Endure well

There is a world of difference between enduring, and enduring well.

Merely enduring is commonplace. Enduring well is the stuff of greatness.

Life throws trials at all of us. We are all required to pass through difficulty, to endure pain and sorrow, to tackle fear, to suffer heartache. Life is not easy. I’m convinced that it is hard for everyone – each in his or her own way. Even those you think “have it easy” are in fact struggling with life – probably in ways you haven’t yet encountered. Heartache, temptation, injustice, illness, pain, fear, loneliness, longing – they are the common stuff of life. Life wouldn’t be life without them.

As a result, merely enduring trials isn’t remarkable, simply by virtue of the fact that we cannot avoid them. Like it or not me have no choice but to “suffer through them” so to speak. Enduring is industry standard.

So when we’re confronted with what life throws at us, let’s dump the “endurance” mentality for something better. Enduring trials can teach us valuable lessons and bring personal refinement. But enduring well is altogether different.

One of the prime differences hinges on our agency – how we use it. Enduring implies hunkering down, passively weathering the storm. Basically, we let life do its worst, suffering the pain because there’s nothing we can do about it. Those who merely endure are acted upon by the vicissitudes of life. Enduring well means actively responding. It means, as Joseph Smith explained, (in D&C section 123 verse 17) to “cheerfully do all things that lie in our power.” Our agency in life is always curtailed. Our influence is limited; our power pitifully finite; our options constrained. But our agency is never zero. Sometimes, it takes creativity and courage to discover what we can do, even if it’s not much. But shifting from a paradigm of helpless victimhood and passive suffering to one of active response to life’s heartache, unfairness, and misery is a fundamental key to enduring well, and possesses the power to change the way we live our lives.

Another is faith and trust in God. Because merely enduring is passive, it reveals nothing about who we are or what we believe. Enduring well implies a depth of hope, and trust in goodness. We do not know what lies ahead of us, or why we are struggling with the things we are struggling with (or even if there is a reason). But we can take comfort in knowing that God knows us, loves us, and knows our situation too. We are not suffering alone pain that no one can understand. It may not change our circumstances, or the suffering we feel, but it is empowering and encouraging to know that the height and breadth and depth of our mortal experience here on Earth is known and understood by someone.

If you trust God that this life is for our benefit, happiness, and, ultimately, our glory, then we can trust that “everything will work together for the good of those” who endure well. As God told Joseph (while he was in jail unjustly): “hold on thy way, and [I] shall remain with thee… Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not, for God shall be with you forever and ever.”

Patience is another key. And by patience, I don’t merely mean “waiting.” True patience means enduring delay without becoming angry. The man tapping his foot in line, muttering to all who would rather not hear about how busy and important he is, is most definitely not being patient. Patience means suppressing fear. It means resisting the temptation to react to life’s injustice bitterly, or resorting to vengeful feelings. It means not allowing life to tell you who you are, or turn you into someone you don’t want to be.

Lastly – and I warn you, this one is the hardest – enduring well means not letting it affect you. That’s right. The more we allow our trials to drag us down, the more we are merely enduring them. The more we press on, continuing to do good, to be who we are and want to be – then we are enduring well. Ultimately, the secret to enduring well is to remain cheerfully engaged with life. The best way to do this is to focus our thoughts, feelings, and attention outward towards others. The happiness we experience in this life is proportional to the number of people we reach out to, help, and connect with. The glory of our lives will be the quality of that impact, the depth of that connection.

Why should we endure well? It sounds like a lot of work. It sounds like denying ourselves of all our favorite reactions to adversity: self-pity, anger, revenge, bitterness, pouting. All of those help numb the pain, and we feel so justified in reacting that way. And maybe we are.

But if what you want is to be someone; if what you want is to beat life at its own game, then enduring well is what it’s all about. And the cool thing is this: when we endure well, we are immediately strengthened; the powers of right and goodness rush immediately and at one to our side. “In the soul of man there is a justice whose retributions are instant and entire. He who does a good deed is instantly ennobled. … If a man is at heart just, then… the majesty of God enters into that man with justice. … speak the truth, and all nature and all spirits help you with unexpected furtherance.”

