Selfishness 2

We're in the midst of examining a criticism that "good" people don't focus on their own wants and needs, but focus on the needs and wants of others. Previously, we acknowledged that shame can cause us to think that we are not worthy of having our needs and wants met, and we asserted that if we want to be fully alive human beings, it's important for us to recognize the worthiness of our own vision for our lives and the world around us.

There are a couple of other points we need to consider from critics, however, including the belief that we harm other people by focusing on what we want -- essentially, that everyone cannot simultaneously have their wants and needs met. We should also address the argument that Jesus or some other legendary spiritual leader offers a model of self-sacrificial living. In fact, let's tend to that last point first and then move on to the idea that it costs someone else when we focus on what we most deeply want.

Throughout the history of some religious traditions, suffering has been equated with righteousness or worthiness. This began because the people who engaged in those religious practices were marginalized in their particular society, and they had to do something to explain their suffering in the face of a belief that they were set apart -- "chosen" by their god. Either their god was malicious or powerless, or there was some greater reason for their suffering as marginalized people. Even though some such religious traditions have become more powerful -- even oppressive -- practitioners often still cling to the idea that they are persecuted. Their persecution makes them like a beloved spiritual leader of mythology, and thus their suffering marks them as more holy -- chosen or set apart by their loving god who values their suffering for some reason.

The fact of the matter is that this coping mechanism creates tons more harm than well-being. Liberal and feminist theologians especially have written quite a bit on the damage done by the belief that suffering makes one more acceptable, lovable, or worthy in the eyes of a deity. Self-sacrifice can be a powerful gesture, but only when it is an intentional choice that one makes to nurture a system toward wholeness. Giving up one's personal safety, in and of itself, does not nurture anything. Choosing between what feels safe and what one actually wants for the world -- a personal creative life dream -- can be worth the risk. There is a big difference.

Even when one looks at the example of Jesus, for instance, the model of behavior is not self-sacrificial. There is an abundance of examples in the gospel narrative of Jesus going off by himself for solitude. He chooses to fast on occasion, but he never goes hungry when he actually needs to eat. He reprimands people who don't behave the way he wants them to, and he thinks highly enough of his own ideas that he challenges the rationale of religious authorities. He even chastises his disciples when they don't meet his needs or wants. There are moments in which the Jesus of the gospel narratives is downright arrogant, and there is no reason for us to criticize the self-assurance of someone who has conviction about what will bring wholeness to the world. The lessons of the teachings attributed to Jesus have little to do with self-sacrifice and lots to do with being aware of one's own power to transform one's own life and the lives of others.

Too often, believers seem to focus on one episode at the end of the story, in which religious and political leaders abuse their power with violent retribution toward a person who upsets the status quo. They invent in their heads a Jesus who could have resisted such power, making him a willing sacrifice rather than a victim of oppressive and fear-filled authorities. Yet this behavior is in contrast to the rest of the stories told about the life and actions of a bold and self-confident Jesus who is consistently willing to express what he wants people to do and how he wants people to think.

Anyone who includes self-sacrifice into their religious values is choosing to imagine that their own wants and needs are inconsequential, which is the same thing as denying their inherent worth and dignity. Some religious traditions thrive on telling people lies about being unworthy, unacceptable, and unlovable -- perhaps making their invented deity look all the more magnanimous for deigning to love such wretches. Do you know how people create wholeness when they think of themselves as inherently unworthy, unacceptable, and unlovable? They don't. Why would they? Their self-image is dominated by weakness and powerlessness. This image of humanity is flawed, fear-driven, and useless, except to those that like having an easy time manipulating the masses. That's the one thing to be said for teaching people that they are weak and worthless -- it makes them a lot easier to control.

Contrast that with people who believe in their own inherent worth and dignity -- who believe in their own capability and beauty and creativity. People who recognize personal responsibility in their lives ought also recognize that they have the power to wield that responsibility thoughtfully. This means taking the consequences of one's action into consideration. Powerless people don't have choices, but people who are willing to recognize their own power also recognize the ability to choose actions that nurture wholeness in their lives and the lives of those around them. Really, it's the people who live into an identity of being weak, unlovable, powerless, and unworthy who are harmfully self-indulgent.

There is something that gets in the way of creating wholeness, though, even for those people who recognize their own worth and power and responsibility. Fear. Just as shame convinces us of lies about ourselves, our fear gets in the way of living life as fully as we could. Our fear convinces us that we need certain things in order to be safe, or to prove how lovable or acceptable we are. And we wind up doing the things that placate our fear rather than doing the things we actually want most deeply. Most people don't ever think about what they want for their lives and the lives of those around them because they never get past thinking about what they have to do to be safe, or heard, or respected, or loved, or successful. We don't really know what we want more deeply because we never get past wanting to be free of our anxiety.

From this perspective, the criticism is absolutely true: Everyone cannot go about alleviating their fears without hurting anyone else. Focusing on our anxiety and trying to make it go away as quickly as possible almost always means we hurt someone else in the process. We also hurt ourselves. Letting fear control us is not the same as tending to what we most deeply want. We don't actually get what we most deeply want by indulging our fear. We need a way to get past our fear and anxiety, and get to the heart of what we really want for our own lives and for the world. And we need a way to know when it is our fear talking and when it is something deeper within us that longs for wholeness.

The criticism of selfishness really doesn't hold up when we consider the full implication of intentional people living with integrity to their deepest values. Certainly, when we think of the typical fearful behavior of human beings on reactive autopilot, self-indulgence is harmful. That isn't what we're talking about when we encourage living into a best possible version of oneself, or developing a meaningful creative life dream. If our passion is nurturing the world toward wholeness, we have to be competent at nurturing wholeness in our own lives. Respecting our own needs, valuing our own vision, caring for ourselves -- these are behaviors of personally responsible human beings, and it takes personally responsible human beings to create wholeness.

