“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.”
― C.G. Jung

It is already Saturday, January 4th, and I recognize it has been a chunk of time since I’ve posted anything here. Part of the reason for the gap has been an on-going lack of clarity about what to write when sitting down before this screen and pounding on the keyboard. Part of the reason for the gap is also because I know who most of my readers are, and there is the realization that publishing your thoughts for those closest to you to absorb can invite praise as well as reprisals.

The original intent of this blog was to be an archive of my thoughts and assembled words, as well as a place where I could work on just interpreting life as I experience it. In some ways, though, with added readers, I’ve found myself censoring myself and my thoughts, but I know that any writer who decides to practice honesty has to speak things as he sees them, whether they offend or not. People who know me closely know that I am not someone who delights in offending others. Still, the effective writer holds positions and speaks to and from them.

This is a practice I avoid, largely because I am such a pleaser in life.

Power comes through honesty, though, as does love, and I realize that with both others and myself, I need to be more honest.

—

It’s a new year, and with the flipping of the calendar page comes the symbolic call to try and change one’s life.

For me, this comes in the form of Austerity January.

For several months now, a close friend has confronted me with two questions that I have, in some form or the other, failed to answer for myself during the last 15 years of my life.

• What do you love?
• What do you want?

Confronted with these questions at this point in time has been paralyzing for me, because I am struggling to answer them.

I acknowledge that a great amount of fear has had me bound for years, and that these two questions scare me- because they mean you are allowed to want things, and they also mean you have to make choices in your life. To both want and to make choices in life require responsibility. They require you to own both your desires and your decisions.

In brief, they require you to own yourself.

—

It’s not that I do not have desires, as I at times try to delude myself into thinking. That, after all, is the good conservative Christian kid’s proper way to see life: others first, then nourish yourself with whatever is left on the floor.

For some reason, I grew up believing it’s not alright to want anything for yourself.

For some reason, I also grew up believing that what ever came to me was the way Providence worked. I used to infuriate my dad with this pseudo-spiritualism that was laissez faire about material things. My dad worked hard for all he made and for where he got to in life when we were kids. For some reason, I took Jesus’s encouragement that the Father will provide for you as an excuse to turn my head from both desire and hard work. “God will provide it, Dad”, I would say as a teen, afraid of going out in the world and getting a job and working with people.

That pseudo-spiritualism piggybacked on the flawed belief I embraced early on as a person, that I probably would not become anything special in this life, and that I wasn’t worthwhile for anyone or anything anyways.

My above-mentioned friend would roll her eyes at this point, and say “The past is the past. Change your story. Quit living in that one.” She’s probably right,

The reality is, I have desires. Too many for a lifetime. The problem with starvation is when you finally get around food, you are insatiable and can, if not stopped, eat yourself to death.

And many desires, without the ability to fulfill any of them (because of lack of resources, skills, or training) ravages the heart.

The best you can do when you are starving is to not eat everything at once, but to just eat one small thing, slowly. Recognize that you are hungry, but also recognize that you are acutely vulnerable, and that you need to pace yourself in recovery.

—

How does this all relate to Austerity January?

This article from Fast Company kind of explains the concept, but it is my hope that by taking a sabbatical from everything extracurricular I have been involved in outside of work, I will find my heart. I will deal with some character issues I glaringly recognize in myself. I will identify what in this life I really love. I will also be able to own for myself my desires and decisions. I will clarify for myself what I want.

And I will try to work this all through words.

My plan is to only be involved with my church small group on Tuesday nights throughout January. I was able to put down my other commitments at church for the month. I will not be watching movies or TV shows. I will not be dancing. I will drop off of social media.

I will instead be trying to empty the noise from my heart and mind. I will talk to key people in my life for wisdom and guidance. I will read nourishing books. I will work on exercising more. I will face myself. And I will write.

The goal is to live simply, and to be thorough with my heart. There are things in my life I want to change, and I need to change, and sometimes it takes more to do this than the 5 minute daily inspirational can provoke.

I will still watch Lobo basketball games, though.

Feel free to ask me how it’s going.

I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.
― Brené Brown