Anyway, back to my son. He routinely makes little mistakes and beats himself up for them. Although we've tried to tell him it's ok to make mistakes and the important thing is to learn from them, lecturing hasn't done a whole lot of good. He beats himself up so much, he can't learn from them and he repeats them more often than he normally would. The repetition of the same mistakes gets him so down that he beats himself up more thinking that will help him overcome them, but it's just a vicious cycle. A couple nights ago, he started to beat himself up for forgetting something he had just learned and I had the feeling I should share with him some of my most recent mistakes. I told him some big ones, explained how they had stressed me out and how I got in trouble for one of them ... and you know what? He was enraptured. He doesn't get to see too many of my mistakes up close and he was amazed! After I was done confessing all my recent faults, I grabbed his shoulders, shook him back and forth, and shouted "It's OK to make mistakes! Everybody does it! Especially your dad!" He went to bed that night more relaxed and confident than I've seen him in a while. And it seems to be lasting ... at least for a couple of days! Hopefully this will help him relax about his own human frailty.
A few days ago, we were reading together as a family some of the words of Isaiah: "For, behold, I have refined thee, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." and I paused to explain to my children what refining means. The application to our lives, I explained, is in the necessity for us to go through trials to burn away the impurities inside us just as the fire heats the metal to burn away everything impure in it. I kept it pretty simple for my children, but let me get some more of my thoughts down here.
I propose that one of the main objectives of this life is to "become" something new and ultimately to grow and achieve our full potential. It seems to me that the act of becoming requires us to struggle, to be introduced to life with inherent weaknesses and work to overcome them. If this is so, then one of the highest purposes of life is the process of dealing with and overcoming those weaknesses. In philosophy, once we introduce the idea of an all-powerful, loving God, we are immediately faced with "The Problem of Evil" and its attendant "Problem of Suffering" or "Pain." Without going into too much detail on what those are, let me just propose that the type of world we live in is perfect in its imperfections. A loving, all-powerful God could not have created a more suitable world for our progression.
A world like this requires us to pit ourselves against great challenges (i.e. opportunities). Evil and its attendant sufferings present us with opposition, which is necessary for our growth. Growth also requires freedom on our part to choose. Without the freedom to choose evil, there can be no freedom to choose good. And the exercise of that freedom is necessary for our growth, even though it carries with it the risk of our destruction. If we choose evil, we may inflict unnecessary suffering on others, particularly innocents like children and animals.
I believe these two major problems of philosophy disappear when we consider individual growth and development to be a key purpose of life. What falls out from that is a need for freedom and opposition. These necessarily create the opportunity for evil and suffering to flourish. Thus, an all-powerful, loving God, created the perfect world for us to grow and develop, which world must necessarily contain evil and suffering. It may not be fair, but "who says life is fair? Where is that written?" (Princess Bride)
As we read that passage in Isaiah, I described to my children the need for challenges and trials to burn away the impurities and "refine" us as metal is refined. That process of perfecting us requires some amount of suffering and we should look at those challenges as opportunities to grow. They are, after all, what life is all about. Though I couldn't explain the necessity of suffering in as much detail as I've tried to do here, I think my children understood the idea in their own way. My son is learning at a young age just how much it hurts to grow and develop. I'm hoping the lessons of 1) the universality of weakness and mistakes and 2) the necessity of challenges will help him to relax and enjoy life in all of its imperfections.
This is a pretty good synopsis of one of the "Walkenhorstisms" I've become familiar with. I can see this streak of perfectionism to some degree in every Walkenhorst I've known. All so gifted, none quite satisfied.
ReplyDeleteNot having been much of a perfectionist myself growing up, but having married one, I can somewhat relate . It's probably no secret that Kati (and Braedon, and Brett, etc.) is much brighter than I am, but in the past she never seemed content with how well she was doing with school, home, callings, etc. I, on the other hand, am usually perfectly fine with how I'm doing, which has led me to a few mistakes and kept me from growing. Luckily, Kati and I seem to have balanced each other out a little to where we are not satisfied enough with how we're doing to stop growing, but content enough to live more happy. Still a work in progress, but I think we're getting there.
That's a really interesting comment, Justin. We Walkenhorsts do have a hard time being really satisfied, don't we? Perfection is a good goal in the long run, but it makes us unhappy people in the short term. A healthy dose of patience, forgiveness, and humor helps a lot.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your observations, Justin. And keep 'em coming. I like bouncing ideas off of you. When you and Kati have figured out that balance you're talking about, please teach me.
I think you are a great dad! Thanks for taking the time with Braedon. He thinks you're awesome!
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