Aim Past the Wood

I don’t think most of you reading this chop wood that often, I hope that some of you have, nonetheless, done so once or twice, and that all of us can at least picture the endeavor. I have had to chop wood myself, and I can say with certainty borne from experience that it is not an exactly enjoyable affair, especially if you don’t know how to do it in the first place, or if you are aware that there’s something much better and easier you would rather be doing at that time.

Photo by Zhivko Minkov on Unsplash

Whilst reading Annie Dillard’s book ‘The Writing Life’― very relatable in its exploration of how bleak the life of any serious writer is― I came across this evocative encouragement. Aim for the chopping block. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it? Well, the idea here is that when you chop wood, you don’t just aim at the wood you are chopping, but at what’s beyond it, beneath it. That means that if you are chopping wood on the ground, you aim for the ground beneath the wood. I thought this brought a little bit of perspective to the goals most of us have in life. For most people, what matters is they accomplish their goals, nothing more. What if there could be something more than just the goals?

Brianna Wiest argues in 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think that, achieving goals is not success, how much we expand in the process is. For all we are doing, what will matter in the end is not just the goals we accomplished but the people we became in the process. Only focusing on goals is being too superficial, content with a surface view of the ocean when there’s a much more amazing sight in the depths.

While we think about this technique of chopping wood, the popular quote about shooting for the stars, so that even if we miss, we can still land on the moon ends up making much more sense, now that we can think of it reasonably. You treat the wood as a transparent means to an end, by aiming past it.

And there are ladies whose hearts you win by focusing on something more than the lady herself, something beyond her. In the end, you become a better person, and you ‘bag’ her in the process. In simple terms, you work diligently on yourself to be worthy of her, and then maybe she just may have to be worthy of you as well. For my fellow medics, you could aim for something beyond a mere grade on a paper, you could instead focus on treating your patient right, on getting them the care they so much deserve. It’s not exactly good grades that will make your patient happy, but should you focus on the latter, good grades will not be so much hard to attain.

When you keep the bigger thing in mind, the smaller things give way. Don’t be too superficial. Aim for the chopping block, if you aim for the wood, you will have nothing. Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block.

References

1. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard.

2. 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think by Brianna Wiest

Tell her she looks nice, and mean it

“Henry! Where is this coming from?” you are probably asking, a little surprised at such impertinence. Let me ask, however, have you ever seen as the prettiest lady in the world, beautifully clad and resplendent in the most gorgeous dress? And I’m not talking of the ostentatious bedecking that ladies do nowadays, or of the indecent fashion meant to make a statement to the world. Instead, I am referring to beauty in its most natural and decent form. If you have seen such an angel of a lady, did you tell her she looked nice, that she was pretty that evening? Would you?

I was sitting in the library today, and then I stumbled upon this thought, and decided to pursue it to these lengths. I was able to notice that I was not especially frank when it came to my reaction about how ladies looked. I, however, hope to bank on your knowledge of the fact that beauty is such a subjective thing, and different people judge it differently. So why does this have to be a big deal? Well, it isn’t. Nonetheless, allow me explain what I mean.

As days go by, most people think more about themselves and little about anything or anybody else, so that today, if anyone gives something, they unconsciously expect the recipients of their kindness to be able to give it back. But does the world really work that way, and are we entitled to receive because we gave? When a man tells a lady she looks beautiful, I have noticed that most of the time, it usually has everything to do with the man and quite little to do with the lady. You look beautiful becomes a statement meant to affirm something in the man rather than in the lady, a statement mostly said in order for the man to get what he wants. That means that on most occasions, the statement is usually a lie. It could be what some people call gas-lighting. Is it right to praise someone when the praise is anything but sincere? I believe our aim should be to praise without flattering. Without lying. We lie when we tell people things we do not mean, things we do not believe to be true ourselves.

