The Human Dilemma

​

Life is messy. This is the human dilemma. You’re not doing it wrong. Life isn’t a color-within-the-lines exercise. It’s a wild and outrageous invitation full of uncertain outcomes. Sometimes it is beautifully rational, at other times it lacks all logic. What appears to be a step back today, may turn out to be the first marvelous step forward ten years from now. 

​

The mess of life is both inevitable and unexpected. It is filled with delightful mysteries and frustrating predicaments, indescribable joy and heart-wrenching suffering. 

​

There is no plan you can devise that will solve the mess. There is nothing you can buy, learn, or accomplish that will eliminate the mess. Finding the love of your life and the perfect career won’t either. There is nothing you can start doing or stop doing that will eradicate the mess. There’s nothing you can tell yourself that will make the mess magically disappear, and you cannot think your way out of it. The mess is here to stay. It’s unavoidable. It’s just life. 

​

It’s what we do with the mess that determines everything. You can ignore it, avoid it, deny it, blame others, shame yourself, and exhaust yourself pretending your life isn’t messy. But when you wake tomorrow morning, the mess will still be there. Or you can realize that the mess serves a powerful purpose. 

​

To discover that powerful purpose, we first need to accept that the mess is not the problem. The problem is our erroneous belief that everything should be immaculate, orderly, neat, tidy, and in its place. 

​

Everyone has their own mess to contend with. Our tendency is to think that we are the only ones with a mess, that our mess is messier, more embarrassing, more shameful than other people’s mess. It isn’t so. 

You don’t have it have it all together. Nobody has it all together. 

​

Acceptance is the only way to make peace with the mess. This acceptance will lead you to a profound acceptance of life, others, and self. It isn’t surrender or defeat. It isn’t conceding that there is nothing we can do about the mess. It’s just a penetrating awareness that the meaning of life isn’t to solve the mess. That’s not the goal. 

​

This radical acceptance of self, others, and life may be the beginning of wisdom. I’m not sure we can ever truly appreciate anyone or anything until we have made peace with the mess. Are you ready to make peace with the mess? 

​

Life is messy, but we figure things out. We laugh, we cry, we grow, and we move on to new beginnings, second chances, and amazing possibilities. 

​

​

A More Beautiful Question​

​

The gateway between confusion and clarity is marked with a quintessential truth: We are wounded and broken. Acceptance of this truth allows us to make peace with the mess.

​

I am wounded and broken. We all are. We are self-conscious about our brokenness. We are sensitive and insecure, even embarrassed, about our woundedness. But we needn’t be. We are all wounded and broken. 

​

Why are we so surprised when we discover that another person is broken? Perhaps because we are so intent on ignoring our own brokenness. Everyone is broken, everyone is wounded, to pretend otherwise is to open ourselves to vast and ongoing deception. 

​

But it’s okay that we are broken. It’s only a problem if we subscribe to the false notion that we have to try to keep everyone and everything from being broken. 

​

I am broken. Pretending otherwise is exhausting. 

​

But let me share with you the real problem with our brokenness. In our wasteful, consumption-addicted society, we throw broken things away. So, we don’t know what to do with our broken selves. What do we do with broken people, broken relationships, broken institutions, broken families, and of course, our very own broken selves? 

​

This is an important question, but a more beautiful question holds the answer: Can something that has been broken be put back together in a way that makes it more beautiful than ever before? 

It may seem like an impossible proposition to our straight-line, everything-in-its-place, secular minds. But I marvel at how God doesn’t use straight lines or right-angles in nature. We invented right-angles and straight lines to prop up our insecure humanity. 

​

The perfection of nature is marked by crooked lines, brokenness, imperfect colors, and things that seem out of place. The perfection of creation is achieved through its imperfection. And so it is with human beings. Your imperfections are part of what make you perfectly yourself. 

​

If we put on the mind of God, we discover one of the most beautiful truths this life has to offer: Something that has been devastatingly broken can be put back together in a way that makes it more beautiful than ever before. It is true for things, but it is even more true for people, and it is true for you. This is the source and the summit of hope. 

​

We believe that once something is broken it can never be as beautiful as it was before. But that’s not true. It’s true that it cannot be exactly the same as it was before, but that doesn’t mean it cannot surpass its former self. You don’t look at a wonderful tree that loses some leaves and limbs in a storm, and say, “It’s ruined forever.” But we say that about ourselves and others. 

​

The Japanese have a beautiful artform called Kintsugi. It is a form of ceramics, and I have been meditating on it for the past several years. In our disposable culture, if we break a vase or a bowl, we throw it away and buy a new one. This simple act allows us to maintain the illusion that life is not messy. It plays into our delusion of perfection. But life is messy, perfect is a myth, and the wisdom of the Japanese art of Kintsugi has much to teach us. 

​

When a vase or bowl or cup is broken, artists gather up the broken pieces and glue them back together. Though it is how they put them back together that is steeped in wisdom and beauty. They mix gold dust with the glue. They don’t try to hide the cracks. They own them, honor them, even accentuate them by making them golden. They celebrate the cracks as part of their story. 

​

This is a beautiful lesson. They don’t pretend the vase was never broken. They don’t pretend that life is not messy. They don’t pretend they are not broken. When we pretend to be someone other than who we are, our true self hides in fear and shame; the fear of being discovered and the shame of not being enough. 

​

The most beautiful and surprising lesson the Kintsugi artform teaches us is this: We are each other’s wounded healers. We each possess the gold dust needed to glue other people back together, making them more beautiful and loveable than ever. Our love, connection, acceptance, generosity, community, and kindness are that gold dust. This is astoundingly profound. 

