Introspection: The Purposeless Undriven Life

I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.

The Purpose(less) (un)Driven Life

Scripture:

So be careful how you live; be mindful of your steps. Don't run around like idiots as the rest of the world does. Instead, walk as the wise! Make the most of every living and breathing moment because these are evil times. So understand and be confident in God's will, and don't live thoughtlessly.

Ephesians 5:15-17 (The Voice)

Yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead
Yesterday is a promise that you've broken
Don't close your eyes, don't close your eyes
This is your life, and today is all you've got now
Yeah, and today is all you'll ever have
Don't close your eyes, don't close your eyes

This is your life: Are you who you want to be?
This is your life: Are you who you want to be?
This is your life: Is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose?

From "This Is Your Life" by Switchfoot

In the summer of 2007, I had a part-time job at the university from which I had recently graduated, and I was looking for something more permanent. I attended a job fair, and, when I saw the intimidating job requirements for computer-programming jobs at local businesses, I began to feel as though I was ill-equipped for the job market, despite having a bachelor's degree in computer science. Afraid I would be unable to find a job, I decided to take some daytime classes at a local technical college in order to pad my resume.

As soon as I started taking these classes, I was contacted by a small business in my town. After a couple of meetings, I was offered a job as a software engineer. My future boss and my future supervisor then informed me that they would not allow me to work part time while I finished my courses. I had my heart set on finishing these courses, and it was already too late for me to drop the classes and receive a refund. I didn't want to abandon my classes, and I had a bad feeling about the company, but, without any work experience as a programmer, what option did I have but to accept the job offer? Upset and frustrated, I drove to my alma mater to take a walk around campus. I decided to take the job, and, luckily, my instructors allowed me to finish the courses online.

It has been nearly five years since I faced that difficult decision, but many times since then I have found myself returning to the walkways of my alma mater to clear my head, to collect my thoughts, or to simply get some much-needed exercise. The cultivated landscape of the campus juxtaposed to the untamed overgrowth of the surrounding woods evokes a sense of oneness and harmony between humanity and the Creator.

Last week, I visited the campus once again for a customary walk. As I turned a corner and was struck with the vivid green of the trees and the grass, I felt a twinge of sadness within my heart. To be honest, this was not an isolated incident: it is actually somewhat common for me to feel a little sad when I walk around campus. At first, I thought that the sadness resulted from nostalgia, for so often I find myself wishing that I could turn back time to when I was a freshman in college and relive my college experience.

As I took a closer look at my feelings last week, I realized that the sadness I felt was not from nostalgia but rather from regret. I want to turn back the clock, not so I can relive my college years, but so I can redo my college years.

In May of 2009, when I attended the Salkehatchie Summer Service¹ young-adult camp for the first time, I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon at the beach. As I walked on the beach, I saw a jellyfish that had washed up with the tide. I was reminded of an illustration I heard from one of my teachers when I was in school. Jellyfish typically don't swim: they simply float with the current. Because of this, they sometimes end up in undesirable situations, stranded on the beach to die, for example. Similarly, people should not float through life aimlessly, else they might suffer a fate similar to a beached jellyfish.

I had come to a personal understanding of that analogy, because I had been floating through life. The truth is that I had no ambitions, no aspirations, no hopes, no dreams, and no plans for my life: I simply did what was expected of me. I was always expected to attend college, so I attended college. I majored in computer science because it would enable me to get a job, as I was expected to do, though I knew, deep down, that I didn't really want a job in that field. I did what was expected of me, not putting any thought into what I truly wanted to do. I floated through college, and, instead of pursuing a life I truly loved, I became another "working class hero."

A few months after I graduated from college, I accepted a job as a computer engineer with a casino vendor. One evening shortly after I accepted this job, I took another walk around my alma mater and found myself feeling somewhat lost. I had done everything that was expected of me: I finished college and found a job. Now what? The recurring aches I experience while walking around campus had begun.

As time went by, my first job as a computer programmer turned out to be a job I really did not want, a job I hated telling people I did, a job I could not take seriously, a job that demanded more from me than I was willing to put into it. It was at this time in my life I realized the error of my ways. By floating through college, I had let a world of opportunities slip through my hands.