When it comes to crushes, it certainly is a much more complicated thing. Personally, I soon realized that I was usually a little beside myself when I was around a lady I thought I liked. I could tell all the ladies in the world how beautiful they were, but when there was something special about that lady in my heart, I rarely had the confidence to stand up to her and say those exact words I uttered freely to everybody else. Did that reveal anything? I think it did. It showed that whatever complement I put across was mostly determined by my own feelings and agenda, whatever they were, and rarely issued from a place of sincere appreciation. That’s so immature, and unfair, if you really think about it. I have since realized that all the anxiety that a man could ever have, in this case a good man; or a man who looks like a good man, mostly stems out from the fact that the man, despite his goodness, probably doesn’t have sincere intentions with the lady he thinks he likes. I hope you will now get what I mean when I say that a man becomes mature enough when he can commend his crush for her beauty, without any hints of trying to seduce her, or trying to make her fall in love with him. 

In his popular book How To Win Friends and Influence People , Dale Carnegie explains that the way to get people to like you is to be first genuinely interested in them without trying to get them to be interested in you. Aha, Henry and friends, I bet you can now see why you have been messing up your chances since the time you tried to win any lady’s affection. It is imperative that we become humble enough to admit that our lives are not that interesting after all, and neither are we the good people we are pretending to be, and are in fact, otherwise. The reasonable thing to do is to be interested in the lady in question without having any qualms of whether she will be interested in you or not; something that more or less goes along the line, I like you but it doesn’t matter if you don’t like me, I like you for the both of us. I hope you are wise enough to never say out loud anything like that previous statement. And just to be clear, it’s a joke.

What then? Give but expect nothing in return. Are you willing to love someone fervently despite not knowing if they will ever love you back? If you aren’t, is it even love in the first place? When you see her next time, tell her she looks nice, and mean it. Then walk away, forget about her, and focus on more important things. Don’t deceive yourselves with thoughts that she likes you as well because of a smile she gave you when you complimented her. What matters is that you meant what you said. And to the ladies, if he looks nice, tell him, but be careful not to say this to the immature ones who will then cling at your skirts henceforth because they interpreted an innocent compliment for a romantic interest.

So Choose Love 02

People will have questions. Whatever it is that we believe in and hold on to will be questioned.Some people will ask out of contempt. Still, others will ask with sincerity. The important thing we have to do is to avoid making these questions about us. Remove the 'me' that comes out so often when you defend a stance and allow all arguments to anchor on love. Paul puts it expressly in Corinthians that love does not insist on its own way (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). It is the nature of love, to be willing to see things from another person’s point of view. In Jerry Bridges book ‘Respectable Sins,’ he calls our attention to the sins in our lives that we tolerate. He says that as much as we are usually keen to avoid scandalous sins, most of the time we are guilty of pride, selfishness, ungodliness, irritability, anxiety just to mention a few. And while tackling selfishness, one point he addresses is being inconsiderate. Most of the time whatever we do has everything to do with us. Its either we want to look important, more than we actually really are, or we want to paint someone else in a much lesser light than us. The world is teaching us to think more about ourselves than about other people. This is what we call solipsism. The Bible says that we are to think of others as better than ourselves. And that doesn’t mean we are useless, neither does it insinuate that we are dispensable. It just means what it says: that however good we are, we are to think of others as better than ourselves. Difficult to take in, right? Well, the truth’s always hard to take in, at least at first.

Therefore, you don't really have to appear important, virtuous or perfect. You only need to show love; sincere and fervent love. Sincere means that it has to be true, no feigning. Fervent means that it is enduring, despite resistance. And most of the time, no, all of the time that is what truly matters. So while we listen to somebody, we might consider thinking critically if there could be just a possibility that they know something that we don’t. It is true that some people can be quite overbearing in that way that is so irritating, that is so selfish and clearly inconsiderate, because after all, the world isn’t short of sociopaths. But if we become those kind of people, especially after we have known the truth, what does it make us? The greatest revenge, it has been said, is to be a good person. And our Lord Jesus Christ said, that even though we have had it told to us, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, yet He said, do not resist anyone who is evil. Matthew 5:38-41. Don’t avenge yourselves, instead, pray for those who persecute you. Forgive them. Because when you forgive them, you deny them power over you. But when you hold a grudge, it's as though you carry fire in your bosom, will you not be burnt?

