Faith or Fear

One could say that we've been dancing around this post for a while now.
We've either been too busy with work, or sick with the flu, or too tired, or not sure exactly what we wanted to say, or dealing with bills or deadlines, etc.  That critic in our head labels it "procrastination"... yet, that's not 100% accurate, is it?  

It's not that we've been avoiding an urgent task that we don't want to do and distracting ourselves with more pleasurable things.  There is validity and urgency in most of the other things we've been doing, and personally, pleasurable is definitely not the first word i would use to describe my day job.  (You know exactly what i mean, don't you?)

Here's the point.  We are reeeeeally good at talking ourselves out of doing things, aren't we? We can think up all the reasons why something will not work, will go horribly wrong and how later we'll regret spending the precious time that we did, on it.  It's similar to the default settings on your tablet or mobile device, in some ways.

Consider this now, how often do we think about if it all goes right?

You've carefully considered all of the information before you, and everything actually goes according to your plan. 
Wouldn't that be fantastic? What would be all the benefits that happening, hmm? Wouldn't it be worth the risk of some disappointment?  We would not consider that time to be "wasted", would we?  However, for so many of us, the internal dialogue is pretty one sided, (to be fair, this is actually not an unexpected result of talking to yourself) with lots of cons and very few pros.  

Yet, just like your tablet or mobile device, with some time and effort, the default settings can be changed, apps can be 'sideloaded' and you can be merrily watching flash videos despite the manufacturer's decision not to support them, and all without voiding your warranty! (If you didn't get that analogy, just roll with it for now. You luddite.)

So, we finally decided that i should stop dancing, and just start writing, and see where it takes us. Which, as it turns out, is right in the direction of the theme of this post.  (Imagine that)

What sparked our faith or fear discussion was episode five of the first season of House M.D., "Damned if you do."  (An excellent series that aired from 2004-2012, with Hugh Laurie playing the brilliant and acerbic Dr. Gregory House, a modern day Sherlock Holmes, complete with prescription drug addictions and his only friend, Dr. Wilson.)  

The patient in this episode was a Nun, who is initially admitted with what seems to be an allergy but progressively deteriorates despite Dr. House's best efforts.  Facing her impending death, Sister Mary Augustine has a crisis of faith, where she questions why has God abandoned her.  At this point, there is a scene where Dr. Chase reminds her that God hasn't left her, and the only thing in the way of her knowing that  he is there, is her fear.  She has a choice to make, Faith...or Fear.  

As Dr. Chase explains, her choosing Faith doesn't guarantee that she won't die, but it will change the way that she experiences her death, and by extension, her life.  It's a powerful, well written scene, a short clip of which is included below.

There are a few implications of the idea that we found intriguing, especially that the choice between faith and fear may not ultimately change our outcome, but it does change our experience.  It is a shift of focus from our destination, to our journey.  

If you are going to be stuck in two hours of morning traffic, who do you think is having a better experience, the guy grumbling about everybody else's lack of driving ability and describing their conception in graphic detail, or the one who cranks up his favorite mp3's and is groovin' his way to work? They may probably both get to work at the same time, yet who is more likely to have a better and more productive day? And the critical difference is just a shift in perspective.  

Thus, despite the natural associations we have with the word faith, we can recognise the choice facing us here as being much larger than a religious one, this is about our quality of life.   So why then, do so many of us still choose to have fear direct our lives?  

Don't we all say that we want happiness?

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