Tag: personal development

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Personal Update

Saying Yes

You can’t try everything before you die, but you might as well die trying.

A couple months ago, I read a lovely little biography/devotional book by Mike Donehey, one of my favorite Christian musicians. One of the suggestions he gave was to just be willing to say yes to everything that comes your way. I think the tie-in to Christian living was about allowing God to use you in the way He needs to, and He can’t do that if you’re not willing to take the opportunities He gives you. I’m a firm believer that, as Paul wrote, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thess. 5:21). So I decided to give it a shot.

“Do you want to try rolling the sushi?” Why yes—not that I’ve ever rolled a sushi roll in my life before, and it will most certainly not be the most beautifully rolled sushi that has ever existed, but there’s a first time for everything. Should we go to the opera? Sure, let’s send it; I could use a good opera education. Road trip? Absolutely. Give blood? I wonder how that feels. Part-time research job? Sounds like a good idea. Go country dancing? I can at least pretend that I’m coordinated. Listen to jazz for a week? Prepare to get clobbered by tritone substitutions. Discussion group for a new history book? I loved that stuff in high school. Orchestra and local music concerts? Add to cart. Join the mariachi band? I can’t have stage anxiety forever.

I’m not writing this to make myself sound awesome, but because there’s nothing I can recommend more highly to someone trying to make sense of life in the liminal spaces. I can see the difference that trying to say no to fear has made in my life. I notice so much more of the world’s beauty, and that’s why I write this little blog. I don’t think I’ll ever be done. What will happen when I give painting a shot? Frisbee golf? Karaoke? Reading random cases from the law library? Mock swordfighting? Coding in Python?

Of course it’s impossible to say yes to everything—saying yes to an economics book was a hefty reminder that opportunity cost brings everything to a screeching halt—and there are certainly things that one shouldn’t say yes to. But I’ll be the first one to attest that life is so much richer since, when confronted with the unfamiliar, I’ve started making “yes” rather than “no” the first response on my lips. ∎

Categories
Personal Update

Not What You Do, But Who You Are

Socrates once said (in Plato’s Phaedrus) that there are two kinds of people: 

“…if their compositions are based on knowledge of the truth, and they can defend or prove them, when they are put to the test, by spoken arguments, which leave their writings poor in comparison of them, then they are...worthy of a higher name, befitting the serious pursuit of their life… Wise, I may not call them; for that is a great name which belongs to God alone; lovers of wisdom or philosophers is their modest and befitting title… And he who cannot rise above his own compilations and compositions, which he has been long patching, and piecing, adding some and taking away some, may be justly called poet or speech-maker or law-maker.”

In other words, to the true lover of wisdom, it’s more important to understand what is true than to produce great things–because only in that understanding can one produce the greatest things.

During the last couple months, I haven’t been especially productive at “piecing together my compositions”–I haven’t produced anything particularly beautiful or noteworthy. But I have been learning, living, exploring, and experiencing as much as possible, and if Socrates is right, then the good character that I’m trying to get is much more valuable than any physical thing I ever compose. After all, very few people are ever remembered for making great literature, music, or art. What people are remembered for is being a good parent, or spouse, or teacher, or friend.

Tl;dr: I’ll always be working on some composition or another. But it’s the person you become, not what you leave behind, that really means something. ∎