I have received many requests to republish a post from several years ago. The following five truths from that essay are indeed hard. They rock our world and stab at the heart of some of our most cherished modern notions. If they can be accepted for the truth they convey, however, they bring great peace. These truths are not only good medicine for our collective self-absorption but they also help us to have more realistic expectations as we live out our lives in this imperfect and limited world. Study these truths well. If they irritate you a bit, good; they’re supposed to. They are meant to provoke thought and reassessment.
I did not originate the following five principles, but the commentary is my own. So thank the one to whom the Holy Spirit first spoke them and tolerate my meager commentary.
1. Life is hard. We live in times of comfort and convenience. Medicine has removed a lot of pain and suffering from our lives. Consumer goods are readily available and we have a wide array of choices. Entertainment comes in many varieties and is often inexpensive. Hard labor is something that few of us are familiar with. Obesity is common due to overconsumption and underactivity.
All of these creature comforts have led us to expect that life should always be just peachy. We become outraged at the slightest suffering, inconvenience, or delay.
Our ancestors lived lives that were far more “brutish and short,” to borrow a phrase from Thomas Hobbes. Life was a “vale of tears.” They understood that suffering was a part of life. When we suffer today, we start thinking about lawsuits and who is to blame. Suffering seems obnoxious to us and hard work unreasonable! We are angered and flung into anxiety at the mere threat of suffering.
This principle reminds us that suffering and difficulty are part of life; they should be expected. Accepting suffering does not mean we have to like it. Acceptance of the fact that life will be hard at times means that we get less angry and anxious when it is; we do not lose serenity. In fact, it brings a strange sort of peace. We are freed from unrealistic expectations that merely breed resentment. We also become more grateful for the joys we do experience.
2. Your life is not about you. If you want to make God chuckle, tell Him your plans. If you really want to give him a belly laugh, tell Him His plans! We often like to think that we should just be able to do what ever pleases us and maximizes our “self-actualization.” However, we do not decide alone what course our life will take.
In this age of “nobody tells me what to do,” it is important to remember that our true happiness comes from getting not what we want, but what God wants. Our destiny is not to follow our star; it is to follow God. True peace comes from careful discernment of God’s will for us.
It is sad how few people today ever really speak ahead of time with God about important things like careers, entering into a marriage, or pondering a large project. We just go off and do what we please, expecting God to bail us out if it doesn’t go well. You and I do not exist merely for our own whims; we have a place in God’s plan. We have greater serenity when we discern that place and humbly seek God’s will. Accepting the fact that we are not the masters of our own destiny, not the captains of our own ship, gives us greater peace. It also usually saves us a lot of mileage.
Humbly accepting that our life is not simply about us and what we want is a freeing truth. We often don’t get what we want; if we can allow life to just unfold and not demand that everything be simply the way we want it, we can be more serene and free.
3. You are not in control. Control is something of an illusion. We may have plans for tomorrow but there are many things between now and tomorrow over which we have no control. For example, we cannot even control or guarantee the next beat of our heart. I may think I have tomorrow under control, but tomorrow is not promised; it may never come.
Because we think that we control a few things, we think that we can control many things. Not really. Our attempts to control and manipulate outcomes are comical, sometimes even harmful.
Thinking that we can control things leads us to think that we must control them. This in turn leads to great anxiety and often anger as well.
We usually think that if we are in control we will be less anxious. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, the more we think we can control, the more we try to control, which increases our burdens and anxiety. We end up getting angry because we discover that there many things and people we cannot control after all. This causes frustration and fear.
We would be freer and less anxious if we would simply accept the fact that there are many things—most things, in fact—over which we have no control. Our expectation of everything being under control is unrealistic. Life comes at you fast. Brooding over unpredictable and uncontrollable things amounts to bondage. Simply accepting that we are often not in control is freeing.
4. You are not that important. This one hurts. We often think that the whole world should revolve around us. We think it is only our feelings that matter and our wellbeing that is important. We are loved by God in a very particular way, but that does not change the fact that we must often yield to others who are also loved by God in a very special way.
Sometimes other people are more important than we are. We might even be called upon to give our life so that others may live. We must yield to others whose needs are more crucial than our own. The world doesn’t exist just for us and what we want.
There is great peace and freedom in coming to accept this. We are often made so anxious if we are not recognized while others are, or if our feelings and preferences are not everyone’s priority. Accepting the truth that we are not that important allows us to relax and enjoy caring about other people and celebrating their importance.
5. You are going to die. We get all worked up about what this world dishes out, but just take a walk in a cemetery. Those folks were all worked up too. Now their struggles are over. If they were faithful, they are with God; they are now experiencing that “trouble don’t last always.”
This truth also helps us to do the most important thing: get ready to meet God. So many people spend their lives clowning around and goofing off, ignoring our most urgent priority. In the end, this is freeing because we are loosed from the many excessive and often conflicting demands of the world; we can concentrate on doing the one thing necessary. Our life simplifies and we don’t take this world too seriously because we understand that it is passing away. There is great peace and freedom in coming to accept this.
