Can anyone name that quote? Even more impressive if you can name it without googling it.
I’ve been thinking about this idea a lot lately. Contemplating its implications on my life and projecting it to other people’s lives. I know I’ve had this discussion with some of you before. For the better part of our lives we have been fed ideas such as “you can do anything that you put your mind to”, or that “you just got to believe in yourself”. I hear it time and time again. As I’m watching the Olympics I continually hear stories that go “I just believed in myself”, “I had this dream and I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me I couldn’t do it”, yada yada yada…. I’m really interested to see where this thinking leads our generation. Maybe there have been more optimistic / hopeful generations before ours, but I don’t think any of them have really had the opportunities that we have. Especially when you consider the internet and the ease of global communication / travel, in a day when it is easy to believe that anything is possible, what about the impossible? Do we ever consider that? This year, for the first time in my life, I have realized that I won’t be able to do everything that I want to do before I die. Yes, I realize that probably means I have spent 22 years living this incredibly arrogant dream that I’d be able to do everything that I wanted to. I’m just wondering if this is something universal, or if it is something that is specific to the society I was raised in (affluent America). That is, this thought that life should be good, or at least, “the thought that life could be better”. Or is the more representative quote, “You gotta fight for every breath and tell death to go to hell.” It seems like so many of the previous generations (or even so much of our current world) has lived in a society in which there is a set duty, or maybe not even a duty but an economic / social standing that allows for only one life path and they legitimately had to “fight for every breath and tell death to go to hell”. I see the apostle Paul wrestling with this idea in his famous proclamation that “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Solomon said, “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord….The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” And then he also said, “For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” I’m coming to the grips that opening one door, inevitably means that you are closing the other hundreds of other doors that were standing there, but I guess “in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.”
I’m just realizing the faith that is required to live life, and I’m glad that my faith is in Jesus Christ and not in myself.
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i actually really like that quote by Ernesto Guevara. But I agree with all of your sentiments. I, too, at a similar time in my life am thinking about these things and coming to similar conclusions. Even when you're not thinking about the sheer quantity of things you want to do but even the quality of things you want to do - it's necessary to think this way. I mean I felt like I was always destined to marry the one woman in the world that was perfect for me, have a job that offered me complete fulfillment all the time. Now I'm realizing that I'm not destined or guaranteed (or probably even meant to) have any of these things. That is a really hard realization to come by. Life isn't about this infinite space of possibility anymore. Instead it's rooted in the fact that there are tough choices to make and the results won't always be what you want.
ReplyDeleteThis is a beautiful post, Hunter. I think about this pretty often now that my life is heading in a certain trajectory.
ReplyDeleteI think it's really interesting how this truth of doors closing as others open can sometimes cause great sadness and disappointment and yet other times, great joy and excitement.
At the end of the day, we're called to walk by faith, just like you said. And may we be faithful to the One who is THE Way and has a much better plan for us than we could ever draw up.