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     Joel Osteen once wrote that “When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance”. Joel Osteen is delusional.
     Maybe this quote is out of context. Maybe the terms “blessing” and “abundance” are used in specific ways and don’t mean what I think they mean. But I doubt it. Evangelizing any message implying that our success/blessing/happiness is dependent on how good/faithful/positive we are, harms more than it heals. Here is why:

     The world we live in is dangerous. In fact, none of us will ever make it out alive. The world is killing us. Car accidents, cancer, ALS, SIDS, AIDS, food additives, PETA, kidnappers, murder, time, heart failure, atomic bombs, suicide, abuse, mad-cow disease, Ebola, dehydration, drowning, overdose, and a million other variables are out there, waiting to claim a life. Death is the great equalizer. It does not care how nice you are. It does not care how mean you are. For all intents and purposes, it does not care. It is inevitability.

     Lives can be lived in fear, in denial, or in tandem, with this inevitability. People like Osteen offer denial. It’s an easy path to take. There is the constant excuse/explanation that bad things happen because someone isn’t faithful enough. If it’s “their” fault, then it’s in my power to prevent something bad from happening to me. Fortunately, that isn’t true. I say “fortunately” because the idea that my blessings are entirely dependent on me is just a bit too much pressure.

     Another option is to live in fear. Currently, this seems to be the most frequent and the impacts are often seen most directly in children. There are all kinds of articles, books, and discussions about helicopter parenting. The common census is this: It’s bad. There are two messages inherent in overprotective parenting: 1) the world is a scary and dangerous place and 2) you can’t handle it, so I have to do it for you.

     While the first statement is somewhat true, the second statement is not. Overprotective parents also tend to focus heavily on affirmations while minimizing weaknesses. They consistently offer choices so children feel “empowered”. They tell them how great they are at whatever they are attempting. Everyone gets a trophy. Well, if your kids are such empowered, great, #winners, why are you so afraid they can’t handle the world? Both messages cannot be true simultaneously, and kids know it. They may not be able to verbalize it or be completely aware of it, but they know something is off. The inherent and explicit messages lack congruence.

     The alternative is to encourage your children, and each other, through the struggle. This is living in tandem with reality. There will be times we are blessed, where hard work comes to fruition and we are blessed with plenty. There will be times when hard work dissolves into nothingness while the lazy man succeeds in excess. There will be times when innocent children die of treatable diseases and evil men live to die peacefully in their bed from old age.

     Celebrate the success, mourn the losses, embrace the struggle, admit when you’re afraid, give when you can, take when you need. Know that a great deal of your life will occur without your permission, plans do rarely work out the way we want, and nothing lasts forever. Invest in relationships, cherish happy memories, don’t miss out on making new memories, and take a chance to view the world as it is. While it may be scary, it is also wonderful and brief and full of life. Give your children, your spouses, and your self an opportunity to prove how great they really are. Let’s find a friend, a spouse, a confidant with whom we can experience the struggle of life together because, in the end, that’s all that will matter.

Protective Fear (C) Nathan D. Croy 2014

“Fight against yourself, recover yourself to decency, to modesty, to freedom. …And, in the first place, condemn your actions; but when you have condemned them, do not despair of yourself.

“For both ruin and recovery are from within.”

     People can feel shame without taking accountability. This also means people can take accountability without feeling shame. Shame and guilt should not be confused. Guilt has restorative properties and always contains a means of penance; of ways to make right our wrong doing and seek forgiveness. Guilt is inherently external: Focused on what we have done; not on who we are.
     Shame, on the other hand, does not call us to restoration or community. Instead, it calls us to isolation and focuses on who we are rather than what we have done. This is a terrific topic and a great book on the topic is called “Guilt and Shame”. There is a link to it in the Book List, and I recommend it. However, for now, what is important is knowing the distinction between guilt (healthy response to a wrong doing) and shame (unhealthy judgment about our personhood).
     Though shame and guilt are very different, they do have one thing in common: personal accountability. The quote from Epictetus should not be read to mean that success or failure lies within us. “Both ruin and recovery are from within.” The decision to take responsibility for our actions, and thereby have the power to do something about them, lies within us. If we feel guilt, if we feel shame, yet believe there is nothing we can do, that circumstances were in control of our lives, well then we are utterly powerless and we may as well fall into despair. Some believe this is a freeing concept, that if our fate lies in the stars instead of ourselves, we are free of condemnation. Yet this idea does not explain away our guilt or shame.
     Passing the buck and blaming others for your situation, even if it is an accurate perception, does little to empower us, change the situation, or help heal relationships. However, taking an earnest look at ourselves, allowing trusted friends and advisers to reflect back to us who we are, begins the process of personal accountability. This is one way shame can be converted to proper guilt. That we can begin distinguishing between who we are and what we do. When this happens, we can begin personally being accountable for our actions without allowing those actions to define us.
     Leave a comment about a time you wrestled with shame or guilt. How did you handle it? Were you able to take personal responsibility?

Hear no, See no, They did it. (C) Nathan D. Croy

       I’ve already had some pithy post on here about More Being Less. This is not about that. This is about companies believing the only way people will purchase something is if those people think they need it. When a company is selling image, it is crucial for you to believe three things:

1. I want that image
2. I lack that image
3. I cannot create that image on my own.

     If you do not believe any one of these three things, you will not purchase what they are selling. The hipsters (ironically) have the market cornered on premise number one. They want for no image. They want for no image so much so that it has become an image to which companies are now marketing. Which is ironic. Which is what hipsters like. Which makes it not ironic. Which is ironic. I do not like where this is going and will stop this silly line of thought now because the point is made. I think.

     If you believe you want an image, but think you have that image (not believing premise number two), then there is no reason to purchase an image someone else is selling. These people are the aesthetes Kierkegaard wrote about. They are the poets, the perceivers of beauty, the writers of songs, and the pursuers of excitement. The fourth chapter of Seinfeld and Philosophy produces a compelling argument for Kramer as the embodiment of the aesthete. I, for one, couldn’t agree more.

     Lastly, if you believe you want an image, you lack that image, but you believe you can create that image on your own, you will set out on an existential adventure of “finding yourself”. Unfortunately, the idea of this adventure has been tainted by, of all places, marketing. There are countless offers of shortcuts and surefire means of procuring authentic identity via media and market shares. Everyone knows this is rubbish, but the allure is often too great to resist and can provide a long lasting distraction. This type of distraction can often be so lasting that, in the pursuit of the self, we can completely miss the self until, only upon the reflection of our deathbeds, do we realize we have missed everything in the pursuit of nothing.

     This is what media wants. If you find satisfaction, you do not need appeasement from the market. If you have found your image (that is to say, your self), then you have no need to look elsewhere. This type of self-defeating thought process must be continually perpetuated through the production of the newer and the better. Not only that, but the newer and the better must be made to seem unavailable to the greater and the common. A content individual does not purchase on a whim. This does not mean whimsicalness is incompatible with contentedness; it does mean that genuine whimsy is accompanied by intentionality.

     Please head over to NPR’s program Here-and-Now and see how companies like Abercrombie are working hard to make sure you’re not happy. It’s not just a suggestion; it’s their primary means of ensuring a constant flow of income. To them, you’re worth more when you’re worth less.

(C) Nathan D. Croy, 2013