Posted on by Abe Austin

Unfulfilled Dreams- Never How You Think

Years of Longing)

In the last post I shared the recent experience I’ve had of getting a dog, something I wanted ever since I was a child, and the realization that so much of that dream was specific to my childhood and therefore had to be let go as something that could never be fulfilled. This was an interesting experience and it got me thinking about other dreams that I still have.

Probably the most prominent of those dreams is the one for my own career. I’ve often fantasized about being able to start a small business and spending my working hours on projects that I personally care about. My degree in college was Computer Science with an Animation Emphasis. I’ve been able to do a lot with the Computer Science, programming websites and applications for large businesses, but I haven’t really been able to do anything with the Animation Emphasis part. I did try to make a go of it in the Video Game industry when I first graduated from college, but the experience was very distasteful and made me promise to myself that I would only venture back into there on my own terms.

I long to make my own software, my own animation tools, my own gaming engines, my own games. The dream is to be able to subsist entirely off of these personal creative projects, maybe even earn enough to hire another developer or two and build fun things together. I’ve started many projects that I hoped could become my first product, but I’ve always petered out before I had anything that could actually be sold.

Still, I dream of success. I dream of one day making something that’s just good enough. It doesn’t need to be a great hit, it doesn’t have to become famous, but I would want it to be successful enough to quit my 9-to-5 and justify working full-time for myself.

But then, I remember what it was like finally getting the dog I’d always wanted, and that sure didn’t play out as expected. Would it be the same with this?

Inevitable Disappointment)

I’m sure it would be. I cannot think of a single time in my life where I’ve imagined how something would go, and then it was exactly what I’d expected. Serving a mission for my church, going to college, driving a car, getting a job, getting married, having children, owning a home…the list goes on and on. Not a one of these played out how I had envisioned. Some of them were better than expected, some worse, some just different, but never how I thought. Surely it would be the same with my fantasies of starting my own business. Surely not everything would be good about the experience. There would certainly be monotony, tedious paperwork, setbacks, anxiety…yet none of these feature in my fantasies.

The more I fantasize the experience of forging out on my own, the more I set myself up for disappointment. I don’t think that it’s bad for me to have this goal, and I think it genuinely would be good to achieve it, but if I’m too married to a particular image of how it’s supposed to be, I’m likely to receive a good thing and be put off by it still the same.

What I’ve come to realize is that some dreams have to be given up entirely. The timing passes, the opportunity disappears, or there is no assurance it will ever happen. Other dreams can still be retained, but the idea of exactly how they play out must be surrendered. I can have my dreams, but it’s probably best to keep them vague and broad. I can be in love with the idea of owning my own creative business, while leaving the exact manifestation of that open to interpretation.

Having no dreams is a recipe for living a lackluster life. Having too specific of dreams is a recipe for never being satisfied with what you get. Ambition is fine, but let God work out the details, and be happy for what good you do receive, not sullying it by obsessing on what you didn’t.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Unfulfilled Dreams- It Isn’t the Same

Years of Longing)

I’ve wanted a dog for as long as I can remember. I used to watch movies as a boy like Old Yeller, Beethoven, Benji, Homeward Bound, Iron Will, and Balto, then beg my parents to let us get a puppy. I honestly don’t know how my mother felt about it, but my father was always against them. He had grown up with pets, lots of them, and had no interest in dealing with them again. We did get goldfish a couple of times, but that was it. Left to no other recourse, my siblings and I would make pets out of whatever we could. We would catch bugs and put them in jars, make “alien baby dolls” out of paper, and play pretend where my sister would discover the rest of us as wolves in the wild and lead our pack.

It just wasn’t the same.

Of course, eventually I grew up. And for a long time, I had many distractions to keep me from getting a dog. I was going through school, I was starting my career, my wife and I had a newborn, and then another, and then another. We’ve been building our little kingdom for thirteen years now, and just a few weeks ago it started to dawn on me that we had reached a certain level of stability. We have our own home, with a fenced-in yard, no major projects going on, and the kids just got on summer break. So I spoke to my wife about how this was the first really convenient time for us to have a dog of our own. Things moved very fast, and 48 hours later I introduced our new dog to our children!

Since that day, it has been a lot of fun! I’m really glad to finally have the dog that I’ve wanted for over thirty years. But…if I’m being honest…it isn’t the experience I’d always dreamed of.

Shifting Dreams)

In hindsight, it never could be. My dream had always been to have a dog in my childhood. I imagined going out exploring on summer days with my “good boy” by my side, letting him sneak into my room to sleep on my bed, and having a friend and a protector who would never leave. But things just don’t work out that way with a dog at this stage of life. These summer days I’m shut in the office, working to provide for the family. The dog tries to sneak onto the bed, but I can’t stop thinking about how dirty those paws are and tell her to get off. And I’m much more the protector than that dog will ever be.

