We steer our kids toward career success when we should be steering them toward moral joy. And so when you lead a life according to bad values, both as an individual and a society, you wind up in the ditch, you wind up isolated, alone, and we look around our country and see a country that's fragmented, where people are hostile to each other, depression rates rising, suicide rates rising, a lot of tribalism.
So I once told college students that your life is defined by your moment of greatest adversity and how you react to it.
Suffering reminds you we're not the person we think we are. It carves beneath what we thought was the floor of the basement of our soul and it carves through that and reveals a cavity below. And it carves through that and reveals a cavity below. Meaning in the moments of suffering, we feel more deeply and we see into ourselves more deeply. And we can see down to the depths that each of us has in ourselves. You realize that only relational and spiritual food is going to fill those depths. And so suddenly you're vulnerable. Suddenly you're open to having more emotions. You're open to the kind of love that actually does transform a life.
Most of us make several of four big commitments. One of four, maybe all four of four. We commit to a spouse and family, we commit to a philosophy or faith, to a vocation and to a community. And the fulfillment of our lives depends on how well we commit to those things.
Kindness is a skill. It's knowing how to listen. Each person has so many layers.
Let's stop seeing ourselves as individual choosers, who have a solitary journey through life. Let's put relationships first, see ourselves emerging out of relationship, devoting to relationship.
(From an interview with Boyd Matheson)
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