I have noticed something about myself, I don’t take feedback as well as I should. Especially from my family and friends. The fact that these are my friends and my family, the people that will ever truly be close to me, is really disturbing. Because, why would they point out something that is wrong with me? Why would my mom, for instance, comment on a trait or behavior she dislikes? Does my mom have something against me? Is my mom trying to compete with me? She isn’t. And even if she was, isn’t it true that she is more important than I? I exist because she does. I am because she is. So why do I get so defensive when she corrects me? You see, I am the problem. And just like G. K. Chesterton replied to the letter when he was asked to write an essay about what was wrong with the world and he said, ‘I am,’ and mailed it back. So what is wrong with the world? We are. What is wrong with your relationship? You are. What is wrong with your life? You are. What is wrong with your academics? You are. Jordan Peterson says in 12 Rules for Life: Our specific personal faults detrimentally affect the world. Our conscious voluntary sins … make things worse than they have to be. Our inaction, inertia and cynicism removes from the world that part of us that could quell suffering and make peace. And that’s not good (abridged). Our actions are part of a sequence of events that alter so many things. If we correct our mistakes, no matter how small they are or how insignificant they may seem, we make the world a better place. If we fail to take responsibility, we not only fail ourselves, we fail the world. We fail our families, we fail our parents, we fail our bosses; the consequences of our actions are never isolated but detrimentally affect the world. That’s why Rule 6 says: Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.

When you become defensive, you make arguments to be about you, which most of the time isn't the case. Because, and I hope you won’t feel as though I am contradicting myself, the person you are arguing with has also made it about themselves. So the truth is, it isn’t about you, it's about them. To be defensive is to be weak, and so insecure to the point where we feel that if somebody would say something terrible about us, we would feel as though we weren’t good in any other way. Yet criticism and indifference is what we will always receive from the world. Sure you know of the story of a father and his son, who were taking a donkey to the market to sell. Whatever it is they did: whether they walked along with the donkey, or the son rode it, or the father rode it, or they both rode it, or they carried it, at every point someone criticized their actions. This could be just that, a fable, but we shouldn’t expect better, because at every point someone is going to have something to say about us. That doesn’t matter, what matters is we do the right thing. Whatever becomes of it is ceases to be our business as Ryan Holiday occasionally puts it in his books.

So be objective, and regard diligently what you intend to say. Speak slowly, keenly avoiding any contradictions. Speak with grace, to build up your hearers. Don’t say what is not true. Don’t say what you don’t mean Don’t say what you don’t believe. Regret what you didn’t say, not what you did. Do not assume people know what you are talking about. Be audible, speak factually and make sure to avoid unnecessary digressions unless they are truly important to the topic you are addressing. If you have nothing to say, say nothing. Not everything that crosses your mind is worth being mentioned. Don’t say what you think, it should be the other way round. Will what you say give answers? Or will it lead to more doubts? Avoid the latter. Do your convictions stem from the Scriptures? Are you being selfish? Inconsiderate? Knowing how to properly express ourselves is a real deal. It changes circumstances. Whenever we have an opportunity to speak, we will always have a choice, are we going to be egotistical and insensitive jerks only thinking about themselves, or are we going to be regardful and mindful of others instead. The emphasis here is that it is not always about us.

Be willing to see someone else’s perspective, listen keenly and respect their view about things. You earn nothing by always telling people they are wrong.

If anything you are just making enemies.

It is not about you, don’t allow your mind play tricks on you.

What do you feel about this argument on how we are supposed to respond to criticism or disagreements?

• I am challenged to argue from a place of love
• Well, I need some time to take it in.

You can vote for more than one answer.