Change perspectives to move on

I was listening to a popular music group being interviewed on a radio station, when a young woman phoned into the studio to say that she also loved music and would like advice on how she could also become successful. Their advise was surprisingly relevant.

To a man, the band said "Stop Trying". Their advice was that success would come in its own time, if it were to come at all. Their own, rather mature approach for such young guys, was to simply enjoy what they were doing and to always strive to improve their music.

No one could ever take that from them. All the rejections in the world could not rob them of their simple objective. They kept their day jobs and laughed about their small bank balance, but otherwise just stuck to the simple idea of enjoying what they were doing.

It does seem to me that when we get desperate in trying to prove ourselves, we actually achieve the opposite result. The unemployed become unemployable because their vulnerability comes through in their actions and words, which simply reinforces rejection. But those who are already "happily" employed generally have enough options to approach job interviews with a degree of objective confidence - the more, the better. It seems then that the better we feel about ourselves, the better others will feel about us.

That brings me to a vital observation. Rejection is not what others do to us, but what we do to ourselves. A harbour never moves, but it may seem to have moved when a boat moves away from the wharf. But it is the boat that moves and if it moves back it will find the harbour is still there. It is the same with us - God never moves, nor do the fundamentals of life, but through circumstances and perceptions we move away, but in so moving away we perceive rejection. Indeed, the more we strive to change things, the more we dig ourselves into the miry clay of crisis.

It would be better to grasp something of what a confidently employed person does have - a sense of having options (we always have options), of having value to bring (we all have some value to bring to life), a sense of personal wholeness (our position in Christ is more important than our status in life) and contentment. That may seem easier said than done, yet the Apostle Paul actually came to same conclusion - he stopped striving and trusted God, for he had learnt to be content in all things. That made a way for him far more so than his earlier arrogance, bluster and high mindedness.

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net