One of the most memorable moments for me on our Disney Trip was little 4-year-old Olivia (well, not so little anymore…but she will kinda always be my little Olivia) on Splash Mountain. Happily for her, she is 40 inches now, so just tall enough for most of the rides at Disneyland.
As we were going through that first tunnel, and everything for a moment was pitch black, I realized then that maybe I had reason to worry that this ride might be a bit too much for my girls (not sure why I wasn’t fazed as we lined up – I think all I could see was, there’s some water, and the sun is hot etc. etc.).
That’s when I hear little Olivia’s very loud voice call out: “HA HA HA, It’s SO Scary, HA HA HA!”
Her voice (and her little face –the one with the pink hair…I will explain the hair later :)!) is filled with delight, and any fear for them in my heart is quickly dissipated and likewise filled with delight.
A team of worship leaders at New Joy Church (Sarah Lee, Jimmy Yi, and Jon McKay) wrote a song last year (I think…can someone correct me if I’ve got this wrong?), “Beloved Generation,” which features these lines in its bridge:
“We laugh in the face of darkness
We laugh in the face of fear
We laugh in the face of the enemy
We are free, we are free!”
These lines run through my mind whenever I think of Olivia’s words…because literally, she was laughing in the very same breath that she was declaring that the situation causing her to laugh was “scary” – laughing in the face of darkness and laughing in the face of fear.
Created for Challenge…
I’ve been meditating on this and thinking about how we all need a little bit of “fear” in our lives—a little bit of challenge, of mystery, or uncertainty–for our lives to be exciting, invigorating, thrilling…and fun… Or else, if our lives seem endlessly mundane, we can literally die a little bit inside every day, whether from boredom, or insignificance, stagnancy…
In an interview Oprah conducted with Tony Robbins, both of them agreed that to be thriving in life, to be truly happy, we need to always be either growing or giving. From their position of strength in life (I think overall it’s safe to say that both have done quite well living these 2 things out…), I think this is a good summary of what I always hoped for my own life, and to impart on people I’ve counselled or lead or pastored or ministered to….
Before I always more understood this from a position of brokenness that I was continually growing out of. I had a lot of growing that I needed to do, to be able to even live what might otherwise seem like a normal life to outsiders, like wanting to get up each day, and wanting to live…and wanting to get married, and have kids, and make decisions that build a beautiful life and not be scared of the possible implications or responsibilities that come with all of this. But in this constant striving to grow, I do believe that I was able to find a deep joy in the process, in walking with God and needing to rely on God and see Him lead me and always come through on His promises to me each step of the way. I literally have only ever felt “bored” maybe once or twice in my life, and even then, only for brief moments.
Whenever I felt challenged to lead or counsel or pastor people who I perceived as much-better adjusted than myself – i.e. not coming out of broken families or abuse or anxiety-stricken homes (because honestly no one comes from a perfect home or has no brokenness to deal with, just varying degrees)—I felt like God would give me this picture of, when our own personal brokenness is dealt with enough that it really doesn’t need to be a focus, then what happens is there is all this room and potential in our hearts and lives to be able to carry other people’s burdens—and that is something we need wisdom and discretion for picking and choosing and having good boundaries, because the burdens and needs of other people is virtually unending. This, I think, is about giving. And really, if we don’t really need at the time to be growing personally, then there is an infinite amount of growing in giving, or growing in order to be able to give even more…
Ultimately, I believe that our lives are not meant to be lived without growth, without challenge… According to 2 Timothy 1:7 (NIV), “God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.”
Our Need for “Just Enough” Challenge…
An important factor in pursuing this in life is being able to discern how much challenge is enough, how to be “living on the edge” so to speak, without becoming overwhelmed, without being taken places emotionally where “thrill” is a lot more like anxiety, and fear entering in versus being in a place of laughing at fear. How to refuse to live a life that is underwhelming, yet have the wisdom and discernment and necessary boundaries in place that we do not veer too far on the flip side to a life that is overwhelming.