​

There is a vital truth here. Kintsugi ceramics are staggeringly beautiful. There is an honesty to their beauty that is missing in the artificial perfection of mass- produced items. Once repaired in this ancient method, Kintsugi pieces are more beautiful, and more loved than before they were broken. 

This idea creates vast confusion and cognitive resistance for us. We don’t believe that something that has been broken and repaired can be more beautiful, and more loved, than ever before. But hope depends on overcoming this false belief. Moving on from this false assumption is essential to making peace with our own brokenness and a vital ingredient in all healthy relationships. 

​

Someone who has been broken and healed can be more beautiful, and more loved, than ever before. Embracing this truth is liberating. But it is easier to do once we realize it’s okay to be broken. It’s normal, in fact—part of the human condition. Once we embrace this truth, we are on the path of hope. When we reject it, we are on the road to despair. 

​

Can someone who has been broken be healed and become more beautiful and more lovable than ever before? 

​

This is the central question in our journey together. I am convinced the answer to the question is yes. But as you will soon discover, arriving at this conviction was no easy feat. This book is my own messy and imperfect grappling with this question. If at any point in this book you find yourself lost, confused, or disoriented, return to this question. It is the North Star we are exploring. Whatever topic we are discussing in the pages ahead, though they are vast and varied, we will never be far from this question. 

​

Someone who has been broken and healed can become more beautiful and more lovable than ever before. That someone is you. 

​

​

Unexpected ​

​

Life didn’t turn out the way I expected. In some ways it has exceeded my expectations, and in other ways it has disappointed them. Never in my wildest dreams as a child would I have imagined the life I have lived. The adventures, experiences, and opportunities, the love I have given and received, and the success I have enjoyed have all far exceeded my expectations. But I also never imagined in my worst nightmares the dark side of these bright lights. 

​

We all end up living unexpected lives. 

​

There are hopes and dreams that didn’t materialize that I grieve, but I have been surprised and delighted by other unexpected gifts. And there are hopes and dreams that I am glad did not come to fruition. The unexpected goes both ways. 

​

But these are not the things that make life most unexpected. It’s the truly unexpected things, those we don’t hope for or fear—particularly those that come out of nowhere and break our hearts. You wake up one morning and discover that your life has been changed forever, because of something you did or something someone else did. It’s the things we don’t plan, the things we never imagined would happen. It’s those unexpected events that slap you so hard in the face that you can taste blood in your mouth. 

​

Nobody’s life turns out the way they expect it to. We shouldn’t be surprised. Nobody looks back on life to discover it unfolded exactly as they hoped or planned, but I found myself particularly unprepared for the inevitability of the unexpected. That’s the paradox: It is inevitable that we live unexpected lives. 

Life doesn’t unfold according to our plans. But sooner or later, we each have to decide how we are going to make the most of our one, brief, unexpected life. It is then that we come face-to-face with two enduring truths: We cannot live without hope that things will change for the better, and we are not victims of our circumstances. 

​

Hope is not always as accessible as we would like. It often seems just out of reach at those times when we are most in need of it, when our hearts are broken, our minds downtrodden, and our souls crushed. Yet, even in those moments, we have a choice. The unexpected is either a curse or an opportunity. We get to decide. 

​

​

Wait It Out​

​

There are some situations in life that need to be dealt with. They require action. There are other things in life that we simply need to wait out. This can be excruciatingly difficult. It is much easier to do something, anything, than it is to patiently do nothing. 

​

Knowing when to act and when to wait something out begins simply by being aware that there are two options. Our instinct is to act; we have a bias toward action. This bias blinds us to every other possibility. We often don’t even consider doing nothing as an option. Bold action is beautiful when action is what is needed. Any action is clumsy when what is needed is inaction. 

​

Learning to wait things out is one of life’s greatest lessons, and it can be learned only by waiting things out. Sometimes the wisest thing to do is nothing, it is also often the hardest thing to do. 

​

One of the worst nights of my life was in my twenties in San Francisco. At that time, I was traveling and speaking all the time. Two hundred and fifty days a year began in an airport. Sometimes more. Sometimes you don’t realize how insane something is until you stop doing it. 

​

In the past few days, I had crossed more than forty time zones, and that morning my girlfriend has broken up with me. 

​

Closing the curtains, I blacked out the hotel room, but I was so tired I couldn’t sleep. I was beyond exhausted, and that place is a dangerous place for the heart, mind, and soul. It felt like I was going mad. I was in pain, but I didn’t know where it hurt. It wasn’t physical pain; it was existential pain. There were moments that night when I wished I was dead. I didn’t think about hurting myself. I just wanted that pain to stop. I needed to sleep, but sleep refused to come. 

​

There are some moments in our lives that are so pivotal that we never stop drawing on them for wisdom, courage, and direction. That night was one of them for me. I don’t know what I was in the grips of that night. But I do know it taught me one of life’s most powerful lessons: Sometimes all you can do is wait it out. 

​

Looking back across the years, I am glad for the experience. There have been many more unpleasant experiences I have had to endure, some considerably worse than what I experienced that night. I often find myself reflecting on that night in San Francisco. “All you have to do is wait it out,” I say to myself. “You don’t have to do anything. Just wait patiently and let it pass.” 

​

​

The Dark Night of the Soul​

​

In the sixteenth-century, a Spanish mystic named John of the Cross penned a poem known as Dark Night of the Soul. It narrates the journey of the soul and marks one of the most significant spiritual discoveries of all time. 

​

The dark night of the soul is a spiritual crisis, a form of spiritual depression, an existential quandary. It produces doubt, confusion, and soul sadness. The soul sadness we experience during the dark night is an extreme form of sadness that has no cause or explanation. It also produces a spiritual condition known as desolation. In this state you experience the anguish of complete emptiness. Everything seems meaningless. John of the Cross describes being “lost in oblivion.” 

