Last night I gained some clarity regarding why one should engage with something like The365Commitment, and on what basis such an effort make sense. I’ve been seeking to know how to act and why, and think I have some solid answers.
I was listening to a lecturer (Jordan Peterson) discuss the idea that societal stability promotes hard work and conscientiousness. This makes sense for couple reasons. If things around us are safe and stable, then the probability of enjoying future reward for behaving conscientiously goes up. One can save money, or invest, or make the effort to build with assurance that he will experience a future opportunity to enjoy the fruits of self sacrifice. The opposite holds true as well.
If the future is uncertain, then incentive to work and sacrifice goes down because the probability of losing what has been saved to thieves, or inflation, or irrelavance due to a changing landscape is high. Why work, why sacrifice for a long term payoff, if the future appears bleak? Immediate gratification makes perfect sense when uncertainty rules the day. Grab whatever pleasure you can in the short term, planning or working for long term outcomes are pointless and when nihlism occludes our spirit.
So, our behavior seems responsive to and or determined by our perception of the future we think is coming. Yet, we know that our behavior shapes the future; we create the future. Don’t we? Sort of a chicken and egg dynamic going on.
It occurs to me that perception and reality entangle and two distinct trajectories tend to emerge. We can see one reflected by both societies and individual lives that are poor and desperate and chaotic. Lack of faith in realizing a long term reward and indulgance in behaviors that maximize short term gain seem to start an engine of misery and suffering that consume peoples lives and is difficult to stop.
Wheras, faith in and behavior geared toward a worthy long term outcome (delayed gratification) create societies and individual lives that are stable, enjoyable and prosperous. Perception and reality entangle, two fundamental trajectories are possible, or inevitable. Which one do we want?
In light of the perception reality entanglement process, that seems to scale across human experience from societal to individual, the Judeo Christian foundational principles of faith and sacrifice (explained through ancient stories and parables on multiple levels) appear as solutions to our existential predicament. Habits of faith and sacrifice put us on the trajectory that is good, period; faith and sacrifice are an engine that manifest good, from the simplest and most common daily realities, to the grandest of spiritual aspiration. It is a formula, a viable solution to managing existence.
All this thinking comes home to me in realizing how to act and why. Whatever level I’m operating at, whether mundane daily existence or sublime spiritual connection, I must have faith that, working in earnest, delaying gratification (sacrificing self), disciplining myself, and believing in the possible will be rewarded.
I must not, I will not allow uncertainty and fear drive me into short term gratifications, malaise, or nihilism. Instead, I will allow faith and hard work and good habits manifest good in my life.
In light of this grounding, I can renew my 365 Commitment; because, it makes perfect sense as a tool for building and enjoying future reward, and managing the entanglement of perception and reality to good effect.
Ben Wagner (225)
Member The365Commitment