At its heart, to endure well is to carry on, living who you are and want to be to the fullest – in the face of fear, in the face of uncertainty, in the teeth of pain and anguish and heartache. If you can revel in the glorious sunset after a stormy, rainy day, and know that the storm has not moved you – but rather, that through your noble endurance, something inside you has moved, has become firmer, has dropped into place – and you know now, better than ever before, who you are – then you will know what it means to endure well.  

Respect and power

As humans, we tend to respect others in proportion to the power they wield. The more powerful the person, the greater the respect we will feel for them and show them.

We respect people who are powerful for a variety of reasons. Most of them are selfish. Some are a result of failing to see through the veil of mortality that blinds us to the things that really matter.

Mostly, we respect the powerful for selfish reasons. Those in power can use that power to either hurt or help us. Whether they do the former or the latter is ultimately up to their personal discretion. So by showing respect to the powerful, we are hoping to increase the likelihood that they will use their power and influence to our benefit and not the opposite.

This is really the core principle at work in what people on the East Coast call “networking.” It's really nothing more than showing deference and respect to those who, by their positions of influence and power, may be able to help you in the future. On the flip side, we hesitate to offend (and rush to please) those whose wrath we want to avoid – a boss at work, for instance; or a government official prior to an inspection or some sort of regulatory approval.

Of course, this phenomenon works both ways. Those who hold no power over us, or who possess no influence that could possibly help or hurt us, we treat with disrespect. But disrespect is harder to define than its opposite, for it takes on many different forms and comes in many different colors. For instance, outright contempt is certainly a form of disrespect, and one might show haughty contempt for the beggar, or the illiterate peasant woman. But more commonly – for less arrogant people, anyway – disrespect is shown in different ways: as condescension; indulgence of “silly behavior”; mere tolerance; or a patronizing attitude.

I saw a man – a well-dressed, young professional – walk into a supermarket today and nearly run into a couple young women – clearly students – on their way out. He pulled up just in time and waited briefly for them to pass. His facial expression clearly read, “Why are these silly girls in my way? They nearly ran right into me.” He clearly felt they were a nuisance to be tolerated at best. “Ah well,” he face seemed to say, as he continued on into the store, “they're just women, after all. More important (read “powerful”) people like myself will just have to be patient with them.”

I contrasted that reaction to what it would have been if he had nearly bumped into a Senator or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He would certainly have excused himself, apologizing for nearly causing an accident, and showed great deference.

But there is at least one other factor at play here as well. The tendency to respect the powerful is due to more than human selfishness. It stems also from an inability to see through the veil of mortality and perceive the things that matter most. Most of us have our priorities all out of order and assign value to all the wrong things. Greatness, for instance, we define in terms of power and influence. As a result, we tend to respect and admire the powerful, while we disdain and condescend to the weak.

Yet Jesus clearly taught that the greatest is the least – the most humble, the most kind, the one who serves and gives. Our respect for others ought to stem, first and foremost, from a recognition of their divinity and infinite potential. Of this same Jesus, who turned the world's understanding of greatness and worth on its head, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Alone in history he estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to what is in you and me.” As such, our respect for our fellow human beings ought to be universal.

Beyond that, we ought to respect others for their virtues: for moral courage, integrity, compassion, kindness, patience, service, sacrifice, and selflessness. Last of all should be their power and influence – for who knows by what means they obtained it?

This tendency to disdain the weak because we value power is at the core of sexism. It is responsible for why, throughout history, and even to the present day, women have never enjoyed the level of respect they deserve from men. It is also part of why the feminist movement has focused so relentlessly on helping women break into positions of social, economic, and political power. It is also why I remain critical of the feminist movement for exactly this emphasis: making women more powerful won't change the underlying flaw – that only the powerful are respected. It means that individual women will have to choose to pursue power if they want respect. And society will continue to punish those who have their priorities in the right place – in effect, those whose love of goodness exceeds their love of power (or their desire for respect by acquiring power).

