Confused and Frustrated

What a year it has been. What a life we live. What a world.

One of the things I am learning as an adult is how challenging it is to face the confusion of the world. I once thought it was supposed to get easier. That life made sense the older you got. As you obtained wisdom, you suffered less and accepted more. Maybe wisdom is learning how little you can control and how incessantly confusing and frustrating is the human experience.

While trying to make sense of the world, I have encountered two major epiphanies. These might be the two most important words in my life right now. They help navigate the confusion and frustration with honesty and hope. They help prevent me from going insane while also preventing me from going inactive.

Balance

The first is balance. There has been a lot of talk this year about the state of the world and how bad things are. “Nothing like this” has ever happened before.

But it has. The world has been wrought with prejudice and out-of-control circumstances since Cain and Abel. Diseases have plagued. Oppressors have oppressed. Tension has been high. Atrocities committed and contemplated. Wars. Passivity.

The world is a messed up place. Humans are complicated and there is always a dark side of us lurking around and making trouble. And perhaps there always will be.

So, what is the balance between hoping/expecting the world to change by eradicating evil and accepting reality as it is – making the most of the difficult circumstances presented? I don’t want to do nothing, to pretend it is all okay. But I don’t want to feel stuck in a quicksand of victim mentality, not able to live an abundant life until the circumstances get themselves in order.

I don’t know what the balance is, but I know the key is balance. Accountability and forgiveness. Patience and fervor. Grace and truth.

There is beauty in it all. And there is no right combination, no magic formula that will bring the world out of a state of chaos. It is a messed up world and will continue to be. I can’t change the world alone but I can change me.

Here is the thing about this terrible, no good, sick world we live in. It is also beautiful. There are people expressing peace and experiencing joy. There are sunsets and love. There is unity in the struggle. There is beauty in the mess. It has taken a lot this year for me to accept the coexistence in these two.

No matter how bad your year has been (and odds are it was no home run), there has been beauty. There have been moments of true joy, of peace. You have laughed until you’ve cried and learned something and changed someone’s life. If you can’t remember those moments from this year, it is only because you have chosen not to focus on them. Remembering them, by the way, does not require letting go of the agony you’ve experienced. They are not mutually exclusive, especially within the confines of your own soul. Experiencing the confusion and frustration alongside hope and love is the human experience. It is all there is.

Waiting

So, other than balance, the second word I have come to discover as more important than I once gave it credit for is waiting. This all came together for me when I was planning to officiate a wedding and discovered the idea that there is a difference between active waiting and passive waiting.

Passive waiting is apathy. It is doing nothing. Active waiting is patience. It is doing all you can, focusing energy on what you can control rather than lamenting what you can’t.

We don’t like waiting. We live in a world of instant gratification. But it sure isn’t working. We want things to be fixed and we want it now! We want happiness and wealth and toned abs, all in fifteen minutes or less. We have created a society obsessed with shortcuts, superficiality, and false narratives. All because we are becoming increasingly allergic to waiting.

So, the world is confusing and frustrating. Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe confusion and frustration is the setting in which we are called to live. The arena in which we must make our choices. In the end, those choices (not the arena itself) will determine the kind of life we live and the kind of people we are.