In the Fall of 2021, I found myself alone in our house, pondering.
It was a hard time, filled with hard questions about life, about the past, about choices, about the future.
It was a time to journal and reflect and think deeply.
And weirdly, I ended up finding comfort and traction in the answer to this question:
What is the WORST that could happen?
I like to think analytically, and often find it helpful to imagine extremes. It’s a sort of context-bracketing. A way of calibrating. I do this all the time; it’s useful in the way it can both provide perspective and stretch my imagination, too.
I also understand the hazards of envisioning and imagining THIS end of the spectrum. I’ve heard neuroscientists and folks familiar with NLP explain that our subconscious mind does not have the capacity to differentiate between reality and the imagined; it is highly suggestible and highly accepting.
What you show it, it believes is true. What you tell it, it perceives as real, whether it is a memory or a visualization.
That is both amazing, and humbling. It is a scientific fact that has enormous implications for how we can live our best lives. It can be the source of great encouragement, and deep despair, too.
So, asking THIS question: “What’s the WORST you can imagine?” is not just challenging, but also risky.
With an appropriate sense of caution, I asked myself the question, and got my answer.
The worst:
I could be a bag lady living in Florida, staying in a tiny room just 6 feet wide and 7 feet long, with a metal spring cot for a bed and an electric hot-pot to cook a few ramyon noodles for a meal each day. No other belongings. Just the clothes on my back and the shoes on my feet. All luxuries stripped away. No other creature comforts as a buffer between me and the harshest of economic realities.
Just me, the clothes, the shoes, the cot, the ramyon pot.
Can you imagine it?
I could. I did.
The risk, of course, is that I could imagine this so successfully that I would bring it to fruition. That I would instruct my subconscious to ACHIEVE this goal of living that much on the margin, of being that impoverished, that stressed, that deprived.
And that is not my goal, of course.
My goal was to discover and discern what I could tolerate,
what I could survive,
what I could accept …
AND STILL be happy, be joyful, be purposeful.
AND STILL be myself.
AND STILL know who I am.
I could imagine it: the deprivation, the discouragement, the constraint of that harsh a life.
And I could also recognize the truth of this:
That even in that catastrophic context, there would be a day (most likely EVERY day!) when I would be walking down the street and someone would cross my path, and there would be a spontaneous interaction or encounter for 20 seconds, or 20 minutes, or 2 hours, in which I would simply be where I was meant to be, and both I and that other “random” person would leave that interaction (after 20 seconds, or 20 minutes, or 2 hours), surprised and satisfied, encouraged and joyful … because of that unlikely, accidental and un-orchestrated encounter.
We would.
We both would.
Because it would have been meant-to-be.
Because I would have been exactly WHERE I was meant to be, and WHO I was meant to be.
I know who I am.
I think I know who I am meant to keep becoming.
I want to grow in my obedience to that intention, that identity, that purpose.
Even if.
Even if the chips would fall in that worst-visualizable-way.
I could still be me.
I would still be ME.
I could still be joyful, even in circumstances that could be perceived as “the worst” …
I could still be joyful.
I do not want the worst. But it is good to know that I would not be destroyed by it. There is comfort in that. There is courage in that, too.
Who I am,
who you are,
is not defined by what we have.
We all know that, most days.
Do you really know it?
I do.
You can, too.