Now, I realize I'm being idealistic here. Changing one of the fundamental tendencies of humanity is no mean feat. And I don't blame feminists for trying to gain respect through the easiest channels (i.e. by “playing by the rules of the game”). But still, women ought to be respected whether they wield power or not. A woman without much political power or influence is equally worthy of a man's respect (or that of her fellow women) as any other.

This matters. Because a world where corruption is reigned in, where abuse of power is curtailed, and where people are valued for the things that really matter – their infinite, divine worth and the virtues they cultivate – is within our grasp. But we have to learn to resist the natural human reaction to respect power. And in its place, learn to respect goodness.

Wanting without needing

Your wants correspond to your hopes; your needs are related to your fears.

You know how I said in my recent post on agency that the subject would come up over and over again? Well, here's something I've worked through recently that, no surprise, comes down to the difference between action and reaction. And, also no surprise, it has to do with hope and with fear.

The relationship between wants and needs is one that has intrigued me for a long time, but it wasn't until today that I feel like I have a hook down deep in the fish, so to speak. Now, I realize that there are lots of ways one could potentially define what wants are, and just as many ways to define needs. The difference you will find here has more to do with feel and less with substance, but it was profound when I came across it, so I'm sharing it here in hopes it helps someone else as well.

I've often wondered what it means to be a “needy” person, what constitutes needs vs wants. Don't we all, fundamentally, crave the same things as human beings? We all need to be loved, to love, to build meaningful relationships and connect with others. Sure, every person is unique, but don't we all operate basically the same way, and aren't we all basically searching for the same things?

So what does it mean to call someone “needy”? It seems to imply that the rest of us don't have needs. What's the difference between needing something, and wanting it? Since this article excludes material needs (such as food, water, clothing, etc) to focus on those of a more emotional and spiritual nature, perhaps the question is more precisely framed this way: how can you have emotional and spiritual needs without being needy? Or rather, how can you want without needing?

I know there's a huge difference between wanting and needing, because I've experienced it in my own life. But like I said before, it can be easy to confuse because the difference is more one of feel than of substance. The object of desire, after all, is exactly the same. It's the way we desire it – and above all, the feelings that motivate us to pursue it – that differ. But built into that apparently miniscule difference is a life-changing paradigm shift.

Wanting something is the conscious recognition of a desire; to want is to decide to pursue an objective, whether short-term, long-term, or somewhere in between. Wanting something makes a positive statement about value.

Needing something also indicates desire, but the feeling is fundamentally different. Instead of a positive statement of what we hope will happen, need makes a negative statement of what we fear will not happen. Need is self-centered: the focus is on how the object of desire will help me. Want can be very selfish at times, but it is externally focused, on the object of desire itself.

Here is the fundamental distinction: when we feel and act needy, we are reacting to our fear that our needs will not be met; when we want instead of need, we are hopeful that what we want will be realized, but we are calm inside when contemplating a future where they are not. We don't fear the unfulfillment of our wants; we fear the unfulfillment of our needs. When we act on feelings of need, we allow our fears to dominate our decisions. When we act on our wants, we allow our hopes to direct our choices. Wanting is an outward expression of the hopes that live in our hearts. Needing is an externalization of our fears.

The connection with agency (and much of the reason why this distinction is crucial) is clear: wanting is an action; needing a reaction. Needing is a reaction to fear; wanting is a conscious choice to pursue the realization of our desires. Which now allows us to answer my initial question: What do we mean when we say someone is needy? A needy person is someone who allows himself to be acted upon by his fears. The opposite is someone who consciously acts to realize his hopes.

So why does this really matter? Does it matter? To move from needing to wanting is an internal paradigm shift, a transformation that takes place in the mind and the heart. But does it have a meaningful effect on the individual? On those around him or her?

