a great anticipation//figuring it out {2016}

i wanted to sound really smart and begin this post with a quote from Gustave Flaubert, particularly from his novel Sentimental Education which has been sitting on my shelf since high school but i have yet to actually crack it open and find out the whole of what is on the inside.  i purchased it hastily, second semester of my junior year of high school because i was on a mission to become more well-read and thought that every classic needed to be devoured, especially obscure ones that not many had every heard of.

but alas, i never opened Sentimental Education and read it in its entirety because it felt slow and hard; instead devoured Pride & Prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye.

it was in actuality a Dawson's Creek episode that led me to consider the novel again, and for some reason since, i always and only remember what Flaubert might have been writing about because of a particular conversation between two characters on this somewhat short-lived but beloved hour-long drama i once watched and waited for with great anticipation.

The conversation takes place between one of the main character's, joey potter and her college professor.  i sought out the precise dialogue and found it on imdb.  so to give it proper justice, it went like this:

Joey: So what is the best ending in all of literature? Don't say Ulysses. Everyone says Ulysses.

Professor David Wilder: That's easy. Sentimental education by Flaubert.

Joey: And what happens?

Professor David Wilder: Nothing, really. Just two old friends sitting around remembering the best thing that never happened to them.

Joey: How do you remember something that never happened?

Professor David Wilder: Fondly. You see, Flaubert believed that anticipation was the purest form of pleasure... and the most reliable. And that while the things that actually happen to you would invariably disappoint, the things that never happened to you would never dim. Never fade. They would always be engraved in your heart with a sort of sweet sadness

i don't know why this has stuck with me.  i found it to be profound because it was a truth that i most undoubtedly believe, however true or not true it may be to anyone else.  the statements still resonate with me in a significant way years and years after i originally viewed the episode.  mostly because i agree that anticipation is quite possibly the purest form of pleasure and perhaps some of the greatest experiences of our lives.  which i suppose for some might be a dismal thing to really consider, but for me it is the sustenance of life that causes me to spur on.  it is the idea that i will never get "there".  it is the hope that there is always something better around the corner.  it is the longing that one day it will all get better.  it is the overall sense that the meaning of it all runs much deeper than these earthly confines we are living in.  anticipation feels limitless in many ways.  it offers us the purest form of not only pleasure but hope.

i assumed by the time i was in my thirties i would somehow have it all down and figured out, but instead am finding i have even less figured out than i thought.  i am constantly vacillating between dreams and goals, what i want and what i think i want and where i am going in this life.  i am constantly aware that this life is but a breath which plagues me with the fear and worry of missing out on something big and special.

i look to the future still with a sense of hope and very real and specific dreams.  i anticipate goodness and troubles.  i look forward to love and joy-filled moments as much as i expect tears and deep heartache.  but the truth in all of it is this: the greatest joys are in the anticipation, the attempts, the tries, the sometimes futile tries, the failures and the getting back up again, because ultimately, the moments we center our lives around...the birthdays, the weddings, the births, the graduations, the last day, the first day...they are all so fleeting.  they are but a moment in wide breadth of days in which we live our ordinary lives.  even those who achieve great fame and accomplish great feats over and over again, find that they too, come out on the other side and recognize how very fast and fleeting those experiences were.  the fleeting nature of these things we anticipate certainly don't take from their wonder, but they are a sobering reminder that we can put all of our stock in the moments.

there is more to life than that.  there has to be.  because life, in all reality, is one great anticipation of what is to come after.  and meanwhile, we are left to figure out how to get by and through and achieve and fail and hurt and laugh and breathe and cry and find the little joys along the way.

and so, "figure it out" is my mantra of sorts for 2016.  as i recognize that much of this life of mine is about the great anticipation of what is to come, here in my earthly life, and the life beyond these earthly constraints, i find the need to grow and to become more and stretch beyond myself in greater ways than i ever have before.

"figure it out" is a phrase that has stuck with me since the global leadership summit of 2014 when i heard bill hybels, the senior pastor of willow creek church in chicago talk on leadership. it was a memorable message in which he said, "hard fought leadership is found in being thrown into the fire and forced to figure it out on your own." the main idea being that when given the opportunity, or being left with no other choice than to "figure it out" we own our leadership and thereby model, develop, and lead others in a way which leads to a legacy mindset.  hybels argued that a "figure it out" mindset is one in which a person is ruthlessly committed to the tasks at hand, of resolving conflict, and doing everything to the best of our ability, with a whole heart unto the Lord.  the "figure it out" mindset is one that actually cares about others and their potential, it fights for enduring value and the grander vision. 

it is so easy to go for the quick, temporary fix, or find the easy way out, but that is not the making of a true leader and of someone who leaves a breathtaking legacy. As Hybels said, "the grander the vision, the greater the price tag", therefore, all the more to figure out, but God casted the grandest vision of all, and with Him on our side, we can figure it out.
#wordoftheyear2016