inevitable. Pain leads to growth, and sometimes the loss of someone or something is the most painful thing we can experience. There is almost an exponential correlation between the amount of pain and the amount of growth potential.

This doesn’t mean that we go seeking pain, or that pain isn’t painful. We shouldn’t deliberately cut things off that God wouldn’t. Nor should we masochisticly relish in our pain. But we should see that our most painful moments and circumstances carry in them the promise of great fruit.

When God takes away He knows that it would have been a loss for us to keep whatever it was He took. He also knows that we will gain from losing it. For perspective, I like to invert the lyric of “When I Survey the Wonderous Cross” to say “My richest loss I count but gain.” Every loss is a gain, even if not immediately perceived.

Every branch that does bear fruit He prunes that it may bear more fruit. – John 15:2

Fruit takes time to grow, and even more time to ripen. It’s easy to grow impatient in our world of instant gratification. We want results now! But to God a thousand years is like a day. His timing almost never matches our desired speed. We must wait for fruit. We must endure the suffering of loss before we see the gain.

We may be tempted to despair when we see the leaves of the vine of our life scattered on the ground. We may have invested decades of our life in something, just to watch it get cut away. But we must remember that the vine isn’t dead. Just because it was trimmed doesn’t mean it is gone. In fact, we are assured the trimming will produce more fruit. In one way, shape, or form, the trimmed branch will regrow into something healthier and more productive.

But again, this takes time. Sometimes the first fruit of a loss is patience. If we can get past the initial pain, we can find a calm place to wait for the next fruit, whatever that may be. God’s trimmings result in multiple fruits.

Be patient, sufferers. It’s worth it.

Pain

A brilliant man once said “Life is pain, highness, anyone who says differently is selling something.” He may not have been too far off from the truth. In my thirty-five years of life I have found that pain is one of the few certainties in my existence.

Since I was twelve I have suffered from nearly constant back pain and neck pain, the result of a bike accident. I have had two surgeries, one to remove a benign bone tumor from my knee and one to place a titanium plate on my broken collar bone. Both resulted in nerve damage which is often painful. Wear and tear from hard work has given me various aches from my feet to my hands. Our physical bodies are certainly frail. But what of our minds and souls?

I am no stranger to emotional pain. This is the kind of pain which rots your soul and makes you wish to die. It is tempting to flee this pain in myriad ways, frequently replacing the internal pain with a physical pain. Unfortunately, this is a dreadful payoff.

Death seems like a great escape. After all, I believe there is eternal bliss on the other side. But who am I to tell God when it’s my time? And what of those I would leave behind? What of their emotional pain? As my son put it “You can’t die, who would take care of us?” Escaping my pain is not worth dumping it onto them.

Other temptations are equally fraught with ugly. I could drink myself into a stupor, but that would result in not only a dreadful hangover the next day but it could result in neglecting my loved ones or worse. Same with drugs. Sex? Temporary. And when used incorrectly, also dangerous to others.

So what do I do with my pain?

It would be easy to say I simply pray it all away. After all, that’s what the prosperity preachers say to do. But prayer doesn’t always eliminate pain. In fact sometimes it seems more pain is the answer to prayer. I definitely do pray and cling to the promises of God. But there is more to it than that.

I’ve come to the conclusion that pain never completely goes away. There is always going to be some kind of pain in our lives. Knowing that pain will always be present gives me some consolation. I’m not cursed. I’m not strange. What I deal with is common to all.

But is it my fault? I think this is the most common question people have about pain. “What did I do to bring this upon myself?” I don’t internalize too much. Not all the pain in life is purely your fault. Don’t listen to Job’s friends and assume your pain is the result of some horrible sin you have done (though it might be).

Sometimes pain is the result of the actions of others. We live in a world full of depraved souls, friction is inevitable. People hurt us with words, with actions, and sometimes in ways we don’t fully understand. Often we allow even the innocent actions of others to hurt us. Our thoughts about the actions directly feed our feelings of pain. The best we can do for this pain is to forgive. Vengeance or wrathful responses will only injure us more.

Escape if you have to, then let it go. Or simply seek to understand the motives behind the actions and words of others. If pure, you may need to examine your own pride. Maybe you are being oversensitive, maybe you hate yourself and are projecting that hatred into what others do. Maybe you simply need to tell them it hurts. We all do the best we can with what we know, it’s likely you hurt many people without knowing or intending.

It soothes my pain to know that we are all suffering in this world together. We all hurt each other. We are all equals in this respect. I can respond with anger, or I can respond with compassion. Compassion is much less painful for both parties, at least in the long run.

I refuse to let pain consume me. I refuse to let pain lead me into giving up my faith. I refuse to let pain kill my love for others. Or kill me for that matter. Pain can only grow me.

I choose what I allow pain to do to me.

A Hex on The Stoics

The other day, I was listening to an episode about prayer on Ligonier’s “Renewing Your Mind”. The speaker, R.C. Sproul, mentioned that prayer is a lot like a love letter. He said the even though God already knows about our life, we should be excited to pray and tell God all about it.

This made me wonder, why aren’t more people who claim to love God giving Him love letters in their prayers?

I then realized that many Christians don’t pray at all. Perhaps much of what prevents them from praying is a lack of real joy in their life.

They prefer to be stoics.

People are told so often not to let their emotions control them and dictate their actions that they often assume it’s safer not to have any feelings. They think “Don’t let your emotions rule you” really means stop having emotions at all.

Should emotions rule us and dictate everything we do or say? No, we should certainly apply logic and rational thinking when making decisions. But should emotions have some influence? Perhaps.