I think the difference is enormous. There is incredible strength in knowing that you don't need anything in this sense of the word. When we allow feelings of need into our hearts, and those needs aren't met, we immediately begin to self-criticize. For instance, someone craving social acceptance but who doesn't find it will definitely wonder if there isn't something wrong with him. Someone who wants social acceptance (who doesn't?) but who knows that he doesn't need it will have a much easier time accepting himself. This self-acceptance will generate confidence – a very important tool for winning social acceptance. If being accepted is a long-term objective of this person, he will be in a better position to objectively and calmly assess what he can do to make it happen, then go about implementing his plan confidently.

It is important to emphasize that the confidence comes from a willingness to accept with serenity the unfulfillment of hopes. By my definition, on the other hand, no one can accept with serenity the unfulfillment of needs. If you can say, “I really want a group of friends where I feel accepted and included, but I'm still ok without it,” then you have moved from needing to wanting.

In addition to helping you love and accept yourself, transitioning from needing to wanting shifts the focus of attention away from yourself and towards others. Freed from the grip of self worth-threatening fears that occupy your thoughts and sap your energy, you can instead direct your thoughts, attention, and energy onto others.

This isn't necessarily a selfless gesture – after all, it will probably help you get what you want. Paying more attention to others – their feelings, their wants, their needs – doesn't necessarily make you less selfish; but it does make you less self-centered. A needy person is almost always self-absorbed, self-centered, and inwardly focused. Which, tragically, is the biggest reason why their needs often go unmet – which in turn only increases the fear they feel, further occupying their thoughts.

This is a big part of the reason why focusing on others can often be the best solution to depression. Not only does serving others provide a natural source of joy, but focusing on discerning the needs, feelings, and wants of others goes a long way to helping you understand how to meet your own wants. People don't want to be around needy people because they feel the burden of meeting those needs. They feel the desperation, and it can be onerous to feel responsible for saving someone from that fear. People do, however, want to be around people who understand and help them fulfill their own wants and needs. So people who learn to control their fear and turn needs into wants are naturally more popular, more likely to draw people to them.

If nothing else, this principle is important because it reveals yet another instance of a human tendency towards allowing ourselves to be acted upon, rather than acting for ourselves. And learning to maximize our agency is a big part of what life is all about.

Things to act

Things to act, and things to be acted upon

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a long time. I've hesitated because it discusses such a huge, deep subject that I haven't known where to begin. And, like Haruki Murakami says, when you put something profound into ordinary words, it loses its magic and seems silly and hollow. Anyway, here's a stab at it, so wish me luck.

What I've been meaning to talk about revolves around agency, and how we use it. Agency, from my perspective, is defined as the freedom and capacity to choose, to make choices. It may sound simple, and we almost always take it for granted. But it happens to be, in my book, the second most fundamental principle of the universe – the first being love itself.

So what is it about agency I want to discuss? Well, it's how we use it – or rather don't use it – that matters. The basic idea is this: agency is about making choices, but too often we don't. Rather than deliberately choosing how we want to live our lives, we simply react to forces around us. The reason this is a problem is that using agency is the key to just about everything good in life. Or, at the very least, it is an important ingredient in just about everything in life that has real value.

Everything in the universe can be roughly placed in one of two groups: those possessing agency and those without it. And among those possessing agency, every creature can be placed on a scale ranging from least to greatest degree of freedom. There are, in other words, “things to act,” and “things to be acted upon,” in the words of an ancient American prophet.

Human beings clearly fall into the category of those with agency: we have the capacity and freedom to make our own choices, limited though we may be by a host of structural forces, from the laws of physics to authoritarian regimes. All too often, however, we behave not as “things to act,” but more like “things to be acted upon.” What I mean is that we all too often let ourselves be acted upon by outside forces, and our lives become controlled and defined by them. We spend our lives reacting, rather than acting.

