Glory of Home Life

It’s hard to tread lightly these days. Folks are touchy.

This touchiness is itself a byproduct of what I consider to be an intense focus on the self. Most products are advertised to us as “You deserve this!” Why? What did I do to “deserve” that luxury item? Nothing. Thinking at any point that I deserve something because of something I did has poisoned the well, so to speak. It has put barriers to entry on later work. It has created conditions whereby I will only do X if I have some or total guarantee of Y.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with compensation. That’s justice. Fair remuneration for services rendered is part of any healthy society. However, we have been fooled into thinking that paying companies a lot of money is an act of rewarding ourselves. It isn’t. It’s an act of rewarding them for duping us. I get duped all the time. Don’t feel bad. Those low-quality, highly manufactured chocolate doughnuts at the store have called my name since childhood.

What I have only just noticed (in the last several years) is the tendency towards heroic v….ictimhood. Did you think maybe I’d say heroic virtue? Alas. The rise of heroic victimhood has supplanted heroic virtue as our modus operandi. It goes something like this.

I am living life, minding my own business.
Some inexplicable thing happens to me, and I perceive it as bad.
I am a victim and, in a society that no longer values discretion, I let everyone know about it.
I purchase some salve for my wound (a Netflix subscription, chocolate donuts, alcohol, whatever…)
The salve feels good. I have saved myself from pain. I am a hero!

The entire process needs revamping, but it’s this last line that I find particularly appalling, especially for men and fathers.

My wife and I were out on a date a few months back when that last line appeared abruptly before us in a Barnes & Noble window. It was a quote from some author whose name I have long since forgotten, but the line was just that: “Be the hero of your own story.”

Men, fathers, and anyone aspiring to greatness: you have no business being the hero of your own story. What a vacuous and lonely existence that would be. Who are you saving? Yourself. Just a few decades ago, a lot of people would call that cowardice. Now, we encourage it.

Consider for a moment the number of people who depend on you daily: your spouse, your children, your friends, your co-workers, and the larger community. When do you get around to saving them? When do you ultimately decide they’re not worth it because you need to look out for ol’ number one?

It might not be your favorite thing to hear, but “me time” is killing your gains. Worse yet, it’s torching your family, your community, your workplace, and the nation. There’s a great deal of wasted effort put into understanding our defects and making peace with them, analyzing one’s past and present, and constantly doubting the future as a result. The psychoanalysts love it because they’re buying third and fourth houses. Meanwhile, we’re more miserable than we’ve ever been.

What a strange dichotomy – that in a time when we have everything we need and most of what we want, we are at the height of our depression. Then we’re told, “Well, that’s just the way it is. Here – have these pills.” Or we’re given generic advice from well-meaning individuals which is largely unhelpful, “Well you just do you! Keep doing you!” We spend countless hours and dollars on paying people to either fix our problems or to teach us to accept our mediocrity as a defining and enduring character trait.

When do we finally realize it isn’t working? We’re so busy trying to save ourselves from every pain that we have thrown out the right and reasonable kind of pain with it: the pain of sacrifice. We make only superficial connections with the world around us, and loneliness settles in.

I’m reminded of a book – The Quiltmaker’s Gift – in which there’s a giant man-baby of a King who has just about everything his money could buy. Wall-to-wall toys and articles of enjoyment. Still, he’s bitter and resentful. He wants more. He learns of a quiltmaker who makes luxurious quilts (for the poor) and demands she make one for him. She refuses, saying they’re reserved for people who have nothing. He puts her in various dangerous situations (which she gets out of in pretty amusing ways), and then goes so far as attempting to steal one directly from her (which doesn’t work out for him). He’s so aggravated despite having so much, and isn’t this similar to how we sometimes act?

When we tie our happiness to goals or objects, there’s always one more thing. How hard that is. The mentality is this: I am never full. There’s more I need to do, or have. There’s still a void. How do I fill it?

What if instead, we focused on production? I am never empty. There’s always more I can give. I can muster another smile or a kind word. I can work five minutes longer today (not much), or wake up five minutes earlier tomorrow (not much). What little bit more can I give?

In the book, the King eventually gives away all of his goods for the sake of receiving the quilt, and when he does, his happiness is crowned, but it is not created. It was in giving away what he thought he never could that his happiness blossomed.

This of course does not mean you must give your tangible goods away to find happiness, though let’s be honest it probably wouldn’t hurt to part with some of our possessions just to practice a spirit of detachment. For the King, his goods were his life. What do I place an inordinate emphasis on in my life that I can give away or do without? Start small.

It’s Good Friday. What an excellent reminder that at this very moment, Jesus is ascending the hill with not only the weight of the Cross on his back but the weight of my sins and ingratitude. We’ve got to be real about this, dads. We are Christ for our family. We must learn to bear with strength (and not necessarily grace) the pain of every member. Jesus was a mess on the road to Calvary. Bleeding, bruised, collapsing three times. He needed help carrying the cross. He wept. He was dying. There’s nothing graceful about that.

You are not your hero, but you can manfully bear the pinpricks and nuisances of each day heroically for the sake of those around you and, in a supernatural sense, for the sake of Christ who bore them for you.