I’ve been thinking a lot about seeing around life’s corners this month. When you’re in a stage of life that paradoxically requires both the responsibility to start planning for the future and the willingness to believe uncertainty serves a purpose, becoming a little frustrated with life seems reasonable.
This feeling isn’t unfamiliar though; I struggled with it only a few months ago at the end of senior year. This also will not be the last time I encounter it. As a friend put it to me the other day, we now feel as though our lives are dividing into two very different paths in front of us, and we cannot keep stitching these paths together. We will have to pick one someday. Making the smallest of decisions today feels overwhelmingly daunting since each decision’s ripple effect only seems to increase in magnitude decades down the line. I don’t necessarily mean decisions like which shade of gray jumper I will choose to wear today, but questions like where we choose to be next year.
Do we pursue the career that seems the most rational and socially respectable? Do we accept any job, so long as we can stay near the people that we love? Does location matter most, since nothing affects our happiness quite like a mountain sunset or a gray perma-cloud? Do we follow our ‘calling,’ even if that seems uncertain, or do we simply chase what we ‘want’ most? And what do we mean when we say we know what we ‘want’? (I’m not convinced that we really do know what we ‘want’ most, unless that something exists beyond this world)
With questions like these floating about in my head, and doubtlessly inside the minds of my peers as well, I was more than tempted to try to respond to them once and for all, to to find that ‘one thing’ to guide my life and to start planning responsibly for the future (You’re not mistaken if you think I’m beginning to sound like a commercial for responsible retirement planning). Unfortunately though, this attitude often led me to think that the only reason I couldn’t get rid of my uncertainty was because I hadn’t thought enough about the problem.
I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I’ve spent many a night and prayer trying to understand just which future I felt most called to attain, to weigh all the options and to come up with an answer that satisfied all of the questions above. Yet, all I discovered was more confusion, an unending series of possible decisions, none obviously sticking out above the others. I asked God to help me understand this difficulty, to tell me why I should be kept from knowing the correct future when knowing it would seem to help me live a more just and holy life. It was only recently, though, that I think I’ve started to appreciate this living mystery in our lives.
For one, I learned that all of these futures we can imagine can only be loose speculations. We might have a sense of their general differences, but there will always be unexpected changes and introductions to our lives. Furthermore, to know that one future was more ‘correct’ in God’s eyes than another would remove the notion that we live love God freely at all (something we thought of as we visited John Calvin’s home church this past weekend). Lastly, if desires like location, job, or lifestyle were all transient, and the only true constant, God, was what we really desired, then should we be surprised that what we want is so elusive and mysterious, yet constantly attracting? To find that ‘one thing’ would be mean to find God Himself. Though we need not despair, for his Son taught us to find Him in every aspect of our lives, especially in the eyes of others.
But oddly enough, the most important for me to learn was actually rather simple: that at most points in our lives we simply cannot see beyond the corners ahead of us. The only way that we can arrive at these points is to live within the moment present to us, to wait, and to take care of the decisions that we have today (or as a teacher of mine nuanced: “do what is required of you today, but if booking next month’s flights is a job for today, then do that as well”).
For it is starting to seem to me that by slowly tackling the interim decision that it takes to arrive at the larger questions, our final choices are, in a weird way, sort of made for us. A depiction that somehow helps me is go-karting. You can visit the track, watch the people who drive before you, and try to imagine what it will feel like to make that first turn around the corner, but you will never really know what exactly is asked of you, how the kart will drive, or how you will respond to all of the stresses around you until you reach the corner yourself. But just about any way you take that turn, whether it be sharply, roundly, or distressedly, you most likely will still have found your way to the next curve.
There is a scene from a movie I saw sophomore year, titled ‘Mr. Nobody‘ (spoiler warning for those who wish to see the whole film) that I seem to keep rediscovering whenever I struggle with this feeling. If anyone still feels the way I have described, perhaps watching this movie can help a little bit.
This is all very cliché I know, but it definitely has an application in my life at the moment as I am trying to address these life decisions in their proper time. Over the next few weeks, I will still ponder these life-long questions deep in my heart, but this time I hope to cherish them there while focusing on the work of the present day and allow God to unfold them in His mysterious way and time.
Thanks for the advice mom,
-Shane
“My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.” –Merton
“Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene,–one step enough for me.” –Newman
From Chess, to Mr. Nobody, to God’s Salvation: Zugzwang
