(OR a mild tirade on the point of this blog)
photo credit:
A6U571N
Things aren’t always easy, or simple, or black and white; it is that last one that causes me the most grief, personally, because I like black-and-white, as in, easily understood, categorized, and labeled as “good” or “bad.” I think in these absolute terms. This is my filter for the world, for my life, for how I parent, how I wife and friend and write and etc.
‘Cept things ain’t always that simple, Charlie Browns.
So much gray! As in, should it be “gray” or “grey”? Does it matter? No.
But there it is, a choice, an option, with no obvious RIGHT answer. The abundance of gray (grey) has been one of the shocks of adulthood.
The other shocker of my adult life has been realizing this:
not everything you learned growing up is true.
I’m not talking about the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus or whether you rejected your parents’ religious and/or political beliefs in favor of something more enlightened. (For the record, I did not reject my parents’ religious beliefs. Or political ones, much. I like them. I believe them. But that’s another story.)
What I am talking about is much more subtle.
It is the things that are not necessarily taught but are simply passed down, assumptions about how the world works and the best way to, oh, make pie crust, or spend money, or how to parent properly and what to wear after Labor Day.
These things are not (usually) consciously relayed to the next generation: they simply are passed down, passed around the table with the green bean casserole, and you pick them up and put them on your plate and eat them and they become part of you.
Until one day you realize that you don’t even like green bean casserole (we are speaking in metaphorical terms now, follow?) or that green bean casserole is much better when it’s made in an entirely different way than your mother used to make it…
And the world rocks back and forth and you stand on very shaky ground.
Everything is uncertain.
assuming the assumptions are good…
Toooooo many of us are still operating under those passed-down assumptions about “how life works” when, really, the assumptions are not working any more. They are not necessarily WRONG but definitely not necessarily RIGHT either.
Confusing principles and preferences
So many of us are confusing principles (i.e. things that ARE absolute and either RIGHT or WRONG) with preferences. We pick up preferences about life, government, churches, cooking, family life, work, clothing, money, and so on from our parents and we go tra-la-la-ing along as if we are ready for anything.
Only: preferences are not universal, transcending space/time/culture. Preferences are fallible. Preferences have to change. Preferences quit working out of context.
2 simple rules
I have two simple rules which have developed into something kind of stable and specific and definite in my head and in how I look at life and how I make decisions and do things.
And, I think, the whole little point of this blog is to kind of pass those rules or ideas on and to help women apply them and quit feeling so freakin’ guilty about everything, and quit operating on preferences and assumptions that simply don’t work for one reason or another, and quit assuming that one way is RIGHT and another is WRONG when, in truth, both are FINE depending… (or both are NOT FINE, depending…).
rule 1: question everything.
rule 2: assume nothing.
Simple, yes?
Of course I don’t mean that every single time you have to make a decision you question every angle of it. I do almost mean it literally about the assumptions, tho’ of course we need some of those to survive, but overall assumptions are just a lazy woman’s way of not having to think or take responsibility and they tend to lead us to error and unpleasant arguments with our spouses.
Questions are good.
They help us figure out where things come from.
Why am I doing this? What is the point? Where is this coming from? Is this a choice or simply a tradition? Where did the tradition come from? Is it good or bad? Is it helpful? What is it supposed to accomplish? Why do I feel like I need to do things this way? Is my way better? Why? Why not try something different? What’s the risk? What’s the principle? Is there a principle, or is this a preference? What’s my preference? Why? Where did it come from?
Questions lead us to new ideas and discoveries and (gasp) truth, which is not – however you might like it to be – usually found in those assumptions of ours, the ones we like to tote around and pull out whenever feeling uncertain.
Truth is timeless.
I believe in absolute truth, truth which does transcend time and space and culture, truth which does not change or have to be replaced or modernized or adapted to a new context.
But I do not believe that everything we think fits into “truth” indeed does. Most of it, in fact, well: not. Fact, maybe, but truth?
And that’s where we get oh-so-overwhelmed-and-confused and that’s where we have conflict and guilt and terrrrrrible things happen. On a personal level, on a national level, so on: when we mix up truth with a) fact or b) opinion, we get goofy, sometimes tragic, results.
All this tirade to say top-ten-tip lists are great and how-to posts are helpful and advice can be nice but the point
THE POINT
is to help me, you, and any other woman who stumbles on this blog’s real estate to have a better life by getting WISE.
Wisdom.
That’s the key.
Wisdom is the ability to separate truth from mere knowledge.
It is the discernment to know facts and yet not be ruled by a pride in that knowledge.
It is the mind to put principles in one pile and preferences in another and use both as they should be used.
It is the will and the understanding to apply knowledge as it should be applied (not dogmatically) and to search out truth and live by it (graciously).
Wisdom is what I am looking for.
I have many goals on earth; many goals for myself and my children; many hopes, ambitions, dreams; but the greatest the deepest the truest is that I will be a woman who is WISE, that I will somehow manage to raise children who seek WISDOM all their lives, and that, through what I write here and elsewhere, I will manage to pass on a bit of that wisdom, or just the thirst for it, to others.