​

The dark night of the soul annihilates anything you believe about yourself that is not true. Everything is stripped away except your essential self. Your old self is left behind and your new self emerges. And when the darkness lifts, you have clarity like never before, because all that is left is the self you cannot live without and a piercing sense of how to spend the rest of your life. 

​

​

Emptiness​

​

There have been moments of unbelievable abundance in my life, but I have also experienced moments of staggering emptiness. And at this time, I was experiencing a moment of profound emptiness. I had been here before, but never like this. Imagine being hungry and wondering if you will ever have your fill ever again. Not that you will die of starvation, but that you will be hungry for the rest of your life. That’s how I was feeling. 

​

The thing is the emptiness cannot be dealt with once and for all. There are times in life when we feel so satisfied, so full, brimming and overflowing. One of my most vivid memories of contentment and happiness was just after my daughter was born. I was laying on the bed next to her, she was smiling and making baby noises, and I was suddenly overcome by a wave of endless gratitude. I kept hearing that line from Lou Gehrig’s speech at Yankee Stadium over and over in my mind: “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” I was so happy I started to cry. It was one of the highest highs of my life. But in the weeks ahead a series of events unfolded so quickly they gave me spiritual whiplash. Life went from record highs to record lows in breakneck speed. And once again I found myself experiencing a profound emptiness, and wondering, how can such nothingness be so consuming? 

​

We all experience emptiness, and we all have ways of dealing with it. I have dealt with emptiness throughout my life in a variety of ways. They have all been equally ineffective, except one. 

​

I have tried to fill the void with work, pleasure, comfort, things, and plans for the future. But none of these bring satisfaction because these things don’t rightfully belong in the void. When I am finished distracting myself with these things the emptiness is still there. 

​

There is only one approach that has ever worked consistently. I know it works, but still, I resist it, preferring these other distractions to the real solution. We all share in this insanity. If we observe ourselves in these moments, we gain unique insight into the mess. Every day we encounter moments of decision. The better path is clear, but we choose another path. The better path leads to the destination we wish to arrive at, and still, we choose another path. Each time we choose another path, our lives become messier. 

​

Learning to deal with our emptiness in a healthy way is one thing. Choosing to deal with emptiness in a healthy way requires self-awareness and courage. The difference between learning and choosing is akin to the difference between knowledge and wisdom. 

​

I have only found one way that works. This is it. Find a quiet place, sit down, close your eyes, acknowledge God’s presence, breathe deeply, talk to him briefly about how life has left you empty, and ask God to fill you. 

​

I know. It sounds so simple. Too simple. But the simplicity or complexity is irrelevant. All that matters is this: Does it work? 

​

​

Why Is Life So Messy?​

​

It’s a reasonable question. But it’s worth asking whether we really want to know the answer. Perhaps we already know the answer, but we ask the question, hoping that maybe, somehow, the answer will be different. 

​

Life is messy because I am messy. It’s messy because you are messy. Any day now the world’s human population will reach eight billion. We each have our own mess, and of course, if you add all those little messes together it becomes significant. This isn’t necessarily good or bad. It isn’t necessarily a problem. The problem occurs when we try to live as if it isn’t so. 

​

Paul the apostle observed, “The good that I would, I do not; and the evil that I would not, I do.” What was he saying? We don’t do what we say we will do. We don’t do what we intend to do. We often don’t even do the things we most want to do. And worse than that, we often do things we know are bad for us, things we know will hurt other people, things that we know we will regret. And we do all these things even though deep down we don’t want to do them. 

​

Life should be lived with maximum intentionality. But too often we are conflicted and confused. When we act in these states, we usually cause pain and suffering to ourselves and others. Clarity is necessary to live with great intentionality. But finding that clarity is almost impossible in the midst of this crazy, noisy, busy world. That’s why having time in silence and solitude each day is essential. 

​

Why is life messy? Life’s messy because we are messy. But this is not the only reason. Life is messy for reasons that make sense, but it can also be messy in ways that can only be rightly defined as a mystery. 

​

Life is also messy because it can be random and unpredictable. We don’t like random and unpredictable. The illusion of control is one of the most powerful. The reality is that while we can influence a great many outcomes, we are not in control. Despite this indisputable reality, we waste so much energy laboring under the illusion, trying to control people, situations, and outcomes. 

​

Life is messy, but it isn’t just a mess. Life is also wonderful. But this is the perspective that departs us when we are in the thick of the mess. We lose sight of all the good and get consumed by the turmoil we are embroiled in. We are tempted at these times to think that life will never be good again. This is the perspective that steals away our hope. The whole truth is that life is messy, but it is also wonderful and beautiful and awe-inspiring. 

​

When I began scribbling in this notebooks that ultimately became the foundation of Life is Messy, I had lost this more complete perspective and was trying desperately to recover it. I knew I was lost and that was a grace. But that was all I knew in those dark moments. I didn’t know how to get unlost. So, I would write, in hopes that, consciously or unconsciously, I would scribble something down that would point the way toward a brighter future. 

​

Wherever you are in your life, I hope these words and ideas do the same for you. Life is messy because we are messy. The way forward always requires that we take responsibility for our part in the mess. 

​

​

Slow Down​

​

This was the next thing I wrote in my journal, “You are way over the speed limit of life. You need to slow down.” 

​

Life isn’t a race. This is one of those quintessential lessons that we all hear at different times in our lives. We say to ourselves, “Got it.” But we don’t. Enjoy the journey. Another one of those lessons. We tell ourselves, “Got it.” But we don’t. We continue to rush around like maniacs. 

​

But here’s the real problem with racing through life. If you think of life as a race, every step sidewards and backwards, every pause, will seem like it doesn’t belong, like a waste of time.

