The Corrosive Power of Wrong Belief
The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves.
—Elvin Semrad
In The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker—embittered and cynical in response to his failures as a teacher—is reluctantly instructing a new student about the Force. He asks her what the Force is, and when Rey responds, Luke derisively replies: Amazing—everything you just said was wrong.
It may be my favorite line in the whole film.
It is indeed amazing how often and for how long we can be misled by wrong, unhelpful, or life-draining beliefs. Here are just a few with which you might be familiar:
“I deserve…”—Of course, there are things we can rightly say that everyone deserves, such as basic human respect, or doesn’t deserve, like randomly dying in a terrorist attack. But on the other extreme, it seems like half the advertising campaigns running at any given time include some version of “you deserve.” The big problem with this is that is pulls us away from thankfulness, and without thankfulness, happiness is virtually impossible. The idea that I deserve something makes happiness dependent on something external that I don’t have rather than on an internal mindset about what I do have. Dwelling on what we deserve doesn’t serve us well.
Performance is more valuable than character. This is the wrong belief that a person’s functionality is the most important factor in determining his or her value. Taken to an extreme, this belief dehumanizes those who are evaluated by it, turning them into “human doings” instead of human beings. The better belief: value is a function not only of what we do and how well we do it, but also of who we are. When we consider the power of culture and the skill that can be developed through teaching and diligence, we see that character, integrity, and virtue are actually at least as valuable as raw performance.
Connection depends on being informed. The fear of missing out (“FOMO”) is related to this wrong belief. Think of the teenager who can’t tear herself away from Snapchat. She stays tuned in because she’s afraid of missing out on the updates of the 529 other youth in her social network and consequently (she says) being socially excluded in the real world. It’s a common trap of the information age. But real connection is not a function of consuming information. It’s a two-way street.
It may not be possible totally to avoid buying into wrong beliefs from time to time, but there are actions we can take to protect us from the corrosive power they can have over time. Conversations with a good coach are often the means through which we see the wrong beliefs we couldn’t see before and thus liberate ourselves from their destructive power. There are some things we can’t do alone on an island.
Stress Test
When we have big decisions to make, one of the many factors to consider is stress. Big decisions introduce significant change into our systems, and this sort of change produces new pressure. One helpful tool in gauging our stress levels is the Holmes-Rahe Stress Scale. It’s a comparison of different life events that cause stress.
The psychologists who developed it were wondering about the correlation between stress and illness. Not surprisingly, they noticed a relationship: the more stressed a person was, the more likely he or she was to get sick. They assigned point values to different stress-causing events and related cumulative values to the probability of illness.
The scale is especially helpful to those of us who are sometimes unaware of just how much stress we are experiencing. For a variety of reasons, we can become numb to this pressure. At other times, a high-stress event can send us into shock. In such cases, crunching the numbers of the scale can give us a more objective sense of where our stress levels are.
Awareness of one’s stress level is extremely helpful when facing decisions. If you just had your fourth child, it might not be the best time to consider a new job! But there’s another side to stress.
It’s not always a bad thing! One can see this on the scale. Outstanding personal achievement has a stress value. It makes sense. If we don’t stress our muscles, they become flaccid and weak. If we don’t stress our minds a bit, we don’t learn. As we all know, our bodies and minds were meant to be used, not to sit around doing nothing.
Periodically assessing one’s cumulative score on the Holmes-Rahe Scale—annually or even quarterly—might provide a more objective understanding of how much stress we’re carrying.
Where do you find yourself today? With too much stress? Too little? Or just the right degree? If you find yourself toward either extreme, I welcome the opportunity for a conversation with you about regaining a healthy amount of stress.
To Move or Not to Move?
We move faster, farther, and more frequently today than ever before in human history. Sometimes relocation happens by necessity, but often it is by choice. Perhaps it is for new work or what seems like better work. Some move to be closer to family. Whatever the reason, moving is commonplace, especially among young adults.
But what is commonplace today may not necessarily be the best way.
Long before we built moving vans or airplanes, there was a man named Anthony who lived alone in a desert. He is sometimes called the father of monks, as he was one of the first. He said once to a visitor who came to ask for his advice, “In whatever place you live, do not easily leave it.”
Why? Perhaps Anthony’s point was that we carry our personal issues with us wherever we go, and that location does not solve our most critical internal problems. Or perhaps he was asserting that there are very few things more beneficial to us than the relationships we have with those around us, which take time to develop. I think both are true.
So does that mean we shouldn’t move?
Not necessarily. Each of our lives and environmental contexts are unique. There are no easy answers.
There was another desert monk named Evagrius who clarified Anthony’s guidance. Evagrius concluded that the most important stability to seek was not the geographical kind. Rather, it was settling one’s thoughts in the remembrance of God, which of course is a monk’s main purpose. Sometimes, a place would become unsuited for this pursuit. In such a circumstance, it was best to leave it, for the place no longer supported the primary purpose of the monk’s life. If you’re reading this, you’re probably not a monk, but that doesn’t mean their wisdom is irrelevant.
Should you move away or should you stay? It depends:
Does the place support the primary purpose of your life?
It’s a question we would do well to ask and answer throughout our lives, for everything in this world changes—people, places, relationships. Whether you’re facing the prospect of relocation or working to clarify purpose in your life or work, I welcome the opportunity to engage with you in these important conversations.