Going back to Olivia on Splash Mountain – if this ride had been not as scary, there probably would have been no reason for her to declare “it’s so scary,” with or without the laughter couching the declaration (note that this response was not elicited by any of the other rides, be it the teacup ride which she also thoroughly enjoyed, or the race cars etc.). However, if my own fears for the girls had been justified, and the ride was too scary, there would have been no laughter, but rather tears and screaming and protests for the duration of the ride and likely for an hour or so afterwards (and the possible consequence of being scarred from roller-coasters for however long a time it would take to convince them to try one again after the fear had subsided if it didn’t develop into a phobia).
And so, hopefully you can see with me, how this is kinda a tricky subject for how God has created our varied and ever-developing human hearts.
Keys for Living a Life with Just Enough Challenge…
I believe the keys to figuring out how to be able to live on the edge is (1) self-discovery and understanding, (2) self-acceptance, and (3) self-care.
(1) Self-discovery and understanding
In the field of psychology, there is a famous “lemon juice test” that has been used to illustrate personality differences when it comes to level of extroversion/introversion. The amount of saliva someone produces after putting a drop of lemon juice on his or her tongue in some way demonstrates how the same amount of stimulation (the drop of lemon juice) can produce varying levels of response from different individuals (the amount of saliva produced). So, to one person, a drop of lemon juice is more than enough to satisfy or, if the taste is experienced as too strong, to cause a negative reaction. Another person, supposedly more extroverted or just generally in need of and search of more stimuli to experience excitement, will produce comparatively little saliva in response to the one drop.
Basically, the point this illustrates is simply that we are all different in terms of how much activity and adventure is just right. We need to know how much stimulation we need to be in that “happy” place between underwhelmed-ness and overwhelmed-ness.
I have found that this “amount” of activity can also vary personally, depending on different stages of life and different social contexts (age, working or not working, single or married, before and after having children and their respective ages, etc.), and can be affected by such basic things as how healthy I am eating as well as whether or not I am exercising regularly. I also tend to need a variety of different types of activity to be happy – need a good balance of different kinds of work and recreation, fun activities, rest and relaxation, and also some challenges that are just outside my comfort zone…
(2) Self-acceptance
A key to self-discovery is self-acceptance. We have to be able to accept who we are, just as we are, so that there aren’t all these unfair and unnecessary expectations and prejudices preventing us from being able to see, know and understand ourselves accurately.
We have to understand that there isn’t some outside standard we are needing to aspire to, because in God’s infinite wisdom and creativity, He purposed to make us all different. How much activity and challenge and stimulation each of us was designed to handle or to crave has, although we may not ever fully understand this side of Heaven, is not some contest or moral debate (things like laziness and sluggishness, or recklessness and irresponsibility, are in my opinion a different issue altogether—symptoms of something not quite right). As far as personality characteristics and differences go, I believe we are all uniquely created to be just right for the lives that God has planned for us, for the destinies we are called to fulfill, to steadily move and grow towards, and for the journeys we are to live along the way.
Personally, this is something I find myself having to remind myself from time to time, especially when I’m finding myself chronically stressed or frustrated, when I’m waking up (or unable to get out of bed) because I’m overwhelmed, or when I’m unhappy and feeling like my life is “all work, and no play,” or “there just doesn’t seem to be enough time for me.” When I get into these mindsets, I usually find at the root is that I’ve been trying to live and schedule my life not so much according to what is right for me, but according to what I perceive as some “ideal” life or schedule that I’m “supposed” to strive to live. And what is preventing me from scheduling my days and weeks more according to what I would like or what works best for me is this feeling of inadequacy or guilt over not being able to “keep up” with what I think I “should” be able to keep up with.
So, bottom line is, I have to realize that it is perfectly fine to just be me =)
And even if one day I may be more organized or more available or more able to just handle more (i.e. my kids will be more grown, or I will be healthier as I implement healthier eating and exercise habits, or there will simply be more disposable income to take care of certain things or do more other things), for now I can be—and really need to learn to be—content and happy with where I am in life now, just as I am now.
(3) Self-care
When I was in university, my brothers and sister got me “The Sims” as a present once. They were quite pleased to have found a computer game that seemed to suit me, as that was a pastime they all enjoyed together, but which I found it difficult to enjoy enough to prioritize time to play. As a psychology major, I enjoyed that the whole point of the game was developing people, building their lives, having them balance their schedules to include time for work and play and socializing and rest.