​

Every step is part of life, and there is life in every step. 

​

Life isn’t a race, it’s a dance. Every step forward and every step back, stepping sidewards and twirling in circles, are all part of the dance we call life. 

​

Great dancers are never in a hurry. They relax into the rhythm, become one with their partners, and experience the exhilaration of the dance. When was the last time your life felt like that? 

​

Simply slowing down improves almost everything in our lives. 

​

​

The Normalization of Evil​

​

What is evil? Evil is defined as profoundly immoral. The definition itself holds the reason for the escalating evil in our world, though it may not be obvious at first. It all hinges on the word immoral.

The word immoral presents an intricate problem for our culture. Morality is almost never mentioned. I can- not recall the last time I heard the mainstream media describe something as immoral. Every type of perversion and depravity has become someone’s personal preference and right. 

​

When we pretend that there is no such thing as right and wrong, good and bad, this will inevitably lead to the proliferation of evil. And it has. 

​

When immorality becomes your morality, you are profoundly lost. And immorality has become the morality of an alarming number of the most influential people in our society. 

​

Our daily consumption of media and entertainment that relentlessly celebrate immorality as personal preference, and depravity as a personal right, has desensitized us to the reality and effects of evil. 

The normalization of every immoral act on television continuously interferes with our moral compass. We can no longer discern true north. How is this normalization of staggeringly grotesque and immoral acts accomplished? Gradually and by repetition. 

​

Track the history of depicting violence, drug use, murder, nudity, and graphic sexual assault in entertainment— with these two themes in mind—and it is easy to see how we ended up here. It happened gradually and with relent- less repetition. It is the story of the frog in boiling water. We are the frog. 

​

This is how we become desensitized to evil. It should be no surprise that we now have generations of morally ambivalent people living value-free lives. This is how every form of evil is permitted to thrive in society: poverty, oppression, destruction, violence, discrimination, corruption and slavery, to name but a few. 

​

The evil you normalize will occur ever increasingly in society.

​

Every age has new storytellers, but one truth endures: We become the stories we read, hear, and watch. Today’s storytellers appear to be committed to the normalization of evil, and by extension the annihilation of human dignity. Not the dignity of some anonymous people, but the annihilation of your dignity, my dignity, and the dignity of our spouses, children, grandchildren, friends, colleagues, and neighbors. Evil is much closer than we suspect. 

​

​

Dehumanization​

​

When you desensitize people to evil you dehumanize people.  Right now, we are witnessing the dehumanization of a whole civilization.

​

When you dehumanize people, it changes the way they treat each other. People begin to debase each other, rather than ennobling each other. For example, brutality debases us, while love and respect ennoble us. Do we live in a society of love and respect or a society of brutality? The question itself is unsettling. The answer is not binary, but still, too much of our society is engaged in various forms of brutality to dismiss the question. 

​

We sterilize every form of brutality by placing it at a distance and depersonalizing it. We prefer hypothetical and philosophical discussions about evil to personal exploration of the topic. But the effects of evil are always deeply personal. 

​

Rape is one of the most brutal acts a person can experience, and one of the most dehumanizing, and it has been increasingly depicted on television. 

​

One in six women in America has been a victim of rape. This is just one statistic. There are dozens that could be cited, one more disturbing than the last. But statistics are cold and distant. They allow us to place evil at a distance. So let me say it another way. One in six of our daughters, wives, sisters, and mothers have been raped. 

​

It is also worth noting that the rape of a male is virtually nonexistent on television, making this particular form of brutality and dehumanization almost exclusively aimed at women in entertainment. The word itself should give us pause: entertainment. Rape as a form of entertainment. Isn’t that what we are talking about in the context of television, movies, and books? Annihilating the dignity of women in this way goes virtually unchallenged. 

​

This is just one example. Evil is real and much closer than we want to acknowledge. But I have never heard of anyone winning a war by pretending they weren’t on the battlefield. Until evil touches us in an inescapably personal way, we either don’t think of it at all or we think of it as something distant. 

​

​

Closer Than You Think​

​

If we really want to understand the mess, we have to explore our role in it. The uncomfortable reality is that we all participate in evil. We avoid acknowledging this by confining our conversations about evil to things that we think we would never do or by avoiding the conversation altogether. But it’s true, we all participate in evil. 

​

Let’s consider the definition of evil again. Evil is defined as profoundly immoral. Have you ever done something that has negatively altered the course of your life or someone else’s? That’s profoundly immoral. 

​

I’ve done it. I did it yesterday. It will take great effort not to do it again today. Most of us participate in evil every day and are oblivious to it. The most common and insidious example is gossip. It is perhaps the everyday evil that has been most normalized. 

​

If you were planning to murder someone, I suspect you would have all types of anxious feelings leading up to the event. But if you murdered someone every day, how long would it be before you no longer had those feelings? Human beings can become desensitized to even the most horrific things, and we have become desensitized to how profoundly gossip affects everyone involved. Most of us don’t think of ourselves as murderers, but it is so easy to murder someone’s reputation with gossip. 

​

The power of speech is unfathomable. Gossip can never be undone. It is cruel, divisive, and demeaning. It alters the way people see another person forever. It robs the victim of dignity and opportunity. 

​

I am ashamed that I have engaged in gossip about others. Even as I write these words, I observe myself sterilizing the act, distancing myself from it with my choice of words: engaged. But I know I have harmed people by participating in this everyday evil. They may never know the harm I have caused them, but that doesn’t make it less so. I know I caused harm to their reputations, and it is impossible for me to know the pain that I caused them or the opportunities they were excluded from because of my gossip. I have also been the coward who sat silently and listened passively, while others assassinated someone’s character. And I have been the fool who piled on when others were gossiping about a person, kicking a man while he was down. 

