Monday's: Reaching for More

Each week recently has sped along rapidly and I’m left with more and more things to accomplish. I attempt to begin each project earnestly but become sidetracked with another… and another until I’m left with a lot of started and almost nothing finished. This problem is not new, but is something that I have understood to be a disposition of mine—a personality trait that seems to have no bend. So, maybe the question this week is…

How do you overcome personality?

Reaching for More

I’ve been thinking more deeply these past weeks into what I mean by “Reaching for More” because, well, I’m not so sure that I fully understood what I meant when I first developed the name for this publication. That is to say, as much as anyone understands anything when they first set out to do something they see as important. I’m sure there is at least one thing that sticks out to you; something that seemed to reveal itself the more you went along and showed you exactly how little you knew about the subject. I began this all with the idea that I would like to show my work and shed some advice and knowledge to anyone who might take care to listen, but as I have dug more into things, I realize that there might be more to it than that.

Dissertations and Master’s theses are often like this and exactly why students are (at least why they should be) asked to embark on such journeys—it’s not that you’re expected to know the answer by the end, but only that you do not know as much as when you started. That seems like an obvious contradiction, but when you consider that all quests of any noble pursuit should be embarked upon with the greatest humility, it should become clearer. I dare not try to convince you outright of such a thing if you are not already convinced, so I will continue my explanation and we can determine at the end whether any sense was made in all of this.

My last couple weeks of personal Scripture study have taken me through Job. It has been a great while since I last read Job and never have I tried to study this book, so there is a lot new to me. One part in particular that stood out to me was in Chapter 28, where Job provides a summary of his defense against the suffering he has been enduring by affirming his own righteousness. Job, in his defense, asks a crucial question:

“But where shall wisdom be found?”

Job 28:12 (ESV)

This is a question that many have pondered and attempted to grasp: the beginning of philosophy.

So, what answer does Job offer?

“then he saw it and declared it;
he established it, and searched it out.
And he said to man,
‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,
and to turn away from evil is understanding.’”

Job 28:27-28

There is a lot packed into these two verses, and frankly the whole section is ripe, but I would like to highlight a particular line in the selected passage that is helpful to us right now: “he established it, and searched it out”.

How can you search for something you already established?

It seems like a contradiction, but I assure you, it’s not. This is exactly what I described at the beginning of this piece: Reaching for More. Establishing something is just the beginning, similar to plotting a course on a map—you’ve only just plotted it out. Now, you have to go after it; something like “seek and you will find”. You tilt your whole being in its direction.

The idea of “reaching for more” is unveiling itself the more I pursue what I have established; just like anything that you establish, the world of your perceived significance begins to order itself around that established point. But it’s important to remember that 1) you must pursue the goal you set, otherwise it becomes useless ambiguity 2) you must establish it. Establishing does not mean writing it on a to-do list. It means that you have resolved to see this thing through, or in language I’ve been exploring recently—you will it.

To answer the question from the outset of this piece, overcoming personality, that great monolith of our habits, takes will. Not just a will to act in an opposite direction to our perceived obstruction, but a will to pursue what is best, a will to reach for more. It’s not that we have been constructed so poorly at birth such that we do not conform with the rest of humanity, but rather we orchestrate ourselves so poorly in the virtue of our nature and it’s in aligning our will to the striving and overcoming of the vices and sins we so often place in our way and stumble over that we begin to act in accordance with our own nature and discover wisdom and understanding. Reaching for more is, in great part, searching out what is already within us and educating our expectations and our will to convene with that nature rather than oppose it.

So, maybe that’s becoming an innovator, inventor, artist, philosopher, engineer, or craftsman instead of whatever mold you’ve attempted to place yourself into based upon expectations not established by you.

Thanks for Reading!

See you next week,

xxDevan