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Do the Hard Thing | |
November 08th, 2017 | |
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I've been thinking about lessons that I want to teach my boy. | |
Boiling down all my experiences and knowledge to some core | |
principles that I can invest him with to help him in the future is | |
both thrilling and overwhelming. On the one hand, I have a lot of | |
specific things I've experienced I could steer him on, but I think | |
it will be difficult to make all the individual stuff stick with | |
him. Instead I think it would be best to focus on principles, like | |
living a life with the willingness to say "Yes!" to new | |
opportunites and challenges. That's what led me to the Navy, or to | |
the Jesuits, or to live in Alaska. I think it's an important and | |
generally helpful attitude to pass on. | |
Most recently I was thinking about an idea I learned as a Jesuit | |
novice called "agere contra". It means to do the opposite. In the | |
context of Ignatian spirituality it is making a reference to the | |
types of comfort we experience by doing what comes easy and | |
natural to us. St. Ignatius thought that by avoiding these natural | |
trappings of "easy" we would be forced to rely on God as we faced | |
the unknown scary things and in doing so become closer with Him. | |
As an example, when I started the novitiate, all of the novices | |
were taken around the city to the various apostolates where we | |
would be spending our "working" time during formation. There were | |
hospitals, nursing homes, hospice care, schools, food pantries, | |
and other various charities and social services. Our novice | |
director told us to thing about the different places as we | |
explored them and to pray on each of them and imagine ourselves | |
working there. Only after we had done that did they introduce the | |
concept of agere contra. The director said, list for me the top | |
two apostolates which are the most intimidating to you, the | |
scariest, or the most unnatural to your experience and | |
disposition. What are the last choices you would make. And with | |
that in mind, he helped assign us to something hard. | |
In my case that meant I worked in hospice care and elementary | |
education, both of which seemed terrifying. I went on to | |
experience some of the most rewarding months of my life. I not | |
only broadened my exposure to new things, but I also gained | |
confidence in my ability (with God's help) to take on the unknown | |
and not just survive, but to thrive. | |
In the case of my son, the idea of agere contra might be a little | |
bit too complex. Maybe it takes a more sophisticated understanding | |
of the world and yourself to put it into action. But there are | |
parts I think he can grok even at 5 years old. | |
Do the hard thing. | |
That's the heart I'm working on with him now. I think there's more | |
in that idea than just agere contra, too. As we face increasing | |
threats to employment through automation, focusing on doing and | |
learning what is hard is a generally safe way of proceeding. In | |
working in a group, taking on the hard part will instill a valued | |
social skill. Ethically it conditions him to avoid poor choices | |
through laziness. There's so much good that comes from choosing | |
the hard path. | |
Turning that lesson inward, I stare at my list of hobbies and | |
cringe. I flounder and fail to progress because I am lazy and do | |
whichever thing strikes my fancy. I need to be deliberate in my | |
practice or study. I need to do the hard things. Lets see what | |
I can do with that principle and some motivation. | |