My Better Self

[Jim Nutter]

I have been asked by Nick and Jordan to take a shot at writing about my ideal self, or our ideal selves. I am new into this group and right up front I must say that I am going to fail at this assignment. I am going to fail because I have never arrived at my ideal self; I could not even say what or who that ideal self may be. I once thought a great deal about this, but those thoughts always made me despair because it was so clear that there was this insurmountable gap between my real and actual and daily self and some notion or construct of my ideal self.

So, the best I can do here with this assignment is to write about my better self. I cannot even talk about my best self, for again, I fall short of that goal. So, regarding my better self—here it is.

I am at my best when trying to achieve a healthy and realistic balance between all the “works” in my life—my actual work, my personal work, my relationship work, my body work, my intellectual work, and my soul work. My tendency in 25 years of professional work has been to give my first energies and commitments to that work, the work that I do for a living and for pay. All too often my other “works” have suffered. All too often I have tried to define my self by what I do and accomplish and perform. So, to be at my better self, I need to be balanced, which means that I need to leave my professional work with some energy left, to read and write, to exercise, to remain connected to those I am closest to, and to pray—that is the soul work. I used to believe that we were human beings with a spiritual life. I now believe that we are spiritual beings with a human opportunity. I have done my soul work in a particular way called Christian, and although I am very committed to this path and am very glad and ready to share this path with anyone else, I try to be very careful never to scold or threaten anyone else onto this path. I don’t believe God is a bully, and I don’t believe any of God’s disciples—whatever their faith—should be either.

I am at my better self when I remember that I am—we are—all here to grow up and mature all of our lives. By this I mean that we acknowledge that life is hard, that none of us has all of the answers, that we all have doubts and struggles and losses. We grow up when we stop blaming our parents or the “system” for something that is not right—we take responsibility for our lives, what we do and what we don’t. No more playing the victim, no more whining, no more making excuses, no more procrastination, no more wasting your precious life. Whatever you need to do, do it. Do it now. Today. Grow up. Play the man. Play the woman. And if that is hard—and it is at times hard for all of us—then have the humility and courage to ask for help and mentoring. Don’t try to play the self-sufficiency game. It is too lonely. And it is an adolescent take on life. We all need help. Asking for it doesn’t mean you are weak. It means that you are strong and smart and real.

I am moving towards my better self when I live with huge doses of forgiveness and grace. We all need both. Often. Daily—forgiveness and grace, for ourselves, for others, for the world in which we live. All too often I have not been very forgiving with myself—with others I am better, but again, not so much with myself. It took me a long time to realize that withholding forgiveness from myself was not noble; it was arrogant. We all need forgiveness because we all make mistakes, we all fall short, we are all hypocrites. So, admit this, and get over yourself and your little “perfectionistic” dreams. And, we need to forgive others. Most of the time they do the best that they can do, and we never entirely know what someone else has gone or is going through. Besides that when we don’t forgive we not only are undermining the relationship, we are also doing damage to our own hearts. Nursing grudges, holding onto hurts, fantasies of vengeance, all of this poisons our own hearts.

Last words. I am moving towards my better self when I am committed to giving myself away to a cause, issue, vision, mission, hope, dream, that is bigger than me. If it—my life—is all about me, I shrink and get closed and small and petty. So, I need, my better self needs, to help others, to serve others, to give away my time and resources and energy and gifts to others. The older I become the more I see that it is not what you have that most matters, but what you give away; not what you make, but what you share; not what you accumulate, but what you disperse. So, life and my better self contradicts that lousy and lying bumper sticker which reads, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” That kind of life is death. No, it is he or she who loves and gives and serves and forgives and laughs and cries—these are the people who win, who make a difference, and who, finally, move towards their better selves.

[libertytexan]

Jim, this was a great post, Jordan and Nick clearly do not have a monopoly on thought provoking "Big Talk"


There is no need to be so modest, and this where I mainly respectfully disagree with your post.

All too often I have tried to define my self by what I do and accomplish and perform.

I think this is a perfectly aduaquate way to define yourself. Sure I think this is a personal and individual definition, no one else should tell you that you haven't accomplished enough or performed at your best, and there is nothing wrong with setting goals for yourself and feeling happy that you have achieved them. Life is what you make of it and accomplishing goals that you have set out to achieve is great measurement of your success.

We grow up when we stop blaming our parents or the “system” for something that is not right—we take responsibility for our lives, what we do and what we don’t.

This is where I most agree with you. I believe strongly in personal responsibility and it is the philosophy that I try and live my life by. Not only do I need to take responsibility for myself but I feel that I need to let others take responsibility for themselves. If they make decisions that I disagree with it is not my place or right to tell them what or what not to do. However, we need to keep in perspective the influences of "parents [and] the "system"". My little cousin who I now am having they joy of spending time with has fetal alcohol sydrome among other mental disorders. Constantly I have to prevent him from blaming his mother on his problems in his life. He has the personal responsibility to know that when he misbehaves it is his own fault and not someones elses. However, I know that it was his mother that drank when she was pregnant and not him. I have to cut him some slack sometimes because his circumstances are not always of his own creation.

You can look at "the system" in the same way. We are personably responsible for the decisions we make but we have to keep it in perspective. If someone violates an unjust law they still made the decision to violate the law but the law was unjust in the first place. What then do we make of that person's decisions? St. Augustine would say that "an unjust law is no law at all", yet our society holds people responsible for these laws. Even when they disagree with the law people will often say that "well they broke the law so they deserve it". People, religious people (Christian people in our country), a lot of the times use the law to hold people responsible for their decisions despite what might be in their (and my) perspective that sometimes they should'nt be held responsible for these decisions because they have not in fact done anything wrong. I think that sometimes "the system" is to blame and not blaming "the system" is refusing to hold some people (politicians) responsible for their own decisions.

I am moving towards my better self when I am committed to giving myself away to a cause, issue, vision, mission, hope, dream, that is bigger than me. If it—my life—is all about me

I also feel most satisfied with myself when I am committed to something greater than myself, but I think that is "all about me". When I do something that makes me happier, makes me more satisfied with my achievements in this world I am really doing these things for myself. If working for some cause gives you some sense of achievement and therefore happiness then you have actually recieved an individual benefit. You have done these things and therefore you want to do more of them. You have received positive feedback from these activites and want to do more. A cynic would say that is no different than a drug.

I think your denuciation of individual achievement and the doing of things for the sake of themselves is a dishonest view of human life. Correct me if my limited reading of Christian doctrine is wrong, but isn't each individual judged by God by their own actions? If each individual is judged as an indivual then isn't individual achievement the goal in life? We may have different views of what achievement as an individual is but in the end our own actions and achievements are what is important in life.