I know this is personally true in my own life. Constantly fearful of letting people down, or failing to come through on things I have promised others I would do, I spend a good deal of my time reacting to the demands of others. In school, for instance, I did homework and studied for tests primarily because I felt that signing up for a class was a commitment on my part to do everything the professor asked. I therefore felt I was reacting to my professors' demands and expectations, rather than acting for my own benefit. Instead, I should have studied because I chose to, because I wanted to learn. That would have been a much more satisfying way to approach my studies.

There are lots of problems with reacting instead of acting. The first that comes to my mind is that reactions are based almost always on fear, rather than hope. So if reaction is our primary mode of living, we are allowing fear to rule our lives and make our decisions for us. None of us wants that to be the case, but it happens all too easily – by default, in fact.

The second, and perhaps most important, is that the active use of agency is essential to personal growth, happiness, and progress. We cannot overcome our weaknesses and start becoming who we want to be without actively using our agency. We have to choose what we want for ourselves, then go out and make it happen. Reaction, on the other hand, means passively waiting around for external forces to buffet us from one forced decision to another.

An astute reader might ask, “but isn't the decision to study for tests the same, whether or not you did it in reaction to the demands of another or because you chose to do so for yourself? Aren't you studying in either case?” Very true. And I did well in school, despite a less than maximal use of agency. There is an important difference, however, even though it is often hard to distinguish from the outside.

From my perspective, there are two kinds of actions: deliberate and undeliberate. The first I call “choices” and the second “reactions.” The difference lies in the heart of the agent (the one possessing agency and engaging in action). A choice reflects inner desire, intention, hope. A reaction reflects little, other than a decision (probably made unconsciously) not to use agency; and, of course, fear.

In my opinion this internal difference, the decision to use or neglect agency, is a crucial turning-point on which our mortal lives hinge. Those of us who decide to actively use our agency to realize our desires (for ourselves, others, and the world) will unlock an immense source of power and will go much further towards realizing our potential than those who do not. Worst of all, if we default on our use of agency, we may go through this life without even discovering what it is we want, or who we are. That, in my mind, would truly be a tragedy.

Our immense endowment of agency is what sets us humans apart from everything else in the universe. The key to using it is to be deliberate. To live deliberately. Don't live life from day to day, reacting to needs, demands, and fears. If you do something, choose to do it. And know the reason why you are doing it. If you honestly can't find a reason, or don't agree that it is valid, have the courage not to do it. Instead, choose to do something more worth while.

Key questions I ask myself are

• Why am I doing this? Is it something I really want to be doing?
• Am I doing this because someone else wants me to? Or because I choose to?
• How deliberately am I living my life?

Don't misunderstand: living deliberately doesn't mean living selfishly. On the contrary, doing things for other people is one of the greatest sources of happiness you can find. The difference lies in the reason behind your action: are you doing it because you fear to offend someone by saying no? Or because you want to serve them because you love them? One is a reaction, the other a choice. The guiding principle is that conscious choices are likely to lead us to happiness, whereas reactions will likely not.

This dichotomy of action and reaction, of acting or being acted upon, will start cropping up everywhere you look, once you wrap your mind around it. Above all, as you start to notice it in your own life, you will be presented with the opportunity to reclaim your agency – a God-given birthright that only you can take away from you.

This principle will also start cropping up in my posts. I've wanted to mention it many times before now, but held off until I wrote this article.

I'll end with the words of the same ancient American prophet who first drew my attention to the concept. Before he died, he said to his sons, “Awake... arise from the dust and be men.” Shifting from reaction to a deliberate, action-centered life is a lot like waking up – waking up to the reality of our potential. May the inspired, wise words of this prophet be a wake-up call for all of us.

An honest seeker of truth

Be an honest seeker of truth.

Seeking truth in today's world is no easy task. It seems people claim either to know everything or to know nothing; that truth is absolute and they've got it all; or else it is entirely relative, and dependent on perspective.

