Powerlessness

To say it's currently raining outside would be an understatement: in actuality, it's totally cats and dogs. Although I'm rather enjoying the current episode, there's something about extreme weather conditions that generally makes me feel vulnerable. It's as if I suddenly come to the realization that the elements - whether downpours, thunder, or tornadoes - are much bigger and more powerful than I am. I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise that a world where individuals in certain privileged positions - achieved by means of education, money, etc - are made out to be larger-than-life, it takes something as omnipotent as Mother Nature to bring us back down to earth. For me, while this is often a positive, humbling experience, it can also be relentlessly diminishing. I've always been mindful of the distinction that needs to be made between healthy meekness and outright powerlessness, and I'll readily admit that I'm very uncomfortable with the thought of the latter.

In Radical Gratitude (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2002), which I'm currently studying with some friends, Mary Jo Leddy claims that society has compelled us to believe in the "forced alternatives" of being "totally in control" of our lives, or "totally powerless." As one can gather from the title of the book, Leddy is primarily concerned with examining the virtue of gratitude; in the process, she frequently contrasts it with what she identifies as a pervasive dissatisfaction in the lives of Westerners. While she quickly dismisses the quest to be totally in control as a vain, irrational, "impossible dream," she's also quick to point out the dangers associated with feeling powerless. Leddy claims that powerlessness stems, rather ironically, from the eventual realization that quests for absolute power are doomed to fail. Consequently, because we've been convinced of the system of "forced alternatives," we become mired in self-pity and apathy, unconvinced that any initiative we take will have a lasting impact. The only way to prevent the onset of the self-fulfilling prophecy that is conviction of personal powerlessness, Leddy argues, is to act on the realization that there are certain areas of our lives that we can change, and others we can't.

Admittedly, I've been feeling pretty powerless lately, and not just because of rainstorms. Whether it's lack of discipline in my work, poor efforts in maintaining relationships, or a variety of other vices that I won't get into, I feel a genuine lack of power to affect significant positive change in my own daily habits and routines. I've learned a fair amount about myself through self-examination and conversation with others in the past couple years, and have come to realize that I'm a perfectionist to the extent that if there's no prospect of me accomplishing a task to the highest standard, I don't feel as if it's worth doing at all. Thus, Leddy's humbling assertion that there are some things that I naturally won't be able to achieve on my own is hard for me to swallow.

I am, nevertheless, encouraged by the new train of thought my reading of Radical Gratitude has developed. 2 Timothy 1:7 comes to mind in all of this: "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." Coupled with a good deal of prayer and consultation with friends, I think I'm going to start trying to make more small changes in my life, in place of my tendency to constantly try to reinvent the wheel. Hopefully, this will help me overcome the feelings of "corrupting powerlessness" that Leddy identifies as having got under the skin of our society.