Each participant at the work camp I attended was asked to try to find a symbol that represented his or her experience. I chose the stranded jellyfish I had seen and confessed to everyone that I had floated through life and ended up somewhere I did not want to be. I told everyone that we all need to find the divine current in life, the path Christ has prepared for us, and to swim with it with all we have.²

This is why I experience feelings of longing when I take walks at my alma mater. This is why I want to rewind my life and redo my college experience. To be honest, I would actually need to rewind my life a few years beyond that. Not only did not fully engage my college experience, I did not fully engage my high-school experience either. For eleven years, I went to a religious school with strict rules and a "hellfire-and-brimstone" theology. I graduated at the top of my class, but, by the time of my senior year, I had already "checked out" in every other way. I feared hell more than I loved God, and I felt that, if I were to truly be a Christian, I would not enjoy life very much.

Furthermore, during my senior year I failed to prepare for college. I did not take the SAT until March, so it was already too late to apply to the colleges of choice, and I still did not have a driver's license. I ended up taking a year off between high school and college, and, besides being accepted to the only college to which I applied, the only thing I accomplished that year was completing driving lessons.

I wish I could rewind the last fourteen years - the latter half of my life - and do everything over again, knowing what I know now. I wish I had worked out my religious issues so that I could truly make the most of my high-school experience. I wish I had entered college with some sense of direction in life so that I could find a true calling and not just a job.

Jesus once told a story about three people who are each entrusted with a large sum of money. Two of them invest their money aggressively and double the amount they were given, while the third plays it safe and buries his money. When their boss returns, the first two are rewarded, and the third is severely punished.³ In this story, the rich man divvies up his money in amounts ironically called talents, but I believe that this parable is about so much more than how people should invest their money or their abilities. I am convinced that this story is about how people are called to invest their entire lives.⁴

Some people seek out their passion, that thing that drives them; they grab life by the horns; and they pursue their calling with all the gusto they can muster. These are the people represented by the first two servants who invest their talents boldly. These are the people who truly invest the lives God entrusted to them. Meanwhile, there are other people who simply drift through the currents of the world around them or end up burying themselves in a meaningless rut, letting life pass them by. Like the useless third servant, they bury all of their God-given potential and waste their lives.

I confess that, for much of my life, I have lived like the useless third servant, for I buried myself just like the servant buried his talent. I didn't do the hard work necessary to figure out what drives me, and I didn't seek out the path God was calling me to take in this life. I wasn't bold or adventurous enough to seek out new opportunities or to explore the God-given potential that lay sleeping within me.

Sadly, I will never have the chance to go back into the past to fix the mistakes I made in my life. I will never be able to recover the years I wasted drifting through life. I am still living with the regret of wasting the opportunities I was offered when I was younger. The good news, though, is that I do not have to keep making the same mistakes I made in the past. I am still alive, so it is not too late for me to do something with my life.

I am thankful that God gave me the opportunity to work in the gambling industry, for it taught me the consequences of living without purpose or direction in life. When I was laid off from that job, I sought another programming job, but I put more thought into where I wanted to work. I found a job in higher education, and, though I cannot say I am passionate about my job, I can say that now I take pride in what I do. Also, since I realized the error of my ways, I have unearthed and developed parts of myself that lay dormant, and this blog is proof of that. Thankfully, I have people in my life who believe in me and are pushing me and encouraging me as I explore these new pathways in my life.

In Jesus' story, the rich man invited the two servants who invested boldly to "enter into the joy of [their] master." The rich man sent the lazy third servant "into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."⁵ I can personally attest to the fact that, when one drifts through life into a dark place where he or she does not want to be, there is indeed a great deal of "weeping and gnashing of teeth." I can also attest to the fact that there is indeed joy in finding meaning and purpose in what one does.

I am convinced that usually the things we leave undone will come back to haunt us more than our missteps.⁶ To you the reader, I encourage you not to drift through life, but to live with purpose. If you are drifting right now, realize that, like a jellyfish stranded on the beach, you might end up somewhere you do not want to go. Instead, find what drives you and pursue your calling with all you have. If you have missed out on opportunities in the past, realize that regret does not have to be the end of the story, for while you are yet alive it is not too late to turn your life around.


Notes:
1 - http://www.salkehatchie.org/
2 - To read what I said that night, see my introspection "Jellyfish and Currents."
3 - Matthew 25:14-30
4 - For more thoughts on this reading of the Parable of the Talents, see my perspective "A Life, Unearthed."
5 - Matthew 25:23,30 (NRSV)
6 - If you want to see my scriptural basis for this belief, read all of Matthew 25.

The photograph of the landscape was taken by me at Furman University.  The photograph of the jellyfish was taken by Lee R. Berger and is used under the GNU Free Documentation License.


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