As a general rule, I'm not a fan of extremes. I reject that any human is in possession of perfect knowledge. Anyone who is absolutely certain they are right is almost certainly wrong. I also disbelieve those who say that it is impossible to know what's right or what's wrong – or worse yet, those who claim that right and wrong are purely a matter of perspective and personal choice.

As uncomfortable as it may sound, it is simultaneously possible to know the truth, and impossible to know all of it. It is impossible to know everything, but we can and must know something. Indeed, it is imperative that we seek to know the truth – but always in the humility. We must be honest seekers of truth, who recognize that we know very little for certain, and what we do know is incomplete.

An honest seeker of truth approaches every situation with two realizations in mind:

1. No one is completely right
2. No one is completely wrong

There are a number of very important implications that come from this. First, no one has a monopoly on truth. No one “has it all.” And, by further implication, everyone has something more to learn. Second, because no one is completely and utterly wrong, there is truth to be found everywhere. Being able to see it is not always easy, though. It often requires wisdom, humility, and a calm mind and heart capable of seeing things clearly and dispassionately.

But really, I mean it: truth can be found everywhere. And honest seekers of truth will never rule someone out simply because they don't see eye to eye.

I love the analogy of the blind men and the elephant. According to the parable, one blind man takes hold of the creature's tail and claims that what he has found is a rope. Another grasps its trunk and insists that he has encountered a snake. A third feels the elephant's leg and is certain he is holding a tree trunk, and so on. Each makes a truth claim based on his experience, and each is wrong. None of them recognize they are really dealing with an elephant.

How did they all end up getting it wrong? Each, because he is blind, has a limited encounter with the elephant. This is inevitable – the elephant is simply too large. The blind men are therefore not to be faulted for their limited experience. They are to be faulted for making incorrect extrapolations based on that limited experience. None of them, it seems, bothered to pause and consider that maybe there was more to this than his experience would suggest. Maybe his evidence and experience were incomplete, and if only he knew the whole story his truth claims might need revising.

That none of them made this realization is truly shocking, if you ask me. I mean, let's be honest here: anyone who honestly thinks the evidence supporting his position is completely bulletproof is a fool. Anyone who thinks their experience is comprehensive is an idiot. And anyone who thinks they know everything is probably beyond all help.

The reason each blind man was so convinced of his incorrect assertions is, I think, because each came to a conclusion based on personal experience, the kind that is truly unimpeachable. We think that, because we have experienced something personally, we really know, while others do not. And it's true, experience is probably the most powerful source of learning. But because the things we learn by personal experience are emotionally charged, we risk being blinded by our own experiences. We are always at risk, like the blind men, of making the dangerous assumption that we know more than we really do. We tend to make claims that are broader than our limited experience gives us license to.

When seeking truth, I always keep this parable in mind. I try and frequently remind myself that the situation is bigger than I realize; that there are legitimate positions and perspectives that I haven't considered; that there are facts that I don't know; and that, the more I learn, the more my truth claims are going to need revising. If I were one of those blind men, I wouldn't have known any better than the others what it was we were exploring. But I would at least have been much less surprised to find out it was an elephant, and would have been more cautious in making claims about the truth.

An honest truth seeker approaches everything with a healthy degree of skepticism, but at the same time is excited to learn from everything. With this moderate, pragmatic approach, we can continue to grow in understanding and benefit from a continually expanding circle of truth. At the same time, we won't be easily duped; and when wrong, we won't stubbornly hold onto our errors because, to be honest, discovering that we were wrong won't be surprising.

Absolute truth does exist. And it is knowable. But discovering it isn't as obvious – or as impossible – as some make it out to be. The world could certainly benefit from a few more honest seekers of truth.

What we choose to love

What we choose to love determines who we are and who we are becoming.

The principle of agency – that you are free to make your own choices – is perhaps the most fundamental in the human universe. When it comes to spirituality, interpersonal relationships, happiness, nearly everything – agency keeps cropping up as a key element to understanding the way we humans  and our world work.

Nowhere, perhaps, is this more evident than in one crucial decision: choosing what to love.

