M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

Bonds That Make Us Free, Part 8
by C. Terry Warner

What Makes Life Hard to Bear
The list of I-It qualities [in Part 7] illustrates the self-destructive character of the self-absorbed way of being. When we are caught up in it, we accuse others so as to excuse ourselves, and that makes it a judgmental way of being. We grasp at evidence that others are wrong and we are right, and that makes it a comparative way of being. We're certain that if they get what they want, we can't have what we want, so it is an assertive and competitive way of being. And we believe we suffer our setbacks and failures because of other people and achieve our successes in spite of them, making it also a combative and controlling way of being.

The qualities I just named--judgmental, comparative, assertive, competitive, combative, and controlling--were among those my scholar friend claimed he would have been proud to have. But notice, again from the list, the qualities inseparably connected to those qualities that no one considers desirable, such as lonely, insecure, anxious, and fearful. On the underside of all arrogant, self-promoting, and manipulative characteristics we will always find a deep lack of confidence that amounts to fear. If we pay attention only to the bravado surface of these characteristics we can think them to be less self-destructive than they are.

This, then, is the devastating effect of self-betrayal:

To take up a hard, resentful attitude toward others is to have to live in a resented world, a world full of people who oppose and threaten us. How they are in our eyes is reflective of how we are.

The punishment for self-betrayal is having to live, in this resented world, a life that's far more difficult than it needs to be.

By this I do not suggest that life is or should be easy. Life is often hard, sometimes very hard, for just about everybody. Indeed, for many it is fraught with affliction. But anyone who has witnessed freedom from self-pity among the sorely deprived people of the earth knows that life's being hard does not make it hard to bear.

For some years my wife, Susan, traveled throughout the world for an organization devoted to the welfare of children. She invariably came home deeply affected by her visits in the humble homes of the profoundly poor--in Africa, the Pacific Rim, Polynesia, South America, and Europe, including the Eastern European countries that emerged from the breakup of the Soviet Union. Many families she met were unable to acquire anything beyond what they needed to survive, and sometimes not even that. Yet they were invariably gracious, cheerful, solicitous, optimistic, thankful for all they had--which means free of envy--and devoted to one another. She went to minister to them and found them ministering to her. She went to teach and was transformed by what she learned.

Happiness, as Susan's international friends demonstrated by the dignity with which they carried themselves through their constant trials, is more like a decision than a condition. It is a decision anyone can make, anywhere, and at any time. For it is not the enjoyableness of objects or activities or opportunities that makes us happy or unhappy; rather, our happiness, rooted in our relationships, makes objects and activities enjoyable. Things, events, and opportunities have no value in and of themselves; they get their value from the significant part they play in our key relationships with others.

Thus life's being hard does not force us to adopt a resentful attitude. Life becomes hard to bear only when we, as self-betrayers, cast ourselves in a victim's role by regarding others as our victimizers and nurse our misfortunes as if they were badges of honor. I think of self-betrayal as a form of subtle self-destruction because it obliterates the open and generous individuals we can and ought to be--and all for this paltry mess of pottage, the unsteady and impermanent feeling of justification in wrongdoing.

Which Part of Me Will Die?
As we contemplate the I-It and I-You lists, we notice that the differences between the characteristics on the two lists are more than outward, behavioral manifestations. These differences are inward and deep--matters of the condition of the heart. We change in fundamental ways in our passage from I-It to I-You.

And indeed this is the only kind of change that can get us "unstuck" from our anguished attitudes and emotions. When we betray ourselves, we set in motion a transformation toward the self-absorbed and alienated way of being. If we could not reverse the effects of that transformation, self-betrayal would be the greatest of all disasters.

One day some years ago, Keith, the creative director of a major advertising agency, phoned me for advice. The team he headed had been responsible for an eminently successful advertising campaign for a client I'll call X Company. As a result of Keith's success, he had received an offer from an even larger and more prestigious advertising agency to become its creative director--to take one of the most coveted creative positions in one of the most successful organizations in his business. He told officials at X Company of his intention to switch firms and they said, "We'll switch with you"--meaning they would shift their business to the new agency that had offered Keith the job.

Disaster. Keith's present agency had unwisely become so dependent upon the X Company account that losing it would mean the agency would have to close some of its offices. Keith's friends and advisers insisted that he jump at this once-in-a-lifetime employment opportunity. But then he began to think about the many people an office closure would throw out of work, people he knew, people in the mail room, on the production teams and custodial crews, and so on, some of them struggling, some without any good employment options. What should he do?

I would not have advised him in such a personal decision even if I had been confident in my opinion. But I could respond to the tone of his voice. It evoked an image in my mind, which I described to him. In this image, an expensive book of photographs lay open on a table. The full-page picture on the right was of Keith surrounded by many admirers--he was the focal point; the picture was about him. The picture on the left, in which he did not appear at all, showed only the people he had been concerned about.

After I described the two photographs I waited through a long pause. Finally Keith said, "That's the most important thing anyone has said to me."

Then came another pause, even longer. "But it is such agony," he said.

"Perhaps a few lines from T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets might help," I responded. (In line 2, the word pyre means a pile of wood for burning someone or something.)

The only hope, or else despair,

Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre--. . .

We only live, only suspire

Consumed by either fire or fire.

"Keith," I said, "whichever choice you make, a part of you is going to die. The only question is, Which part?"

He did not take the job.

Click here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates.