In this season, one of the things I’ve become more aware of is expectations – of myself, of others, of life. And how those expectations often stem from a false sense of control, as I seek to fulfill the genuine longings of my heart – for security, for peace, for recognition, for approval, for significance, for a sense of worth and so on…
I’ve also been noticing that I when I hold tightly on to these expectations, they generate fear, anxiety and a desire to control – people & circumstances – over which I have no control.
An insight which has been helpful to me has been that I can learn more about life by looking at gardening and nature, than technology. For one, gardening reminds me that a lot of things take their own time to grow and flower or bear fruit. They can’t be rushed or forced. I need to wait and learn to be okay – to accept – the waiting.
And also, to hope in the good things during the waiting. I found this picture of new shoots growing out of an old stump and thought it’s a good image of the hope that we can have as we see the small shoots of good things growing in our life, in the midst of devastation and dreams that have been ‘cut off’. New life will find a way out of death. All we need to do is to nurture those small shoots of goodness in the ways we can – through encouragement and giving of our time, energy & resources to it.
The old stump can be symbolic of our life and our story, especially after we’ve gone through a difficult season of loss, or where things have gone wrong in our lives – whatever the reason. But I’ve learnt through my own life experiences that even there, I can wait with hope, because eventually life breaks through again. I see this in nature, when new life pops up again, after forest fires have totally devastated an area.
The temptation for me in the challenging times of loss, disappointment & devastation – whether on a personal level or at the institutional level or at the level of society – can be to become cynical and just focus on all things that have gone wrong or failed. Unfortunately, this is sometimes encouraged by news cycles, which seem to delight in focusing on negative news. Listening to them, one could think that there’s nothing good that is happening in our world. They tap into my survival instinct, which generates fear and defensive living. I’ve learnt that it’s important to limit that influence in my life.
It’s true that corruption, decay and distortions can creep into every aspect of personal & communal life. But I remind myself that evil doesn’t have an existence of its own. It is always parasitic on the good – like the cavity in a tooth. I can either choose to focus on the cavity or choose to focus on the underlying goodness of the tooth and work on strengthening the goodness, even while I deal with the cause and effects of the decay. Even where nothing can be done to restore a tooth and it has to be removed – my current experience – I can still work on the goodness of the rest of my mouth and work to strengthen that.
So, one of the things I’m learning is to let go of false expectations, as I become aware of them. To accept that I don’t have absolute control. And yet in the midst of life’s disappointments, to look for the small shoots of goodness that are growing and to focus on nurturing them. To wait with anticipation and hope, for them to grow into their fullness – helpful relationships; life-giving habits & practices; fresh perspectives; living life generously rather than defensively; spaces that touch the deep longings of my heart; and spaces that support me in working on those internal blockages, that prevent me from opening up to love and giving myself to others from a place of love.
