Tools

I discovered one of the greatest truths I'll ever know about four years ago. It turns out that the people around me aren't the cause of my problems.

Yesterday, I was assembling a toolbox at my job. I had all the screws, washers, pieces, and instructions laid out before me. And, the A.C. was broken. As the heat rose, so did my irritability. And due to the position that I signed up for, every five minutes it seems like there's a new problem that comes up that I've gotta figure out a solution for. And so, every time someone would talk to me, I got more irritated. And they could hear it in my voice. They could hear it in the way I was working. I started banging the toolbox around trying to give off a signal that I was not to be interrupted while working on this toolbox. 

And I can't stand putting things together when I don't have complete focus. I end up skipping an important instruction or putting the wrong screw in the wrong hole, and taking something apart and doing it over. 

It took about an hour to get the thing assembled, but while the toolbox was complete, my irritability wasn't. I was ready to bark at whoever said a word to me or looked at me in an offsetting way. 

In a perfect, Jon-is-a-saint world, I would've stopped what I was doing every time someone needed my attention, calmly listened, and addressed whatever problems needed addressing. But, that wasn't me yesterday. I just kept going, carrying my frustration with me all the way through work. 

Before I ever discovered the truth that I stated above, I would've been perfectly content blaming my coworkers for my frustration. In fact, the more I could blame other people for my problems, the more invincible and self-righteous I felt. 

And that philosophy of living is - what I've found - a very normal state of being for many, many, people. Just take a stroll through the home page on Facebook, and see how many people are pinning their problems on the government or some other institution.

But the truth is, no one has the power to frustrate or irritate me. No one has the power to run my emotions or feelings. 

For years and years, I had a scapegoat. It was a real person with fictitious attributes. I got so used to blaming this person for so many problems, that it became a way of life. It was always my get-out-of-jail-free card. I only thought it was free. 

And the more I pinned this person as the cause of all my problems, the less I was able to see any flaws in myself. And that was a dangerous place to be. 

But doesn't that seem to be the default of the world we live in? Haven't the lines gotten so blurred between who's at fault and who's not? There's always someone or something to blame. 

I'm so thankful to have some trusted friends who will never fall for my self-pity tricks. When I go to them with my problems, they won't join me in my character assassinations of other people, but they'll point me inward. They'll help me discover what's off inside of me, what needs tweaking, what needs a little adjustment. Friends like these are vital. 

Every time I'm disturbed about something, I've got to look inside. If I don't, it's impossible to find out how to fix it. The problem with blaming others is, I have no control over other people. And so, if my perception of the world is that it causes me frustration, or anger, or fear, I have no chance of getting over it. The best hope I have is avoiding it, and at the same time I'll paint the world as an evil, dog-eat-dog wasteland with nothing good in it. And eventually, I'll isolate myself from anything or anyone who isn't like me.

But there's an alternative to this way of life, and it's freeing. 

Every time I'm disturbed, all I have to do is ask myself what I'm afraid of. Am I afraid of being inconvenienced? Am I afraid of being rejected? Am I afraid of not having enough time? Am I afraid of feeling insignificant?

And after taking responsibility for my disturbance, I simply ask God to give me the right thought, decision, or action to address the disturbance. Nine times out of ten, the answer I get is to prayer for the person that I blamed for my problems. There's a beautiful, mysterious thing that happens here. I cannot pray for someone and be angry at them at the same time. I don't know how this works, but it does. As soon as I start praying, my mind goes to a different, more realistic place. It's no longer controlled by anger or frustration, but care and compassion. I let the person off the hook, remove them as the cause of my problems, and put the problem back on me and my own childish behavior. It's an amazing thing.

My intentions are to do this every single time I get disturbed, but I hardly ever do it. It's so much easier in the moment to run on autopilot, to let my emotions drive me around. But after awhile, it's not so easy. I'm an emotional wreck with about a million different disturbances littering my mind, and I don't know where to begin to clean it all up. If the problems pile up big enough, I'll start looking for every opportunity I can to drown it all in a pitcher of beer, or five. 

Because before, alcohol was the solution to all of my problems - until it stopped working. I never knew that problems originated inside of me. I never knew that I could just take a moment to pause and rethink whatever situation had caught me off guard. I never knew that other people weren't to blame. So the only thing I found that would calm my unsteady nerves was a thirty pack of beer. It would take care of any resentments, fears, or worries. But once the alcohol evacuated my system, it was back to the default - pinballing from one disturbance to another without a viable solution to any of them. 

Pause. Pray. Continue . . . repeat. 

My problems today aren't cause by my coworkers, my pastor, my government, my religion, my parents, my family, my friends, my enemies, my teachers, or my boss, and that's a huge relief because I don't have any control over any of them.