Several years ago when I was interviewing for an RA position, I was asked how I keep my spiritual life healthy. I responded by summarizing one of my spiritual routines, which at the time included visiting the prayer chapel on campus. I commented on how it seemed to be beneficial to me to actually carry my Bible to a location outside my room, deliberately going to a different place to read it. One of the RDs who was conducting my interview agreed, and added that part of what keeps our faith real is being intentional about it. You can't just absent-mindedly get dressed on Sunday morning and go to church; you have to intentionally pursue some kind of relationship with God. It doesn't happen by accident.
Well, when you really think about it, nothing does. You have to be intentional about most things that you really want to work out. Think about your relationship with your spouse, or a good friend. Consider baking a pie, reading a map, or studying. These things are not successful without our applied, intentional, efforts. You can't just read a bunch of power point slides on peripheral vascular disease. You have to read in order to understand, look up the murky areas, apply what you know, and intentionally pursue knowledge.
Strangely enough, the vast majority of us do live with good intentions, but that's not what I'm getting at here. Good intentions are tantamount to reading power point slides! Sure, you want to learn the material. You put some time in, you yearn for the knowledge, but you don't pursue the knowledge with the intention of learning. That last sentence seems like we're splitting hairs, but there really is an important distinction. You can really really want to lose weight, for example, but until you commit to weight loss and intentionally exercise and eat differently, you won't lose a single pound. Funny, good intentions seem to point us in the right direction, they just don't quite get us there.
Hmm. Why is it that most of us live our lives without careful thought and pursuit of what we are really after? Can a person actually go through life doing everything intentionally? Probably not, but imagine the vast number of things we do UNintentionally simply because we didn't choose what it was that we were pursuing and intentionally go after it. How is it possible for us to yearn for something without pursuing it with intention?
I have a guess: First, I am willing to bet that most of us go about life with a fear of commiting to the wrong thing (or worse, committing to something and then failing to achieve). This leads us to a life without intention. We are so afraid of failing to commit to the right thing in the right way at the right time, that we instead fail to commit to anything at all. Sometimes this is pure laziness; we just lack tenacity. But sometimes we just don't know what we want, and we are afraid to try something and be wrong. My mom used to have one of those foam can coolers that said, "If I can't win, I don't want to play." I thought that was a pretty weak way to go about life - but if I really examine many of the choices I've made since age 12 or so, I realize that I have ended up doing a lot of things without really choosing to. Hey, if you don't identify what it is that you want, then you can't ever be wrong or fail or fall short or get humiliated.
Imagine yourself running a race. We're all running it. This is the Race of Life. Now imagine that you are just jogging along, and you realize that you're kind of near the front. The finish line is coming into view, and although you feel a little surge of adrenaline once the end is in sight, you realize that you are quite tired and you'll be glad to be done soon. You have a choice to make: you can finish jogging along, and show up on the other side of the line none the worse for wear, or you can dig deep and put it all out there, race your heart out and exhaust your last little oxygen molecule. There are certainly drawbacks to both. If you choose the first option, you'll always be a little dissatisfied and wonder What Might Have Been. But if you choose the second. . . . . . there's always a chance that you will fall short, you'll have made the wrong choice, you will have failed... and that can be humiliating.
Wait a second here. Are you kidding me? This is a RACE. You don't have the option of sitting back and jogging it in to the finish "none the worse for wear." That's ridiculous. If that were your choice, then don't bother running - that's not what racing is about. And in the Race of Life, jogging it in to the finish is just as ridiculous. You need to lift your head, point your eyes directly in front of you, and identify what it is that you want. One person? Two? Identify which one you want to reel in first, and go for it. Then pick another one, and another. And when you've passed the last racer, focus on that finish line and reel it in, too. If you collapse on the other side of the line, so be it. It's better than the alternative. At least you knew what you wanted!
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