So there you have them, five hard truths that will set you free. Think about them. Memorize them. Pull them out when life comes at you fast and hard with its agenda of control, self-importance, and empty promises of perfect comfort here on earth. A simple, sober, humble, and focused life brings great serenity.
This is similar to the “Three Rules of Life” that I’ve taught my children.
1. Life isn’t fair. There’s always someone with better looks, more money, smarter, better opportunities than you. But, you have better looks, more money, smarter and better opportunities than someone else. Instead of worrying about what you don’t have, thank God for what you do have and be the best person you can be in gratitude.
2. 90% of life is doing stuff you don’t want to do. Life isn’t about having fun, being personally “fulfilled”, etc. It’s about being a stand up person, taking care of your God given responsibilities and others. There were plenty of days I didn’t want to get up for work at 0430 and look forward to a ten hour day (with an hour of commute on each side) but I did it for the sake of my family. And I’d do it again. Not as much fun as sitting on a beach drinking magaritas and listening to Jimmy Buffet, but it’s the right thing to do.
3. Nobody gets out of here alive. Doesn’t matter how much money, fame or ability you have, death is the great equalizer. Be prepared. The score is not kept by counting how many toys you die with, but your character and track record while you were here.
That makes the yoke easy and the burden light.
Many prefer to say God “purposes”, while we “plan”. Keeps us humble. 🙂
Excellent reminders again, it’s not about us but His tender mercies. I just finished writing my story of meeting Jesus (thanks to your post several years ago exhorting us to write our stories) and it’s on my blog: http://vijayabodach.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-love-story.html
Thanks for sharing your story.
And now it’s on New Advent. Congrats!
One thing that I like to remember is that at one time I didn’t exist. Easy or difficult truth, decide for yourself. A Mormon gentleman told me that Mormons don’t believe in a Creator God and, so, they have to believe in something called ‘soul sleep’ and that their souls have always existed. Pity the Mormon gentleman or lady who can’t wake up in the morning and say, “I didn’t used to exist and I can’t even remember the moment when I came into existence. That is uncanny.” And to even thank God that he has been given existence.
This Mormon gentle told me that Mormons don’t believe in creation from nothing because they don’t believe in magic. My reply, “Creation from nothing is the opposite of magic.” It took me years to come up with that reply.
Any idea of heaven which doesn’t involve a sharing in the Life of the Creator God is, necessarily, at best, the Catholic idea of Limbo or some variation on Limbo, which is the Mormon idea of heaven. That is my claim. Any idea of heaven that doesn’t involve a sharing in the Life of the Creator God reeks of contingency, and any idea of heaven that reeks of contingency is, at best, Limbo, or some variation on Limbo.
That is my claim.
God created all things visible and invisible from nothing 3D or visible. Like an artist he created from within his heart but unlike the artist he didn’t have any outside of himself. Not to say the creation and creator is one and the same. If you critique the art, the artist takes it personal though they are not the same. my take.
Your comment, imo, agrees well with this quote from St. Augustine: Augustine says (De Trin. xv), “Not because they are, does God know all creatures spiritual and temporal, but because He knows them, therefore they are.”
I am unsure how high these 5 hard truths would fly with a significant if not a large portion of the American public who think “life is unfair,” and claim “victimization” status. Probably it wouldn’t get off the runway.
Well Spoken Faithful Servant… Selah!
Would it be rude to recall these are not Christian ideas, but were common to the Pagans 2000 years ago?
They may have been baptized since then, but were original to the world of Cicero and Seneca, Epictetus and M. Aurelius (he who persecuted Christians for failure to properly support the State.)
It is, however, proper to convert the Stoics, as they are as much of our patrimony as St. Paul or Jude the Obscure.
Why would it be rude? The Church is quite open about having adopted what is good from other cultures, such as certain aspects of Greek and Roman philosophy, as further enlightened from a Christian perspective. Paul even mentions this in his trip to Athens.
Perhaps I am missing something, but I find this not only uninspiring, but anti-inspiring. I read this as fatalistic more than anything else.
Life is hard, it’s not about you, you can’t control it, you’re not that important, you’re going to die anyway, so what’s the point?
Yes, I see how if one is an atheist they would be depressing rather than inspiring. That’s why atheists are constantly in a state of fervent denial of these truths and pretending they don’t know them.
James wrote:
“Life is hard, it’s not about you, you can’t control it, you’re not that important, you’re going to die anyway, so what’s the point?”
I personally think that these 5 hard truths are just GREAT!!! BUT they are sort of incomplete. I can see the desperate need for the SIXth one that would be an answer
for James question above “so what’s the point?”
Msgr. Charles Pope I would love to read your 6th hard truth!!!!!