Asking the Right Questions -- Purpose

In addition to inventing and answering questions about an afterlife, religion presumes to answer questions about purpose. We've seen that we can meaningfully reframe afterlife-focused questions as "How do I live in such a way that I'll be satisfied with the influence I have in the world and with the legacy I leave behind?" We can also phrase questions of purpose without religious assumptions, and answer them more legitimately.

Believers who assume the existence of a supernatural seem to find it perfectly acceptable to ask, "What purpose does God have for my life?" or "What is God's plan for me?" Asking the question in this way accomplishes a few things. First, it suggests that our activities are part of a larger intentional scheme, coordinated by a better-than-human benevolent intelligence. It also removes personal responsibility for determining purpose, since it becomes the responsibility of a supernatural. In addition, it can provide a false sense comfort during challenging experiences to believe that everything is part of a larger plan or purpose that is beyond the individual's ability to perceive.

Before we consider whether framing the question of purpose differently can accomplish more for us, it's worth acknowledging that most people who believe that a supernatural has a secret plan for their lives are also susceptible to influence by religious leaders -- people perceived to have some spiritual authority. For some reason, it's acceptable to think that you are too ignorant to understand what purpose a supernatural might have, but that a professional minister somehow has special insight about what that supernatural wants for your life. This is just another way of abdicating responsibility. As long as someone else is taking responsibility for telling me my life's purpose, I don't have to worry about that. This might benefit some people if the spiritual authority they listen to has their best interests in mind, but it is far too easy for a unscrupulous spiritual authority to manipulate believers who aren't willing to take personal responsibility for their decisions. 

There is something appealing about the whole concept that God has a plan, and your life fits into it in some unique and special way, even though you are just one small piece of the puzzle. It's rather like destiny or fate, but more personal. Thus, when people experience difficult circumstances, they can fall back on this idea that a warm and loving destiny-weaver has a plan, and that everything is going to work out alright. They may even quote a scripture that promises that "all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28). That can really make a person feel special and comforted, even if it doesn't seem to connect in any way to practical reality.

Just as everyone searches for hope, everyone searches for purpose. We've seen that the question of hope can be addressed in terms of how we live and how we influence the world toward wholeness. The question of purpose can be directed at us as well, rather than at some unreal external force. This might mean a little more work that just letting someone else tell us what to do, and it might mean a little more honesty when we experience challenges. 

Ultimately, we are the only ones who determine our purpose, whether we recognize it or not. If we listen to a religious leader when they tell us what we should be doing, we are still personally responsible for our decisions. We make a choice, even though it seems easy because someone is telling us with authority what a god wants from us. If we just sit at home with a sacred text and derive from that what our purpose must be, we are still the only decision-makers involved in that process. There is no supernatural guiding us. We have just become so unused to hearing our own inner voice that we think it must come from outside of us. Whether we are honest about our responsibility or we pretend that it's beyond our choosing, we determine our purpose.

This is scary for a lot of folks, especially if they've been taught that they aren't enough. Churches often teach that human beings need some supernatural aid because we aren't enough on our own. They say that we aren't wise enough, or we aren't good enough, or we aren't powerful enough to live purposeful, meaningful lives. They say that we need help from something better than us if we're going to find real meaning and purpose. This degradation of human capability is poison. It prevents people from recognizing their authentic power to make decisions that are personally satisfying and that nurture the world around them. The truth is that human wisdom and goodness and power is all we have, and it is more than enough. 

We find purpose when we take personal responsibility for our decisions -- understanding that we don't control other people, we only control ourselves. When we take the time to determine what is meaningful for us, what we really care about, we can define our purpose with clarity. When we are willing to risk the vulnerability of stepping out of our comfort zone and living into a more ambitious purpose for ourselves and for the world, we nourish our hope as well. This involves asking the question of ourselves, "What do I really care about?" thoroughly enough that we get to a powerful personal statement of purpose. To get there, we have to dig through our irrational fears and the lies that we've accepted about ourselves and other people. This takes some work, and it takes claiming our personal responsibility for our lives. And it has the potential to give us a more authentic sense of meaning and wholeness than abdicating the question of purpose to a supernatural or its representatives.

What about the idea that we are just one small piece in a bigger plan? That idea actually has some truth to it. There isn't a plan per se, but our actions do take place in a larger system. What we do in our lives can contribute to nurturing the world toward wholeness, but we don't do it all ourselves. Other people who have tapped into their purpose also find meaning in contributing their own piece. We don't have to feel overwhelmed by the amount of work to be done in the world. We can recognize the opportunity to take meaningful action in an area that's important to us. We don't have to feel ashamed that what we do gives us personal satisfaction. Purpose and meaning are not supposed to be self-sacrificial. The point is to do something we find personally satisfying and that nurtures the world around us toward greater well-being.

The question we can ask then becomes, "What purpose do I have for my life?" and "How do I live into a personal life dream that creates wholeness and increases the well-being of others?" We don't need supernaturals to tell us what inspires us, or to point out to us what the world needs. We don't need "sacred" texts to set us on the right path. We do have to be honest about our own biases and our own fears, and we need to dig deeper than answers that seem designed to keep us safe. Having a purpose isn't safe. Living into a personal creative life dream is powerful and satisfying, but it requires some vulnerability and risk. That's why we need people around us who can support and encourage us, which leads to another important question about community. We'll learn how to ask that question meaningfully next time.