​

We have all been on the other side of this injustice too. You have suffered at the hands of gossips. I have too. I have been murdered a thousand times by gossip. It’s an occupational hazard for anyone whose work puts them under public scrutiny, but that doesn’t make it easier. 

​

This is why I chose gossip as our example of everyday evil, because I don’t know a single person who hasn’t been the perpetrator and the victim. We have all been on both sides of this evil. 

​

Gossip can destroy a person’s reputation, affect the direction of their lives forever, and shatter their self- esteem. It can also lead to anxiety, depression, addiction, suicidal thoughts, and so many other outcomes that cannot be foreseen. The unintended consequences of gossip are of a different magnitude than the intended consequences. The intended consequences may be micro, while the unintended consequences are macro. Gossip can literally ruin a person’s life. 

​

Let’s look now at the harm gossip causes us. Gossip hardens our hearts. You have to harden your heart toward a person in order to gossip about him or her. This harden- ing of the heart is an unavoidable prerequisite of gossip. But when we harden our hearts toward one person, we harden our hearts toward all people, including ourselves. Gossip therefore leads us to become indifferent to another person’s suffering. This is just one way it dehumanizes us. 

​

Gossip attacks our own self-esteem. Pointing out the faults and imperfections of others only draws attention to our own faults and imperfections. How do you feel when you gossip? You were probably disgusted with yourself in the moment. Did you think more of yourself or less of yourself after gossiping? How do you think it made the person you were gossiping with feel about you? If you do something that causes you to think less of yourself, isn’t it inevitable that others will also think less of you? 

​

Gossip is a destroyer of relationships. It breeds distrust and bitterness. People don’t like people who gossip, and they don’t trust them. Gossip promotes envy and division, and it will ultimately separate us from people. When we gossip, we are announcing to the world that we speak maliciously about others, that we are insecure or feel threatened, and that we cannot be trusted. Gossip divides and destroys. 

Gossip plays havoc with our emotions. It breeds fear, anger, jealousy, paranoia, anxiety, depression, and even hatred. It also leads to loneliness, because knowing that we cannot be trusted leads us to think that others cannot be trusted and that we are all alone in this world. The toxicity of gossip makes our souls sad, and if there is one thing we should pay very close attention to, it’s anything that makes us soul-sad. 

​

Every day we participate in conversations that could easily turn into gossip if we are not careful. How do we know when a conversation crosses that line? We could put together a list that includes speaking negatively or maliciously about someone, making a person appear incompetent or adequate, making public what should be kept private, criticizing or lying about a person, and so on. It would be a long list. But gossip is one of those things, you know it when you see it. 

​

It doesn’t hurt to have a couple of quick litmus tests at the ready to gain clarity as situations are playing out. Will other people think less of the person you are speaking about if you say what you are about to say? Would you like someone else to say those things about you? Reason and motive are also powerful indicators. Why are you saying it? Do you have a valid reason for saying what you are saying? What is your motive for saying it? 

​

When you find yourself on the receiving end of evil you feel ludicrously impotent—because you are. Try to gather up one piece of gossip, just one lie that has been told about you, and you quickly discover how impossible it is to erase gossip from people’s hearts and minds. That’s the thing about evil, it makes you feel helpless, powerless, impotent. 

​

​

The Great Rehumanization​

​

The future of humanity depends on a great movement of rehumanization. This is a vast claim, but I believe it to be true and don’t make it lightly. 

​

What is rehumanization? Rehumanization is an effort to reverse the effects of dehumanization by restoring human dignity, helping each and every person develop a healthy sense of self, and reprioritizing people above money, objects, systems, and institutions. 

​

Rehumanization is about learning to be human again, which may sound strange, but it’s amazing how often and in how many ways the average person experiences dehumanization. 

​

Dehumanization takes many forms. Some things are dehumanizing by their very nature, for example, violence, slavery, abuse, injustice, torture, poverty, sexual abuse, discrimination, gossip, objectification and genocide. There are many other things that can be dehumanizing, such as: work, technology, debt, humor, laws, entertainment, social media, and even education or con- sensual sex. 

​

Anytime the value and individuality of a person are being denied, that person is being dehumanized. And the more someone has been dehumanized, the more that person will operate out of the primal tendencies of fight- or-flight. 

​

The process of rehumanization reminds us what it means to be an individual of worth. It rekindles a healthy sense of personal identity and helps us rediscover our humanity. 

​

Rehumanization is about learning to see ourselves and others as human again. It may sound ridiculous, but you would be amazed at how many ways we have been conditioned not to see ourselves as human beings. One of the most blatant and common examples is our inability to express our needs. To be human is to need, and yet, we have been conditioned to believe that it is not alright to need certain things. 

​

In order to see and value the humanity of another person we have to be able to see and value our own humanity. Learning to accept that we are wounded and broken is essential to the process of rehumanization. Discovering your own brokenness and realizing that you can be put back together and healed to become more beautiful and more lovable than ever before is the summit of rehumanization. 

​

Human beings with a healthy sense of self, when their basic needs are met and their survival is not threatened, want good things for other people. Anyone who wishes another person unhappiness or harm, anyone who doesn’t desire good for others, is in a dehumanized condition.

​

Emotionally healthy human beings desire good for each other. At our best, we are kind, well-meaning, generous, compassionate, benevolent, thoughtful, sensitive, tender, warmhearted, and empathic. 

Empathy is a leading indicator of human flourishing, while lack of empathy is a signal that a person is in a dehumanized state. Empathy is the natural condition for a human being who is mentally, emotionally, and spiritually healthy. This is what it means to be humane. 

​

It is time to turn our efforts toward the great rehumanization of the human family. It’s time to focus on things that support humanization. It’s time to celebrate those things that bring out the best in people. 

