I’m hearing a common theme in things I’m reading and listening to from thoughtful people trying to make sense of life today.
They point out the pervasive and relentless, even cruel, imperatives we now live with, live under: “Do More,” “Be More,” “Self-Optimize,” “Get Control/ Be in Control of Your Life,” “Accomplish More in Less Time.”
Underneath this is the old trap the Protestant Reformers called “works righteousness.” If you work hard enough, if you have enough to show for yourself, then you will be enough. Then you will be okay. You will be accepted by God (maybe even by your parents!).
So, while some of this isn’t exactly new (when I was a kid we were told, “make something of yourself”) it seems to have been ratcheted up a whole lot — an insane amount really — in recent decades.
“Acceleration” is the word the contemporary German thinker, Hartmut Rosa, uses to describe the nature of our times, of modernity. Everything is constantly accelerating, moving faster. That feels pretty accurate, don’t you think? Go faster, work harder, do more, accomplish more in less time. It’s really crazy.
We get the feeling, and have the constant niggling apprehension, says Rosa, that if we aren’t going faster then we are falling behind. We have to go faster just to stay even.
Each new technology promises to make life easier, more manageable, to extend your control. In reality what the new tech does, so far as I can tell, is create the expectation that you accomplish more, but in the same amount of time as you had before.
It’s still early days of the New Year, 2025. New Year’s ups the ante on all this. The traditional practice of “resolutions,” is now giving way to a tech-world inspired alternate, “re-set.” It’s a New Year and time for a “re-set.”
Okay, that can be good. It’s always of value to periodically assess where you are, where you are going, where you want to go, where you are called to go. But when you combine the New Year with modernity’s acceleration, and throw in the ethic of “Do More and Be More,” and “You really should (by now) be in control of your life and the future,” well, the results aren’t always good. Think our “mental health crisis,” think our “loneliness epidemic,” think addiction and burnout.
Here’s an alternative: accept limits (yours and those of others). Or to put it a bit more theologically, accept finitude. You are a finite, limited creature — designed to be so by a loving God. God is infinite and without limits. You are not.
News Flash: You’re not God. Accept limits, those that are intrinsic to you as the individual you are and as the limits of being a mortal, finite human being. Or as Anne Lamott puts it, “The difference between you and God is that he doesn’t think he’s you.”
Your energy, creativity, capacity, skills, even love, aren’t infinite. Limits are built-in. That’s okay. Moreover, by accepting finitude, by accepting that you won’t ever gain control of life’s uncertainties (that’s just not in the cards, sorry), you have a far better shot at being both reasonably productive and at peace.
Does accepting limits and finitude mean, “Hey, just veg out, fire up a joint, be a slacker?” Don’t be ridiculous. There’s a space as big as the Rockies between constant acceleration and vegged out, between relentless striving (accompanied by self-criticism for not doing/ achieving more) and sloth.
On his current podcast on the subject of “Burnout,” Ezra Klein mentions a Buddhist meditation that he sometimes does at the beginning of the day:
“Repeat this phrase:
I’m of the nature to grow old.
I’m of the nature to get sick.
I’m of the nature to lose people I love.
I’m of the nature to die.
So how, then, shall I live?”
I love that. Maybe my New Year’s “re-set” will be to begin the day with those words.
It’s all about finitude: we grow old, we get sick, we sustain loss. We shall die. Nothing to be ashamed of. Depressing? Or does it keep things in perspective? Klein reports that when he does this meditation he doesn’t feel down or depressed, but more at peace as he begins his day.
In the Psalms we read, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Some people don’t like that. They don’t like the idea of “fearing” God. (Try substituting “revere.”) But the point, to me, is similar to Klein’s meditation.
You aren’t God. That job is already taken. Be mortal, that’s hard enough.
And a prayer: “Holy One, quiet the anxious voices that tell me I am not enough, those voices that say “you must do more,” “be more,” “have more.” Through your grace and the imputation of your righteousness, I am enough. Help me to live today in that confidence, in that faith. Amen.”