When I say “love” I don’t just mean in romance. I mean it generally – the way Jesus meant it when he cautioned us about what we treasure: “for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

This crucial choice – what to love – is all the more important because it’s one of the most subconscious things we do.  Few of us can remember the moment when we decided to love the things we do. Our likes and dislikes are almost so natural to us that they don’t seem like choices at all.

But they are. And really, to be fair, I’m talking about more than just simple preferences. I may like chocolate ice cream more than other flavors, for instance. That’s a mere preference. Loving something implies something more. It requires making a real space in your heart, in your mind, in your life. Something you love is something you are willing to make sacrifices to accommodate.

To love is to give a part of yourself, of your heart, to something or someone else. It means to care. Most people would probably say the opposite of love is hate. It isn’t. Love and hate are actually opposition pairs (for more on the subject, see my earlier post on hope and fear). The opposite of love is not hate, but apathy: the state of being where you  couldn’t honestly care less. Whether something or someone prospers, does well, lives or dies, makes no difference to you. When you love you are choosing to care. You are engaging your heart in behalf of, because of, in the service of, something or someone else.

The choice to love is thus a supreme gift. In fact, it is the thing of greatest value that we flawed, weak humans have to give precisely because it is completely ours to give. No one can force us to care. The decision to engage one’s heart is truly made independently. And, as such, it speaks volumes about who we really are.

In this moment of agency each one of us, free and independent, chooses what to set our hearts on. This choice is profoundly consequential. It determines who we are and who we are becoming.

This is crucially important because there is so much in this world to love. Much of it is not at all worthy of the sacred space we give it in our hearts. Some of the rest is so worthy it would transform our lives if we would only give it room to grow.

By now I have hopefully convinced you that what we love is truly a choice – if at times a subconscious one. But have I convinced you that what you choose to love determines who you are and who you are becoming? Where do I come off making that potent claim?

Quite simply, by thinking about God and what he loves, and who he is. Job said it perfectly: “who is man that you should set your heart upon him?” As incredible and unexplainable as it may seem, God has decided to set his heart on us. What objective reason is there to explain why he chose, of all things, to love you and me? None. It was simply a choice he made long, long ago, and which he will never back down from.

Indeed, it was God’s decision to love you and me that made him who he is. It was the defining moment of his identity as our God. He is, quite simply, the one who cares. His love for us has permeated his being to the extent that it defines him.

In an analogous – but much less perfect – way, what we choose to love and make space for in our hearts permeates our lives and defines who we are. And it is entirely fitting and proper that it should be so. For we are the masters of our own hearts. The halls of our hearts are inviolate. Not even God will enter that sacred space uninvited. And it is there, from within that sanctuary, that our fate is decided, that our destiny is forged.

Apart from his unexplainable choice to love us (probably the first axiom of the universe), the greatest gift of God is our freedom (probably the second). And with it, we are capable, through this principle, of becoming whoever and whatever we want to be. The sky is truly the limit, for on the one hand we can choose to love only ourselves, becoming small, lonely and miserable; while on the other hand there is the ultimate example of Jesus Christ, the one who chose to care about every one else – about you and me – and who became, over the course of his life, our God – like his Father. If we want to be like him, the path is simple: we have to choose to care about others.

While mulling this over, I imagined a conversation between a disciple of Christ, at the end of his life, and the Savior. The disciple says, “the decision I made to love you and to care about the things you care about changed my life. My decision to care about you and your work changed me and made me who I am today.” And Jesus replies, “yes, indeed – and my decision to love you made me who I am: your Savior, the one who chose to care.”

The aching void we struggle to fill

There’s a pernicious link between loneliness and weakness, between emptiness and vice.

I like to explain it through one of the hallmarks of classical physics: the noble gas law. This law declares that pressure is a function of the amount of stuff, the space it’s crammed into, and the temperature of the stuff.