To accomplish this, a great shift in our culture is necessary. Our focus on money dehumanizes our relationships by making them transactional. Our focus on things leads us to dehumanize each other by objectifying people. Our focus on appearances dehumanizes our relationships by making them disingenuous. It’s time to move beyond a money-oriented way of life, beyond an object-oriented way of life, beyond an appearance-oriented lifestyle, and create a people-oriented society. 

​

Is there any more urgent task before society today? Which of our problems would not be solved by seeing ourselves and others as human beings again, and treating ourselves and others as human beings of infinite individual value? Let’s put our efforts toward rehumanization. 

​

While we are wasting endless hours on social media or whatever our preferred way of wasting time is, the great suffering in the world goes unaddressed. I think about my own collaboration with evil. I think about the many times I have hurt other people throughout my life—sometimes intentionally, but mostly out of self-absorption and lack of awareness. I think about the ways I have dehumanized others. Two things haunt me when I reflect on these things: the hurt I have caused and the good I could have been doing if I hadn’t been so busy being stupid and selfish. 

​

The subtlest evil of all is the opposite of love. It is diabolical and insidious. It isn’t hatred, there is nothing subtle about hatred. The opposite of love is indifference. It is the Pied Piper that leads millions into despair. But indifference is not a force unto itself in this universe. It can only be expressed by one person to another person, from one group of people to another group of people. Indifference cannot survive in this world outside the human heart. So let us banish it from our hearts. 

​

We have all been indifferent toward the dehumanization of other people, perhaps because we have been dehumanized ourselves. Now is the time to embrace our own rehumanization and champion the rehumanization of every man, woman, and child. 

​

​

Ambassadors of Hope​

​

There is a battle raging in each and every human heart. This battle is between hope and despair and we can tip the balance by embracing the call to become ambassadors of hope. 

​

Many years ago, I was on my way home from work and a friend came to mind. It occurred to me that I hadn’t heard from him for a few days, and I knew he had been having a tough time. (This was before the internet and email.) I have no idea what led me to do so, but I drove to his place on the other side of town to visit him. 

​

When he opened the door, he looked horrible. The place was dark and there was trash everywhere. We opened the curtains to let some light in, and a few windows to get some fresh air circulating. I suggested he shave and take a shower, while I ordered a pizza and tidied up a bit. He resisted for a moment, but I said, “Come on, you’ll feel so much better, and when you’re done the pizza will be here.” We sat on his front porch eating pizza and telling stories, and when we were done, I drove home. 

The next day I opened my mailbox to find this handwritten note from him: “I was going to kill myself last night, but then you stopped by just to say hello, and I thought to myself somebody does care. So, thank you.” 

​

Something like that stops you in your tracks. It reminds you how powerful our actions are and how tragic inaction can be. I knew he had been having a tough time, but I never imagined he would do something so drastic. 

​

Today that man is a doctor. He has a wife and three children, a mortgage and a dog. On that night all those years ago, he was just going through a rough patch. We have never spoken of that evening all those years ago, but he knows, and I know. What do we know? We know that we can call each other at any hour of the day or night, and that we will be there for each other, whatever the need may be. 

The point is our actions can tip the balance between hope and despair. That is a power that should be used often and respected always. 

​

​

Life Is Difficult​

​

Life is difficult. We can accept that or get aggravated, but we cannot change it. The mistake we make, with varying degrees of awareness, is that we believe life should be easy, and that we would be happier if it were. We torture ourselves when we conflate easy with good and difficult with bad. This false belief leads to a clash of the titans between reality and our illusions. 

​

The easy life is a mirage. Those who chase this illusion end up angry, broken, disappointed, cynical, and resentful. Anyone who thinks life should be easy will lack empathy for others in their struggles. They will also lack empathy for themselves when they are being tossed about by life’s difficulties. In the extreme, when their own life gets difficult, they may come to believe there is some- thing wrong with themselves.

The problem isn’t that life is difficult. It is supposed to be difficult. The problem is that we expect it to be easy or we try to make it easy. Life proposes a series of challenges, dilemmas, problems, dissatisfactions, heartaches, and opportunities. How we respond to these events deter- mines the direction and quality of our lives. But we have become so expert at problem-solving, that we think that life itself is a problem to solve. But the “life-is-difficult problem” is unsolvable because it isn’t a problem. 

​

We set out to avoid all difficulty and friction. This is impossible, so we become agitated and angry. We shun anything that will bring us stress. Pain is unacceptable is this paradigm, so each time we encounter it we try to numb it. 

​

All our efforts to avoid the difficulties of life lead us away from everything that is deeply satisfying. If your goal was an easy life, would any of the following be possible? Meaningful relationships, deeply satisfying work, health and vitality, raising children, starting a business, or mastery of a profession or hobby? 

​

What are you avoiding that you should be confronting? 

​

This quest for the easy life leads us into the abyss of comfort. We begin to see comfort as the antidote for anything that is difficult. But soon the comfort turns to pain. I know, it’s a paradox, but it is real. It may not be physical pain, but emotional pain and spiritual angst. We are not made for an easy life, so with each attempt at the easy life we inflict acute emotional suffering upon ourselves. 

​

We now find ourselves at a junction. We can return to reality and face head-on the difficulties of life, or we can allow reality to continue to crash against our illusion of an easy life. Many choose their illusions, but they end up suffering more for their avoidance than they would have suffered if they had simply embraced the difficulties of life. Having abandoned the path that leads to everything deeply satisfying, they become miserably discontented, and spend their lives complaining about everything and everyone. Only a fool makes an easy life his ultimate goal. 

​

When human beings are at their best, they face the difficulties of life head-on. They learn to delay gratification, embrace reality, release illusions, accept responsibility for their lives, and live in the wisdom that the most satisfying experiences are often difficult. 