What I remember being quite annoyed at, however, was the inability to multi-task (you could only select one action at a time), and the amount of time it took to do these necessary tasks such as cooking and then eating, and using the toilet, washing hands, taking a shower, brushing teeth, changing clothes, and sleeping enough to actually be rested for the next day. And then there is the matter of throwing out trash – you have to throw out trash one piece or pile at a time. And depending on where you have placed the trashcan (or trashcans…I decided I had to purchase multiple trashcans to not go crazy), the time it takes to walk to the trash and pick it up, and then walk to the trashcan and throw it away…Well, these were not things I thought should be taking up so much of the limited time allotted per day.
When I’m in one of my ruts of trying to do as much as I possibly can, forgetting to respect my limits and legitimate needs, one of my default tactics of making this “work” is cutting back on sleep, and sometimes mealtimes, and sometimes, when I’m really being neglectful of my limits, even personal grooming beyond the necessity… thus, there have been those days I would rush my girls to school without having put on my makeup or even brushing my hair. I’m blessed to have friends (and a husband) who love me even when I am not at my best, but seriously, I have had to make myself stop and think several times that at my age, I really should have mastered the art of personal grooming by now.
More than that, I’ve been reflecting a lot this past year on the inherent value of certain things that may not be so obviously valuable (well, at least it wasn’t so obvious to me before). For example, investing in one’s appearance (beyond what is practical or professionally required) used to seem to me like a frivolity or some extra indulgence. Or playing games, or investing in hobbies. These all just seemed like “extras” that were unnecessary, and that as a “responsible” person I should learn to minimize in my life in favor of what seemed more obviously productive.
A 2003 article in Psychology Today on “The Price of Depression” reported a calculated cost of $44 billion in the United States based on labor loss due to depression (likely, as trends tend to go, this price tag has exponentially grown since then). Whether or not you agree with the accuracy of this number, the point that can be agreed upon is that the cost of what we might otherwise try to just brush off as emotional blues is actually quite high to our society, and to us individuals and families that are affected by it.
So, on the flipside, all things in life that play some role of combatting depression, or of lifting our spirits (in a productive, non-addictive, non-mind-chemical-altering manner with health and danger implications), carry with them huge value as well.
Personally, I know that when I’ve taken the time to put on my make-up, brush and style my hair, and possibly even dressed myself in an outfit that has been thoughtfully purchased and planned out, I am in a much different—and better—place or mindset to face the day ahead. Perhaps the price tag I had to invest (in the outfit, or my makeup, or my hair etc.) was higher than if I chose to neglect or go cheaper in these areas of my life—as long as it’s all still within budget so it doesn’t contribute to the negative states of financial burden and stress—but if the “return” includes joy and confidence, then it is quite reasonable to expect that the cost will be quickly recovered by improved mood which contributes directly to increased capacity and productivity in life.
Hopefully you are able to get my point, that prioritizing self-care is a crucial part of living our lives the very best that we can, not just in terms of being able to “enjoy” our lives, but also in terms of being at our very best and therefore capable of giving our very best, whatever we may discover that to be in the various stages of our lives. (Remember that part of the second greatest commandment implies a need to love ourselves, because we can only really love our neighbors as much as we have learned to love and care for ourselves, Matthew 22:39.)
Closing Remarks
Sorry if this was a lot of rambling for one small topic from my Disneyland experience – So much has been happening since, but I just really wanted to share on this as it’s been mulling over in my mind and life, and I still have a few more pretty significant revelations from that trip, before moving on… Perhaps will find a way to interweave the present (summer break has begun!) with that trip, or…just will write as opportunities and thoughts come to me.
Will update everyone summary of life events soon… In the meantime, I hope everyone is able to find some time to get out and enjoy the sun 🙂
Oh, and…remember to stay hydrated! I haven’t scientifically proven this although there’s probably a study out there somewhere, but I’m pretty sure we can all handle more drops of lemon juice when we are well hydrated versus when we’re not 😉