For the past couple of years i've been thinking about what really matters in the grand scheme of things. i don't know if it works this way for others but certain things rattle around in my head for a couple years before they get anywhere. The decision to drink alcohol took somewhere from 3-5 years. Perhaps you ponder something for a week and then know fully everything you think about the topic. For me it takes a while.
That said, the question of what really matters is one i fully expect to take a long time. i'm glad to be dealing with it now though. i recently picked up some Tolstoy and, in reading some of his non-fiction, found that in his fifties he was pondering very similar issues. After living a successful, and arguably important, life he questioned everything. This period in his life brought about massive personal change and that personal change draumatically impacted the world around him.
i also think about the diciples in a similar context. The disciples (post resurection) all lived to the death for Chirst; the aposlte Paul as well. These men, once misfits and losers, lived their life with determination and conviction. Something changed them. Something similar can be said of Tolstoy. He hit a point where what he once knew would no longer suffice.
i've often considered myself weak, unspectacular, quiet. i often fail to stand up for things i believe strongly in; often while fighting for things that simply cannot matter. That simply will not do anymore. i think the first step is deciding what truly matters. Once that is done, i can decide how to live in light of what matters.
Part of it is also letting the things which don't matter slide. I'm confronted with this one regularly. I'll get upset over something at work. On the whole, work is important. It is the little issues we get up in arms about that are typically the unimportant. They cause unnecessary frustration and they take our eyes off those things which do matter.
i hope one day to have the balanced perspective of a man who knows what matters in life. i hope this so that i may live the life that i believe to be the only possible outcome of such a perspective.
. . . face first is mine.
2 comments:
an interesting note, since you are referencing the life of tolstoy, is that towards the middle of his career he faced what some would call a "mid life crisis." During that time he was in the midst of pondering intensely all aspects of his life, which eventually he drew to the conclusion that his wife and children were distractions from his relationship with the Lord and he constantly told them so. after that he kind of slowly deteriorated.
now the point, you ask? Pondering can do a lot of good and it can also do a lot of bad. I think you are on the right track in searching for what is more meaningful to stand up for. I will also say that your battle also happens to be my battle.
Yeah, that is a really good point. Keeping perspective in this thing is important.
i think in Tolstoy's case it was partially due to him taking this journey alone. He should have brought his family with them. i would hope to avoid the same mistake. i suppose that's the rub about being human. Stupid fallen nature screwing crap up all the time.
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