​

​

Just for the Joy of It 

​

How do you know if you’re a good father?” my friend asked me as we sat on the park bench. Our small children were playing on a playset and the soccer field before us. “You’re a good father!” I replied. 

“You say that,” he persisted, “but that isn’t an answer to the question. How do you know I’m a good father?” He was right. I hadn’t answered the question, and it’s an important one. 

​

“I know you are a good father by the way your children play with other children. They don’t just want to play; they want to play with others. If you brought them here alone, they would be ready to go home after fifteen minutes. But we will sit here for two hours and when we say it’s time to go home, they will beg us for a few more minutes. They delight in playing with others. And I see your kids, they don’t just want to have fun themselves. It’s important to them that everyone else is having fun. They delight not only in their own happiness, but in the happiness of others.” 

​

He didn’t say anything. We just sat there quietly watching our children play. And I started to think to myself, I need to learn how to play again. 

​

So much of what we do, we do out of obligation – real or imagined. So much of what we do, we do because we think we have to. We do so many things in our quest to be efficient. But I sit here watching my children at play in the yard, and almost everything they do, they do simply for the joy of it. 

​

What do you do just for the joy of it? When was the last time you did something just for the joy of it? It is one of the things I admire in people. Many of the people I admire do much of what they do just for the joy of it. There are things they do because they obligated to, and things they do because they promised they would, and there are things they do simply because they are the right things to do. But they have more of these other things in their lives, more of the things they do just for the joy of it.

​

If you look a little closer, you will discover something fascinating. For the most part, they do the same things that everyone else does, but they approach them very differently. They may work as hard as the next person, but they don’t do it just to make money or because they have to, they have found a way to work joyfully. They don’t focus on getting it finished so they can do something else. They focus on enjoying what they are doing and doing it well. What can you do today just for the joy of it?

​

​

Everyone Is Fighting a Hard Battle​

​

My own struggles have led me to become intimately aware that everyone is fighting a hard battle, carrying a heavy burden, and in some way just living from day to day. For hundreds of millions of people, the world is a brutal, sad, unjust, and maddening place. Are my woes less than theirs? I think they are. And still, I know it is unhealthy to try to explain away our own suffering. There is a way to acknowledge the great suffering of others without diminishing our own suffering. 

​

Life is difficult. Not for some people, but for everyone in their own way. People don’t walk around with a sign around their neck that announces what they are struggling with. 

​

“I’m depressed.”
“Yesterday I had a miscarriage.”
“I lost my job two weeks ago, but I don’t know how to tell my wife.”

“My husband just told me he doesn’t love me anymore.” 

“I don’t know if I’m good mother?”
“I’m addicted to drugs.”
“I want to break off my engagement.”
“My son won’t talk to me.”
“I just found out I have cancer.”
“I don’t know what to do with my life.”

People don’t walk around with signs. But everyone’s struggling with something. When we are mindful of this, we are gentler with others. When we forget this, we abandon our humanity. 

​

Everyone you will ever meet is fighting a hard battle, even if it doesn’t seem like it. We measure other people’s lives by their blessings, but we don’t see their hidden burdens. You never know what is going on inside somebody—and everyone has something going on inside them. 

​

When we recognize that someone is fighting a hard battle, we tend to rise to the occasion. It brings out the best in us, and compassion and generosity begin to flow. So next time somebody is upsetting you, frustrating you, annoying you, or ignoring you, take a deep breath and remember that she is fighting her own hard battle. Allow the greatness of your humanity to rise up within you, and act with gentle compassion. 

​

This was among the lessons I learned during this time of turmoil in my own life. It is a mistake to get completely absorbed in our own troubles. When we isolate ourselves, we don’t cut ourselves off from the problems, we cut ourselves off from the solutions. 

​

​

Beautiful Kindness​

​

It was people who ultimately drew me out of my sadness. It wasn’t anything I wrote in my journal, it wasn’t some great thought, and it wasn’t something I did. It was people. 

​

I wrote this in my journal, “She was so kind to me. I was hurt, so wounded, and suffering, and her kindness soothed me. She didn’t even know she was doing it. Her kindness was as naturally a part of her as her eyes and hands were. Her beautiful kindness drew me out of my sadness.” 

​

But there were others too. Friends and family, perfect strangers, people I had known forever and people I had just met, each in their own way gifting me with a beautiful kindness. 

​

One day I was lying on the couch in my study, in a daze, unable to move, held down by a debilitating sadness. Next thing I knew, my little boy Harry climbed up onto the couch and snuggled into me. I held him close, but perhaps he was holding me. The latter, I think. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. Somehow, he knew that. Within ten or fifteen minutes, he had effortlessly lifted me out of that sadness. He knew that too. He kissed the side of my face, rolled off the couch, and disappeared as suddenly as he had arrived. 

​

All the kindness was both random and yet coordinated. Each person was just doing what they felt called to do. Each act seemed random. But the Divine Physician was coordinating every kindness to heal my soul and restore my hope. It was a program of kindness God had designed just for me. 

​

Came the day when I became conscious that in my desperate efforts to survive, I had neglected my own capacity for kindness. It is one of life’s most delightful paradoxes: The more joy we bring to others, the more our own joy expands. 

​

The greatness and beauty of the human spirit is undeniable in kindness. Kindness is beautiful, whether it is the thoughtfulness of a random act of kindness or the heroic kindness that involves great personal sacrifice. Examine the most devastating and disgusting moments in human history and you will find heroic kindness. The greatness of the human spirit often shines brightest when the world is darkest. 

​

The Great Depression drew neighbors close together. They cared for each other, often going without so that their neighbor’s children would have enough to eat. It is thoughtful kindness to share your food with others if you have plenty to eat yourself; it is heroic kindness to go hungry so another can eat. 

