Three Sticks — Personal Development for Christians

My earlier post, Question 4: Where Are you Going?, has really made me think about the process I am undergoing to take charge of my life and the work that I have undertaken to make it into the life that I want. I’m not waiting until the some unforeseen future to make the changes that I want in my life, instead I am working to make the present into the life that I want. The future will take care of itself.

Several sources of inspiration have lead me to this point in my life. This include my growing relationship with God, writings from Steve Pavlina, Debra Moorhead’s article Wake up And Create the Life You Want (this especially touched me) and watching some people that I’ve known die relatively early in life. Death reminds us of 3 important truths:

1. We have a limited time on Earth;
2. We are not guaranteed a certain amount of time on Earth;
3. We will die regardless of what we do with that time.

I have recently discovered that their are several key ingredients to creating the life that you want. These key ingredients include discovering your purpose, understanding yourself and making choices about your life. As a Christian, God plays a central role in each of these ingredients, guiding me and pushing me forward much like Adam Smith’s invisible hand. Of course God still requires you to make choices, hence his great gift of free will. A couple example scripture references support this claim:

1. Genesis 2:15 - 17, The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” God gave Adam the choice whether or not to eat from the tree of knowledge. He set the boundaries for Adam and it was up to Adam to make the correct choice. God could have easily made it impossible for Adam to eat from the tree of knowledge by erecting some form of physical barrier, but instead he allowed Adam to make the choice of whether or not to follow God’s direction.
2. Romans 1:24 - 32, Here God allows people to reject him even though he knows the pain and suffering that they will endure by rejecting him. Instead of forcing them to follow his will he allows them to make their own choices and experience the consequences of those choices.

Instead of making choices I, like many people, have allowed life to carry me forward aimlessly. I have allowed fear to keep me from making choices for almost every important life decision. Some people would chalk this up to the stereotypical fear of commitment. While that may be true, the fear I have experienced in regard to making choices is more nuanced. It’s a fear that manifests itself in several ways including

• Fear of making the wrong choice and being unhappy or unable to change it;
• Fear of making a choice and closing off the possibility of other options (closely related to the first);
• Fear of making a choice and losing the acceptance and approval for family, peers and even strangers.

Since my childhood, I have been afraid of making choices simply because I was fascinated by all of the different possibilities and doors that were open to me. I am fortunate to have been blessed with intelligence and talent which has created numerous opportunities for me to excel. I have allowed many of those opportunities to pass me by because I knew that making one choice would close the door on other choices. This is a common phenomenon among multi-talented people. By not making a choice, I closed many more doors than I should have and missed many of the blessings that God had in store for me.

In addition, I have spent the last ten years searching for approval from others (friends, colleagues, strangers etc) as a response to my parents, especially my father, withholding their approval of me during my childhood. This has left me obsessed with doing what others think that I should do. For example, as an African-American male that isn’t in jail, has a high earning potential, an excellent education etc I thought that I should marry an African-American woman in order to create another strong African-American family. While this is definitely a noble goal, it ignores the reality that God is not constrained by our ideals. So instead of putting the person you are meant to be with in a neat little package that both you and society are ready to accept he may do something radically different, the woman he has for me may be White or Latino or another race, it is up to him to decide. However relating back to my larger point, until recently I forced myself to only date within my race because that is what I “should” do. In trying so hard to please others, many times faceless others, I have made myself miserable.

I have learned that blindly doing what others think I “should” do is dangerous and unrewarding. This is not to say that you shouldn’t listen to the advice and counsel of others you trust but ultimately you need to do want you think is is best rather than what others tell you is best.

In the last year or so, I have learned that in order to be happy you have to actively and consciously work to create the life that you want. It is absolutely necessary for you to take charge of your life under the guidance of God to have the richest, most fulfilling life. To overcome my fear, I let go of 2 obsessions.

The first was my obsession with the future and all of the possibilities that the future may hold. The problem with focusing solely on the future is multifaceted and centers around 2 key concepts;

1. We do not have control over the future. Although it is attractive, our only control over our lives exists in the present moment. If you focus on the future you give up your control and thus your ability to make choices.
2. The future is not guaranteed. We simply do not know when our time on Earth will end so you might as well have the life you want now, because you may not have a future to experience it.

My second obsession was needing the approval of others. I have learned that only God is as invested in your life as you are and if you work to seek the approval of others you will be and unhappy trying to appease their ideas of what is best for your life. In the end, you will also be disappointed to learn that those whose approval you were seeking are not as interested in your life as you thought they were. The only person who suffers in that exchange is you because you will have sacrificed your happiness in exchange for their disinterest.

Making choices is a critical element of both being happy or content and creating the life that you want. By avoiding making choices, we forfeit our God-given power and lose our ability to make lives rich and fulfilling.

This will be an on-going series. I expect that to write at least 2 more posts on in this series including discovering your spirituality and finding your ideal career.

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