On countless occasions when my mother gives me her blessings, she says, "May you be successful in your mission." I think anyone who knows me has probably gauged that this is my greatest desire, wish fulfillment, and prayer in life, stubbornly so!
It lends me to be incredibly tunnel visioned and escapist about the present moment. It does not matter what I am doing today that I so fervently dreamed about and so relentlessly worked toward for the last five, ten, twenty years. My eyes are fixated on the mountain peaks far into the horizon (quite literally).
I seem to straddle a fine line between challenging my limitations and a certain naiveté that impossibility does not exist if afforded the grace of God. Therein lies immense opportunity to fall head first into either side of the tightrope - how do you know your limitations?
I don't.
But, call me lucky because my limitations know me really well. You see, my OCD tendencies love to neatly compartmentalize my various pursuits into separate, unassuming, just minding-their-own-business, tightly locked drawers of a deceivingly polished wardrobe. How convenient that my health and work load and social life and practice of faith have nothing to do with each other (ha, I beat the system)!
But, all it takes is one missing sock for my entire, organized, meticulously designed self-assurance to burst at the seams on a random Tuesday morning right before an important meeting. My body gives out. My mind can't make any sense of what I am going to guess are English words on a page. And, I have 50 or so unread messages that I can't bring myself to open. Also, have you gotten a text from me lately describing your starring role in one of my daily dreams about the presentation I have to give, the event I have to go to, or some subconscious fight I had with you? I apologize in advance for waking up mad at you, my friend.
Burnout is real, especially when compounded with the influx of media we consume about the increasingly despairing state of the world. The sense of urgency to respond to crises in a meaningful way is sometimes no match for the paralysis of realizing our sheer lack of control over anything outside of ourselves.
And yet we must crawl, shimmy, and slide forward "ahista ahista" (slowly slowly), as my best friend reminds me. We must let ourselves wander into Ikea for a while to reimagine one of those Billy Bob wardrobes of our dreams that may one day lead us to Narnia, but for now I'll be happy with one that can just hold itself together, for the socks' sake.
If you asked me yesterday how I want to be remembered, I would have told you that I hope I am known as someone who surrendered completely to her mission in life. If you ask me the same question today, I might amend my response to say I wish to be someone who better understands that my "Mission is: to know God, and enjoy Him forever, and to see His hand in all His works" (Richard Bolles).
Therein, I believe, lies the real intention behind my mother's prayer for me.
If you too have forgotten Jim Carrey's powerful affirmation, I'll leave it as a final thought for the road: "I have enough. I've done enough. I am enough."