I think it’s unbiblical to say we shouldn’t have our emotions influence any of our actions. In the Bible there are numerous examples of people weeping, soaking their beds in tears, and rending their clothing in mourning. In the Gospels we have Jesus flipping tables. “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild” got angry and showed it. The people of the Bible were very emotional and their actions certainly displayed it.

I think the modern (or not so modern, honestly) tendency to stoicism is very unbiblical. We were created to feel. God Himself has emotions, and strong ones at that. Part of being created in His image is the ability to emote.

Most of Fruits of the Spirit are emotional. For example, what is joy if not happy? What is joy if not exuberant? We should let joy influence us. Especially in our prayers.

There are many out there who say that happiness is not something we should strive for. I think this is hogwash. We should feel nothing but happy knowing that the God of creation loves us, cares about us, provides for us, and even died for our sins. If nothing else, we should strive to be happy about those facts.

That happiness ought to be reflected in our prayers. We should be excited to pray because God is listening. He values and loves the prayers of His saints and wants us to come to Him with our burdens and worship. We should be glad to give Him our love letters of prayer, because his love gives us great joy.

As usual, Sproul was right.

Women’s Clothes

Recently I was given a stack of writings which my great-grandfather wrote for my grandma. I love them so much I thought I would share.

This one is entitled Women’s Clothes. This one is not as politically incorrect as the last, though it may be a bit dated as women don’t wear hats as much these days. But I still love the sentiments. Though I have no idea what “paying the rabbits” means, even Google couldn’t help with that one.

Woman With A Hat, 1905, Henri Matisse

“Women’s Clothes”

A certain person stopped by yesterday on her way home from “paying the rabbits.” She was also in search of a hat. She told me about her hunt while Mom was getting coffee. She could not find a thing that suited her type of beauty. She spoke highly of a large “pink” one she had seen, but which she did not think becoming to her age and condition. I agreed with her entirely. (Mentally) For I have very often noticed that when fat, elderly ladies attempt to look “rosebuddish,” the result is always disastrous. It is one man’s opinion that a woman’s hat is the most important part of her costume. And the most important thing about a hat is it’s “age.” I mean that a hat young enough for a teenager will almost always appear “tragic” on a grandmother. A young hat on an elderly woman will make her look either ridiculous or pathetic– depending on how we feel about things. Except with the young , the hat must be “older” than the woman. The contrast will cause her to appear younger. A too young hat will make her seem older than she is. As most of the hats for sale are “young,” a woman who has “settled” finds it hard to find something becoming. But they can at least avoid passionate pinks and sky blues.

While we are on the subject, there are a few more things I’d like to speak of. There is the fallacy of many women that they will appear younger if they wear “young things.” There could be no greater mistake. An older woman dressed in young things looks, not young, but frowsy– if not worse. Over dressing is another. Many very plain women imagine that dressing in lively colors, frills, and decorations will disguise their plainness. It has the opposite effect–it accentuates it. As the hat must be a little older than the woman, so the dress must be a little plainer than the face. A plain woman in a plain dress of the right color will usually pass muster. An overdressed one looks like a square peg in a round hole. After looking over the dress, we are disappointed at the face. We feel let down. We feel that the woman is trying to obtain goods under false pretenses. Dresses are made becoming by their color and cut, not by the price of the material used to make them.

Old men try to appear young, not so much by dressing young, as by trying to “act” young. While playing dances, I have had many opportunities to observe these “young heads on old shoulders.” When I was feeling good, they amused me. When otherwise, they irritated me. I felt that a good kick in the proper place would help–preferably administered by me. But that was pure intolerance. For no man is an ass on purpose.

To fill this blank space, I give my favorite quotation:

“He prayeth best who loveth best

All things, both great and small.

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Ravings of Mad Men

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I have been reading “Philosophy 101”. I say reading, but it’s more like slugging through. Sometimes I blank out and realize I have “read” three pages and have no idea what just happened. I go back and re-read and realize, yes, this was in fact a bunch of nonsense.

It doesn’t stick because most Philosophy is pure nonsense. I used to joke that Philosophers were just people who stated the obvious in a profound way. Having read the summaries of a few of them now I see that many of them state complete absurdity in a profound way. It’s the “profound” that makes them “philosophers” and not “asylum patients”.

Reading all of it does stir the old noggin. My head is now filled with so many questions, queries, and concerns. I feel like Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph. D. from Yellow Submarine: “Ad hoc, ad loc, and quid pro quo! So little time. So much to know!”

Concerned that maybe my brain is just too old to process all the material I picked up a book I read years ago: RC Sproul’s “The Consequences of Ideas”. It’s almost like light switches were clicked on. Sproul is far superior in explaining the various philosophers than ol’ What’s His Face. It reads as smooth as butter, no re-reading needed.

But man has my mind been chugging. We are all influenced by the environment we grow up in, the people we choose to be around, and the general culture at large. Is it possible to invent one’s own personal philosophy? More importantly, is it possible to find a real, workable philosophy in Sacred Scripture? What is God’s philosophy? What is man’s? Where do these mesh?

I am relieved when I read or hear someone else coming to conclusions I have reached on my own or with a little help from books. Or maybe I was just influenced long ago and it’s only now coming back to my memory once refreshed by a re-read. I feel this relief frequently reading this book. All of it is coming back to me, with new-ish conclusions and a ton of dots connected.

I haven’t finished either book yet, but it is striking to see the differences between Christian philosophers and the Ravings of Mad Men. When one is hopeless all he can do is promote hopelessness. When one believes in nothing all he can do is promote absurdities. It’s only through belief in the true and living God can men come to any reasonable philosophy about truth and meaning.

I hope I can keep up with all of it!