My psychologist husband Bob often wants my opinion on books that pass across his desk. This one--Passionate Marriage, by David Schnarch--I grabbed. And I found that it offers some wisdom that applies to more than marriage.
From page 297: "We have the fantasy that we have the choice between being anxious or not. Unfortunately, we don't. Our choice is one anxiety or another. Do something scary--or face problems from not doing it. Make an error by commission--or omission. Face the anxiety that things will change--or stay the same. Do...things you've never done--or forfeit that taste of life. Face the anxiety of growing up--or the terror of living life as a perpetual child."
I decided somewhere in my college years that life was sufficiently daunting that going for broke hardly adds to the risk at all. I've certainly wavered on that many a time. Yet I still hold to it, act on it as much as I can.
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2 comments:
I, too, have always tried to risk living as close to my passions and values as possible. The problems come when you have kids. It's one thing to take risks when you're messing with your own life. It's different when your actions affect other people's lives, especially those who are dependent on you. Some of the trade-offs I've made to live my life in accordance with my desires have negatively affected my kids, especially when it comes to doing without material goods. We are a society that values what you own and I know there are times my kids have felt excluded because they don't have the same level of 'goods' as others. There are times they haven't been invited places because my lifestyle is out of the mainstream. But I don't see any other way to live. We all have to create our lives, and if we don't create it according to what's true in our hearts, what's the point? In some ways it would've been easier if I'd been born with the soul of an acocuntant, and was content to watch TV on the weekends in my house on a cul de sac. Easier, but nto more interesting.
You're sure right about kids making a difference. I don't have children and that simplifies such questions for me.
What you describe seems to me a matter of conflicting passions. No easy answers there.
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