World War II was one of the most horrific events in history. Eighty-five million people died. Fifty-seven 

million from activities directly related to the war, and another twenty-eight million died from war-related disease and famine. Still, in the midst of this intense evil, ordinary people were going without and risking their lives with their kindness. Thousands of people risked their own lives to hide Jews from the Nazis. In the process, they reminded these people who were being hunted like animals that all humanity had not been lost. 

​

Viktor Frankl’s experience of the culture within concentration camps provides significant insight. He noticed that there were some Nazi guards who showed kindness to prisoners, while there were some prisoners who would exploit their fellow prisoners for personal gain. Most significantly, he discovered that kindness helped people live longer. Prisoners who focused on themselves and fell into self-pity were significantly more likely to commit suicide or die of starvation even with equal rations. 

​

Beyond the daily acts of kindness there were also heroic acts of kindness. One morning in Auschwitz, after a prisoner had escaped, the guards decided to murder ten prisoners to discourage others from trying to escape. One of the men selected cried out, “My wife! My children!” It was a desperate plea in the face of brutal inhumanity. The guards didn’t care. But one of the man’s fellow prisoners did. “I’ll take his place,” he announced. He stared directly into the face of Nazi brutality and provided an epic moment of kindness. In the face of cold indifference, it was a moment of glowing love. His name was Maximilian Kolbe. 

​

We also see the enormity of the human heart whenever there is a natural disaster. Aid and relief pour in from around the world. Wherever there is suffering and pain, caused by evil or circumstances like natural disaster, there are always people doing their part, however small, to bring kindness to the situation. They refuse to let what they can’t do interfere with what they can do. 

​

In a world that can be cold, harsh, violent, and at times brutal, kindness proves that our humanity has a better side, a side that is caring and gentle, a side that can rise above almost anything. 

​

Kindness is one of the utterly beautiful expressions of our humanity. Everyday kindness, random acts of kindness, and heroic moments of kindness banish fear, soothe pain, revive hope, and restore our faith in humanity. There are times in our lives when we desperately need to feel the touch of kindness. And there are times when what we need more than anything else is to extend this beautiful kindness to another. 

​

The power of kindness is undeniable. It is one of your superpowers. Unleash it in your life and watch the domino effect of goodness that it sets off around you and within you. In the darkness, I discovered that even when we are paralyzed by pain, we are still capable of love, goodness, generosity, and the beautiful kindness that reminds us all what it means to be human. 

​

​

Mourning the Life that Could Have Been

​

In order to embrace the unexpected life, we need to mourn the life that could have been. Perhaps a dream didn’t come true. Perhaps someone you loved died. Per- haps you were in an accident, deceived and manipulated by someone you trusted, or got your heart broken. What- ever the cause, the life you hoped and expected to live is gone now, and all that is left is the unexpected life. 

Grieving is just one part of the healing process. The five stages of grieving are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It’s a very neat and tidy process, isn’t it? The reality of course is that life is messy, and we are intimately aware of that when we are grieving. 

​

The process of grieving the life that could have been doesn’t end. It diminishes over time and requires less emotional and psychological energy, but the smallest reminder of what you have lost can put you right back there again. 

​

When we suffer trauma or loss, we are stunned and can become numb. After the initial shock wears off, we can experience stress, disorientation, anger, anxiety, and depression. We can also fall into self-blame. We all adopt various coping mechanisms, some healthy and others unhealthy. We may think and say things like, “I just want to move on” or “I’m ready to put this whole thing behind me.” But you can’t just move on. You have to deal with it. Physical wounds get worse and can become life-threatening if you ignore them. Emotional wounds respond in exactly the same way. So do psychological and spiritual wounds. If you don’t attend to your wound, it will begin to fester, causing discomfort at first, then pain, and will ultimately lead to the distortion of your personality. 

​

And you can’t just put the whole thing behind you. It’s part of who you are now. You will absorb it into your life and process it in either a healthy or an unhealthy way. You may be able to control your emotions for a time, but grief affects the whole person: physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. 

​

Don’t ignore the fact that you have been hurt. You may have been hurt by someone else, you may have hurt yourself. Whatever the case may be, acknowledge the pain and suffering that have been caused. 

​

You may not want to appear vulnerable and weak. We should never want to appear to be anything other than what we are. When we make decisions based on how we want to appear to be, we make bad decisions. 

​

When horrible things happen to us, we want to believe that there is a proper way to deal with the experience, to process it, to heal from it. Maybe there is and maybe there isn’t. One thing is for sure and that is this: It is messy. 

​

Mourn the life that could have been if your dream had come true, if your baby hadn’t died, if you had not been betrayed, if your spouse had not divorced you, if you hadn’t made such a devastating mistake, if you hadn’t gotten sick. Mourn that life. It is a prerequisite for dis- covering the exquisite possibilities that still lay ahead. 

​

​

The Past​

​

During times of turmoil, we may feel like we are being pulled in two directions, into the past and toward the future. 

​

Don’t fear the past. You are not what has happened to you. You are not what you have accomplished. You are not even who you are today, or who you have become so far. You are also who and what you are still capable of becoming. You are your realized and unrealized potential. God sees you and all your potential, and he aches to see you embrace your best, truest, highest self. He yearns to help you and to accompany you in that quest.

​

Don’t let your past define you. It may be helpful to glance in the rearview mirror from time to time, but if you keep your gaze there for too long you will crash. 

​

Allow the past to serve you. Don’t let it rob you of your now. Don’t let it steal your future. Delve into it occasionally to learn more about yourself, but avoid lingering there for too long. If you sense you may be lingering in the past in an unhealthy way, ask yourself, how is this serving me?