The Potential Rut Of Potential

I recently spent some time with an elderly gentleman who was reflecting on his life.  His reflection was not prompted by health concerns or end of life considerations; in fact he had been pondering the state of his life for better than a year prior to my arrival in his living room.   Not long into our conversation it became abundantly clear that he was eat up with guilt and regret.  His life was not at all how he had hoped it would have turned out, but strangely enough it was exactly what he felt he deserved. 

“’Potential’ is to the future what ‘almost’ is to the past: the undone”

The living room was dark, illuminated only by the light of an overcast day seeping in through his broken screen door and the flicker of his TV.  The smell of decades of cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air along with shame and despair.  For better than 30 years he had struggled with alcohol and gambling.  He was 30 years divorced from his only wife and mother to his 4 children.  The high point of the past 6 months was finally receiving disability for something that had long plagued him.  From his worn out recliner he relayed his story.  It flowed from him effortlessly.  It was one he had undoubtedly punished himself with when no one was around, which was often.  He had been happily married, actively involved in a church, had just built a house with several acres he was successfully farming to supplement his income from a job he loved. Then he said something that sent my mind in a whirl. He said “It all changed August, 1977”. 

If you’re like me, I bet your thinking there was a death in the immediate family or a tragic accident that left him crippled.  Surely there was something nearly cataclysmic that happened that was simply out of his control resulting in a tragically wasted 30 years.  If you are like me, then you too would be wrong.  As it turns out he took a chance in 1977, at the urging of family and friends, which ultimately failed.  He claims God told him to leave the opportunity alone, but he went anyway.  He has grown to believe that his current state of life is the ongoing punishment for his disobedience.  He frequently asks God’s forgiveness for what happened 30 years ago, but I believe he has never forgiven himself.  While I could elaborate on some of those God and forgiveness issues, I want to draw your attention to a hidden danger in this story.

“Doesn’t every choice have the ability to change your future forever?”

This gentleman has hung the results of the last half of his life on one choice he made 30+ years ago.  He blames everything that has happened to him on that choice.  Since then bitterness and resentment towards those who encouraged that choice has only grown, along with his own regret.  That one wrong choice has become his excuse for underachieving ever since.  He has defined his life by a wrong decision made decades ago.  He struggles in the rut of what could have been, what should have been: the “almost”.  When the time is right I will challenge the reality he has built his life around with this question.  “You place a lot of weight on that one decision you made in 1977, but what about all of the choices you’ve made since then?”  Doesn’t every choice have the ability to change your future forever?  The bible declares in Lamentations 3:22-23 It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.  They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.  With each new day come new decision opportunities.  

This man’s life has challenged me to not define myself by one choice or one event in my life, past or future.  Future?  Yes.  If we’re not careful our life’s potential can become our defining characteristic i.e. “what I’m going to do”.  I can live being frustrated with where I am because I tell myself and everyone around me that I’m only here until something better comes along or until someone recognizes my potential.  I can just as easily blame my lack of achievement on something unachieved in my future as I can on something unachieved in my past.

"There are a lot of choices to be made between now and where we ultimately end up"

“Potential” is to the future what “almost” is to the past: the undone.  Both can motivate you or numb you into inactivity.  Either way there are a lot of choices to be made between now and where we ultimately end up.  If all we do is talk about “what we’re going to do”, one day that mantra is going to become the “what could have been”.  While I certainly don’t want to get stuck in the past replaying lost opportunities or failed attempts, neither do I want to get stuck in the rut of potential, never able to reach it.  Phrases most often heard in the rut of potential are “not yet”, “some day”, or “when things calm down”.  I don’t know, and I hope I never find out, when the moment is that someone’s greatest potential becomes his or her greatest regret.

Isolation... Not Just Being Alone

I love my alone time.  I love the escape from deadlines, complaints, to do lists, and trying to make small talk.  I like being alone, isolated from the thronging demands of life.  The irony of this moment is that while I write these words my two year old daughter is behind me tucked between me and my chair drawing on my back with her finger singing about how much she likes water, pausing occasionally to lean up over my shoulder and see what I’m doing and to ask me to draw her a picture.  Not exactly “alone time”.  But there’s a vast difference between isolated alone time and the isolation that destroys people, relationships, and businesses.  This destructive kind of isolation can be found in even the busiest of people. 

“Isolation comes in many forms and most don’t even realize how isolated they are until it’s too late”

Isolation can take many appearances; from the individual who lashes out at those who offer any form of criticism to the leader seeking to surround him or her self with “yes men” to the person far to busy to truly interact with anyone.  While not exhaustive, each of these people may not be isolated in the sense of being totally alone but they have strategically isolated certain parts of themselves from outside influences.  Generally speaking people excuse their isolation with claims of desiring consistency, authenticity, or preservation.  The perceived safety of isolation distracts from it’s destructive nature.  The danger in isolation, even selective isolation, is that it skews reality. 

“Destructive isolation can be found in even the busiest of people”

Any environment in which there is only one source of influence or one provider of truth has the potential to distort reality and be destructive.  The destructive nature of an inaccurate reality born out of isolation is perhaps most visible when we look at cults or peoples living in a compound with one leader as the sole source of it’s influence and “truth”. Unfortunately, isolation in our own lives is not nearly as obvious.  Far too often I witness homes in which a spouse or a parent’s anger creates a “protective” barrier around a family consequently isolating that family from healthy external influences.  The spouses and children of angry or even violent people are forced to live within the skewed reality the isolated person has created.  Isolated leaders often use guilt instead of anger as their method of corralling followers.  Failure to grow or attract new followers is credited to the weaknesses or ignorance of non-followers.  The unchallenged concepts of a leader, spouse, or family member can rapidly become absolute truth to the isolated regardless of whether or not they are right.  The longer skewed realities are allowed to go unchallenged the more fiercely the isolated defend those “truths” they have built their lives around. 

On a personal note I have noticed my own tendency for isolation when I get so busy running from one task to another that in my overexposure to tasks I end up isolating myself.  Busyness, for me, has become the most common way to create isolation.  If I stay busy, I stay distracted and I’m never in one place long enough to see the full impact of myself on that environment.  As a result I can live in a skewed reality in which I believe that I’m more productive, successful, pleasant to work with, easy to work for than I really am.  When what has actually happened is that I’ve not allowed myself to be present for critique because I’m off to the next task or project never allowing the previous environment to fully impact me.  In this manner success can isolate by inviting the successful to ignore the things that didn’t facilitate success.  Instead of becoming aware of the things needing change for growth, we can ignore/isolate from them and subtly focus only on the qualities that brought accomplishment.

Do I welcome critique or seek to discredit contrary sources?

As I have written this post I realize that even my own children are isolated to a certain extent when it comes to their beliefs about me, their father.  Right now I am the “strongest bestest” dad who can fix anything.  It won’t be until my children are well into their teens that they realize their dad can’t do everything and that my influence on this world is frighteningly small.  If I do a good job with my kids they will not refuse to accept this truth but will accept the true reality in which they live:  that their dad, while awesome, has limits and doesn’t know everything. 

Isolation comes in many forms and most don’t even realize how isolated they are until it’s too late.  Hopefully an awareness of the potential negative effects of isolation will allow people to accept their faults and be willing to be changed by external authorities instead of defending their narrow-mindedness with anger and guilt.  Am I open to genuine feedback or am I personally offended when someone points out the error of my ways?  Do I welcome the advice of others or cringe at their suggestions and mentally discredit their perspective in order to maintain my own skewed reality?  My honest answer to these questions might just reveal an isolated environment of my life.