What Do We Have

vs What We've Lost

Somehow, we all get to the point where we shift our perception of what is important, from what we have lost to what we have.

Whether it is a relationship or a job, general fulfillment or health or material things, across the spectrum of life, we are gaining and losing something all the time.

Disruption of that coming-and-going of daily living, by something more intrusive or dramatic, thrusts us into assessment of that gain or loss, particularly at the beginning and especially regarding what we’ve lost. But, in time, those that find a healthy way forward seem to invariably turn towards what they still do have — the focus shifts off of what isn’t, to what is.

I can be having a crappy day or even a crappy week (ok, year), but invariably I can also get put, either by my choosing or by some other force of circumstance, into a context where I notice something else — something that also exists...and not particularly touched by my crappy day.

We tend to think of these things in big categories or as big ticket items, but I suspect we are negotiating this dynamic all the time, in even the smallest ways. I may begrudge the fact that I can’t have ice cream whenever I want (and, therefore, at this very minute!). Perhaps I have diabetes and can’t eat sugar indiscriminately anymore, but that doesn’t mean there is no food available that can still be enjoyed. And I suspect, not being a diabetic, that that is one of the biggest challenges — that shift from from focusing on what I can’t have…to what I do still have. 

In my case, I can no longer run because of my knees, but I can still walk. I am jealous of that runner who just gallops along right beside me on the road (that was me), but I have learned that there is just something about a long walk, too…which I can still do. I can’t climb to a summit of most mountains anymore (maybe I never could), but I can still enjoy the perspective that those who can offer.

There is some risk here, in this observation.  For one, loss is loss; and that loss can be both real and significant (sometimes, even more than we know we can bear).  We should not by-pass loss by simply overlooking it, in favor of something else — something some faith-communities are often guilty of.  I’m also well aware that such shifts are easier said than done. And, often, it happens to us more than it is a result of our own agency.

But, at the end of the day, our distinguishing of the haves and the have-nots leads us to realize we all are mostly in the haves camp. Sure, there are things that others do that we cannot, but nearly everybody still has plenty. And, believe it or not, there are things that we do that others cannot. The problem is what inhibits our perception of such things (which could be anything from being traumatized, to a complete lack of self-awareness through self-absorption, etc.). The battle seems to be over this basic understanding and the irony is that it is often the taking away of something that engages us with it. Otherwise, we are all too aware how we just tend to drift along in our expectation that everything we have, we should have and we will always have. Nope. Our awareness of how untrue both of those things are is what needs to grow and be challenged.

And, it often is.

It feels like I am currently in another phase of this kind of ‘growth’ of my awareness. As I mentioned last week, my mental health is challenging me and in some uncomfortable ways. I am facing a lot of change, dealing with new kinds of grief, and am increasingly uncertain about the shape of my future, vocationally and otherwise.

Growth in our awareness enables us to engage with those challenges that come both in the form of nuisances, on one hand, and something overwhelming (or even life-threatening) on the other.

Either way, I am being moved towards the engagement these things require. And that engagement is being leveraged by my fear of losing some of the comforts of how my existence is currently organized, as well as by the recalibration that comes from considering what all I still have. I have to accept the reality that life is all about losing and gaining because that is really what growth looks like, even if that sometimes feels like death.

Truth be told, what we are gaining (imperceivable, at times, as that may be) outweighs what we are losing. Not to mention, what we have is always being re-discovered, sometimes simply because of what we have lost.