Like I said, in hindsight, this is obvious, but in the days following getting the dog, it came as a real disappointment. I can still have a good experience with this dog, and I really am doing so, it’s just never going to be the “good experience” I had always dreamed of. That dream was inseparably connected to being a specific age, and I’m simply not that age any longer. That dream is gone, and that’s all there is to it.

But you know who that dream isn’t gone from? My kids. From my ten-year-old to my three-year-old, each one of them has spent hours each day playing, chasing, and laughing with the dog. They’re excited to feed it, excited to bathe it, even excited to scoop up its poop!

And so, my dreams need to shift around a fair bit. I have to let go of the old dream that was no longer possible. I have to accept the new dream, which is still good, but different from what the old one was. And I have to be content to see the old dream live on in my own children. This whole experience got me thinking about other dreams and hopes I’ve had for my life, including ones yet unrealized for my adult life. I realized some important lessons there, too. Ones that I will share in my next post.

Posted on by Abe Austin

That Which Aches Most

That which aches most is not necessarily the most important.

When you take stock of your life, certain parts will likely satisfy you, and others will leave you wanting. Your connection to the divine, your friendships, your romantic relationship, your family, your career path, your physical health, your finances, your hobbies and interests…you were hopefully able to make some of these play out the way you’d always hoped, but surely there are some that are a great disappointment.

And the greatest of those unrealized dreams will ache most terribly. We may yet hold out hope for their eventual fulfillment, or despair at their permanent loss, but either way they leave a painful wound in the soul.

But, of course, if we did have those missing dreams realized, but lost other dreams that we already have, then those new lost parts would ache instead. And they might ache even more, because they might be even more essential to our soul. One of the great mistakes that people make is to sacrifice that which is higher to try and soothe the aching of that which is lower. Or they do the inverse, clutching to the lower fulfillment, at the expense of achieving the higher.

You must understand the hierarchy of the soul. The elements that matter most. Accept that some aching is inevitable and be wise in what you are willing bargain to fix it. Do not sacrifice that which is higher for what is lower. Do not hold onto that which is lower at the expense of what’s higher.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Thought for the Day: Inevitable Disappointment

An argument that is made for giving in to our hedonistic desires is that it is cruel to perpetually deny and disappoint ourselves. But really, disappointment is a given. For on the one hand we want one thing, but on the other hand we want its opposite.

We want to get away with telling lies, but we also want to be understood as we truly are. We want to lust, but we also want to have mastery over self. We want to treat ourselves as the center of the universe, but we also want to be part of something that bigger than ourselves. We want to be lazy, but we also want to be there when others need us.

Disappointment, frustration, self-denial…one way or another all of these are inevitable. And so long as one side of us has to be disappointed, why not make it be the carnal, selfish, and dishonest side?

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Genesis 1:31

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

At several points in this creation story God has pronounced His work as being good. This is the first time it is emphasized as being “very good.” Sometimes when we look back at our creative work we are also flushed with a sense of pride at what we have accomplished, surprised that something so good was able to come out of us. Other times we feel disappointed at how inferior the end result is compared to what we had imagined, either the result of lacking necessary skills or of having rushed things. In either case, we all feel that yearning to create something significant and pronounce it “very good” as our Heavenly Father did.

And this brings us to the conclusion of Genesis: Chapter 1. As we move on we will find that all this earth’s creation was merely a backdrop for the drama that would play out on it: the story of all mankind.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Dealing With Failure- Personal Example #3

I am sure Satan is pleased when I do not commit to improve myself and instead accept complacency. But I also believe that he is pleased when I do make promises, but they are ones I cannot keep.

So many times I have tried to commit myself to perfection–“I will never do this thing again”–and so many times I have failed. Then I have said to myself “okay, so apparently last time wasn’t the last time…but this one has to be! So this time I’ll just have to screw up more moral resolve than before. I just have to grit my teeth and draw up more spiritual energy than last time to make this the most excellent commitment I can, one that would carry through forever!”

But then…I have slipped again. And what did I think then? Well, clearly I had to somehow find another great well of spiritual resolve within me, one even greater than the “even greater” last one…or else I obviously wouldn’t have a chance of succeeding this time either.

Over and over this pattern continued until I was all dried up. I simply could not find any more “even greater” wells of spiritual resolve. I couldn’t keep outperforming myself endlessly. So I became disheartened. I didn’t believe myself and the promises I made. It seemed that the best pledge I could come up with was meaningless, and I began to believe that I simply couldn’t improve. Other people could, but I couldn’t. I was stuck.

