The tendency of my life to move in a persistent uphill downhill trudge used to be maddening. I’d find a source of motivation and ride the high until the day arrived when it stopped showing up, and no amount of positive thinking put the rose colored tint back into my life. “I’m just not feeling it” was a quick and consistent thought. Old habits and insecure thoughts slipped back into place. My inspiration tank emptied, and I sputtered to a halt. My drive to workout or improve seemed lost, I had little willpower to resist an urge for indulgence, and words lacked depth and meaning. It drove me nuts. I knew I needed to do something so, I yelled at myself. I’d tell myself, “I am feeling it”, and try to trick myself into believing I wasn’t on a downswing. Guess what? I didn't trick myself. For years I tried this method. But at the end of the pretend road is duplicity. I lied to myself and lied to other people about the consistent condition of my soul. Things weren’t always "OK". I wasn’t a cynic; I was just a liar. A few years ago in my economics class the instructor drew the economic cycles on the board and my old paradigm blew up. Cycles were normal, and I started seeing them everywhere in the world. Sports, business, nature, other people. I was not alone. My new method of thinking is “life is a game of runs”. My ruts were troughs. My bad days were the start of a recession. Sick of acting different than I was feeling, I started steering into my feelings instead of denying them. Everyone has bad days. Every team loses. Everyone strikes out. It’s OK for things to be going wrong.
But, my new approach came with a fresh set of problems. While pretending eventually pulled me out of my troughs, acting how I was feeling turned the downward spiral into wallowing and wallowing turned the spiral into an elevator drop. The problem is, feelings are like children or pets or clients or employees or enemies. Acknowledgement is great, but giving in all the time results in a rotten life for everybody. So, when I accepted the idea that cycles are normal, “I’m not feeling it” became a valid excuse for not doing it. I wasn’t in denial and I wasn’t faking it, but being obnoxious and lazy or cynical and unhappy is a crappy way to live. My basketball coach had a big thing for teaching kids about adversity. According to Jeremy, basketball is a game of runs. A team puts up 15 straight and the other team puts up 20. The key is not to take momentum out of the game, but to lengthen good runs and shorten bad ones. That’s the key to good economics, a good sports team, a good marriage, and a good life. Approaching a bad day with denial is ridiculous. Humans are mortal and imperfect and this must be accepted. Even Jesus had to accept His humanity through death. And that was not a good time for him. To combat the downward spiral, I try to be like Jesus and embrace death, humanity, and bad days as a part of being alive. Believing a bad streak is going to be bad until I “feel it” again is a good way to waste the morning or the day or the week or the month or the year doing absolutely nothing. This has been true for me lately. I’ve been holed up in my mind paying too much attention to my feelings rather than taking an intentional approach to life based on what I really value. Wendell Berry came in clutch for me in this funk (he usually does). Two words to close out a poem busted me free from the gradual internal frustration I'd been amassing. "Practice resurrection". I chewed on this for a while and arrived at two conclusions.
2. Practicing resurrection is an action. The revival of the fire and passion for life comes with doing. it comes with persistence, with dedication, and with hope. Embrace the valley, understand it, and then take aim for a new peak and start climbing. Inspiration will catch up. So, dear reader, if you have arrived at this point my encouragement to you is to acknowledge your finitude. Death is inevitable. Practice resurrection. What action can you take to be alive today? Start small and keep doing. There's a poem down there if you click read more. |
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I'm a Hoosier. I like the outdoors. Taxes are my job. I write for a living. This Blog
Writing my way to an adult life of minimalism, sustainability, and joy rooted in Truth. I'm learning, unlearning, and relearning.
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