An easy way to think of it is to visualize a house party. If there’s a ton of people in one part of the house and other rooms in the house are empty, people are bound to move from the hot, packed place into the cooler, vacant rooms. But if the other rooms in the house were equally crowded and hot, then people wouldn’t be rushing into them, would they? There would likely be, on average, as many people moving out of them as into them.

It’s the same with gases, and in fact physicists first discovered the law that stuff flows from high density to low studying them. But the principle also applies, more abstractly, to the human mind.

When the mind, the heart, the soul, is empty, the “pressure” within is really low, right? When that’s the case, there’s no telling what kind of stuff will come rushing in: thoughts, ideas, feelings, wishes, hopes, fears. Some you may want, most you probably don’t. Nature abhors a vacuum. When a space is empty, there is enormous pressure from without to fill it.

Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to shore up the walls of my mind against a high-pressure outer world whose contents are constantly trying to rush in and fill up the lonely space.

The hardest part, though, is that no one likes to feel empty. Not only are the thoughts, feelings, ideas, and fears that come rushing in often pernicious and harmful, but the emptiness itself is awful. We have all known that feeling to some degree or another: loneliness. It’s a hollow ache, a crater at the center of your being. It’s cold, black silence is deafening. None of us can stand it for long. We crave, we yearn, we ache for that void to be filled. In many ways, I think this is the fundamental human urge. Facing that emptiness is agonizing.

This is the theme of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. The creature Frankenstein creates was not always evil, but isolation and loneliness turned him slowly into a monster.

Because we can’t long endure the emptiness, before long we readily welcome anything that will fill it. It’s simple physics – holding off the outside cacophony of influences, noises, thoughts, ideas, and emotions, all to preserve an aching loneliness, is fighting a losing battle.

So much of what we fill our lives with is just that – filler. It isn’t what we really want to be there – it’s just what happened to rush in when we finally gave up trying to hold the fort. This is really a tactic of distraction, of numbing, designed to keep the mind occupied so as not to remember that what we’ve filled our hearts with is not what we’re truly yearning for.

What we’re truly yearning for is connection, belonging. We want to know where, with whom, we belong. And we want to connect with those people deeply, to know they love us without a shadow of a doubt. And to have the privilege of loving them back.

Unfortunately, true connection is one of the hardest things in the world to cultivate. So, impatient, lonely, and in pain, we substitute true connection with temporary pleasures. We tell ourselves that we’re fine and all but give up hope of finding the real thing. And in the mean time, the once temporary pleasures take root and refuse to leave. And if we do manage to banish them, the empty hollowness they leave in their wake creates a terrible loneliness. So we’re back where we started, struggling for connection; and before long the temporary pleasures have returned fill the hole.

This process – the filling of our empty souls with counterfeits – has been known to humanity since the dawn of time. Greek mythology tells of a man with a hunger that could not be satisfied. He ate everything he could find and yet hungered. In the end, consumed by his emptiness, he devoured the only thing left: himself.

An ancient prophet once taught, “do not spend your money for that which is of no worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy.” Similarly, Jesus said to the woman at the well, “whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.”

Similar truths are taught in Buddhism. Buddhists believe that everything in the physical world – everything you can touch, taste, smell, hear, or see – is in fact hollow. It isn’t real, and the fact that our physical senses can interact with the hollow world is little more than an illusion of the mind. In fact, the only things in the world that are real cannot be seen. Peace, joy, love, connection – these things are real, solid; they can fill the soul, satisfy the aching loneliness.

I’m reminded of  what the fox teaches the little prince in Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s fabulous little book: “anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”

Battling loneliness, striving for connection, is one of the most desperate, important battles many of us will ever fight in this life. We need to learn to hold the chaotic world at bay long enough to find, to invite in, to cultivate, what we truly long for. And we need to summon the courage to tell ourselves (and perhaps some of our friends and loved ones, too) that filling a void with hollow things leaves you just as empty as before. Only now you’ve got thistles, weeds, and maybe even baobabs, growing in your heart.