And I remained stuck until I realized there was a better way. God interrupted my spiral to show me there was an “even greatest” well that I could be making use of. One that wouldn’t ever fail me.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Dealing With Failure- Matthew 18:21-22

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

COMMENTARY

Peter said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
Jesus saith unto him, not until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
Each of us must learn in life how to deal with those that disappoint and offend us. And while often we speak of that in terms of other people sinning against us, the truth is that the person who most often upsets us is our own self.
And in return, we usually are also our own worst critics, giving ourselves self-talk that is far crueler than what we would say to any other person. When we do something that lets us down, we mentally shake ourselves and ask when we’re finally going to get it right!
But I feel that Jesus’s counsel in this verse condemns withholding forgiveness from ourselves, as much as from another. And eventually, I started treating myself better after I felt God say to me: “Hey, don’t be so hard on Abe. I love that guy!”
We can forgive ourselves, be kind to ourselves, and still ask ourselves to grow and improve. In fact, our behavior is most likely to improve, when we set our expectations for ourselves with a heavy dose of self-love.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Dealing With Failure- Personal Example #2

In my last entry I spoke of an unhealthy guilt in regards to trying to improve myself. I have had many times of berating myself for failing to be perfect, even though I was actively improving overall. No, I was not yet in the perfect image of Christ, but I was getting closer and closer to it.

But today I want to talk about the other side of that coin. Because I have also strayed into a unhealthy lack of guilt when I have done wrong. I have found it all too easy to do what I know is wrong, and then immediately ask forgiveness for it, fully knowing that my heart was still unchanged. I have even apologized before doing the wrong thing, making a promise that “this will be the last time.” A promise that, of course, never held true.

It is possible to beat ourselves up for not being perfect, but it is also possible to give ourselves a free pass, defending ourselves with the argument that it’s enough to just “want” to be good.

But what has always given me hope is that my conscience has never been at ease with either extreme. I may have thrown over to one side, and then overcorrected back to the other, but in both cases my heart knew that God was not in either, because neither of these is the way that God treats my mistakes either. He does not berate me for my errors, but also He does not ask for “lip service” only.

And now, with this established, I will spend the rest of the study considering how God (and the godly) do respond to failings, and how I can emulate that pattern with myself.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Dealing With Failure- Personal Example #1

I want to explain a little more of my personal experiences, and the two conundrums that inspired this particular topic of study. The first of these deals with the steps of repentance I was taught to follow as a child.

I understood that to repent I must sincerely feel sorrow for what I had done wrong, confess my wrongs to God and anyone else I had harmed, make restitution as possible, and then not do that behavior anymore.

Now I actually think this description for repentance is fine, when understood as a process, and not a singular event, particularly in regards to that last step. I do believe that there are times that you can swear off a certain behavior forever, but far more common is that even when I feel genuine sorrow for my wrongs and wish to never do them again…I probably will at some point.

Thus there were times that I was told I needed to repent of a misdeed, and if I did it again, was asked why I hadn’t really repented, as I was still showing the same wrong behavior. And this was quite disheartening, and eroded my confidence in my ability to repent and become a better person.

Yes, at times, I needed to be more sincere in my efforts to improve, but also there were times when I actually was improving, I simply had not attained perfection yet. In those moments I believe I would have been greatly helped by an understanding that sometimes repentance means not repeating the wrong behavior…eventually. It means we try again and again, recommitting after each slip, doing the wrong thing less and less, soldiering on through the process of letting God change our hearts, until finally we no longer are subject to that sin.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Evolving Your Beliefs- Jonah 3:4-5, 10; 4:1

And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.

COMMENTARY

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry
The story of Jonah is very interesting. First God calls him to teach the people of Nineveh and he tries to run away. Then he repents of that folly and goes and proclaims death and destruction on the city. They repent and are spared, and he is furious that God is willing to forgive them.
Jonah clearly knows God, has intimate conversations with Him, and presumably wants to be a good disciple…but he keeps butting heads with God anyhow. He thinks that God’s policy should be one way, and is disappointed when it is otherwise. In this small story of his life, Jonah seems to be more devoted to his sense of what is right than God’s.
But we probably shouldn’t criticize him too harshly, because I think each of us disagrees with God on one point or another, even as we’re trying to follow Him. Some of us are worried that God is too lenient, afraid that He isn’t going to punish those who deserve it. Some of us are worried that God is too harsh, afraid that He won’t accept us with all of our indulgences.
When we make up our minds as to what the spiritual truths are supposed to be, we then become very touchy when someone suggests that we are wrong. Like Jonah, “it displeases us exceedingly, and we are very angry!”
I have personally experienced this a few times, and in hindsight I’ve always realized that my anger was not righteous indignation, I was lashing out because someone had touched a nerve. They had inadvertently touched on some festering emotional baggage. Of course, I did not want to admit that I was wounded, so I maintained all the more loudly that I was standing for the right. But of course, God sees through that whole facade, and tomorrow we’ll examine how He breaks it down.