All authority must be given and cannot be taken. Those in charge may be disillusioned that somehow they ‘forced’ their authority, but in reality it was a choice by the person being ‘ruled’ to choose to be ruled. This begs the question, “how is control obtained?” What is it that the ruled do to specifically give others authority over them.
My answer: Obligation
When we agree to an obligation we are giving over our control to the obligation. We give over our control in our; promises to ourselves, promises to others, and promises to God.
The promises we make to ourselves generally fall into changing the type of person we are. We want to be a better person, a healthy person, or a charitable person. Every day I strive to be a better friend, parent, and spouse. I’m not always as successful as I would like, and when that occurs I feel like a ‘failure’. I feel that I failed to live up to the obligation I set before myself. This pain is a point of control. I make stives to eat well, exercise, and in general be a healthy person. I know that I only have one physical vehicle on this earth and If I need to take care of it. And yet, I went to McD’s today. I physically feel like crap and emotionally feel cheated, because of that one meal. I want to be ‘good’. I want to find ways to give more to others than I give myself. This promise I make to myself to find ways to volunteer and give charity is stifled by the feels of scarcity in time and energy. These failures to live up to the promises I make for myself are nothing when compared to when I fail to fulfill my obligations to others.
The promises we make to others have even greater impact on how we give over our control. When we want something but do not have the resources to get it right now, we make a promise to ‘pay’ for it later. This payment can be in the form of currency or providing something of value to the person taking the obligation at a later time. The commitment to a relationship is a very complex obligation with many smaller interrelated promises. If these promises are not kept, a cascading set of circumstances negatively emerge that is greater than the one promise broken. Anyone in a relationship who is baffled by the seemingly disproportionate response to a ‘small’ promise broken knows what I am talking about. Finally, when we make promises to others, we want to be seen as trusted and dependable. This constant search for significance can drive us to make commitments well above our capability. The greatest promises, and possibly the most frequent, are the ones we make to God.
Promises to God come when we want to be saved from something. Most frequently they come when we want to be saved from some personal temporary circumstance. We make a bargain that if only God would intercede then we will do ‘X’ in return. The evidence to support this tactic is incredibly light, but yet we try it anyways.Then there are times when we realize that we are our own worst enemy. My personal career is riddled with these self sabotaging moments. As if I don’t believe that I am worthy of what I am achieving and I make some unconscious choice to destroy what I’ve built. In these harsh times, I turn to God and ask ‘Why?’ I do this even though I know the answer. At the end of the day, we are bombarded with events outside our control and we seek to be saved from the devil at our doorstep. A sever storm threatens our home, my boss is out to destroy me, or any number of things that we feel our outside our sphere of influence. In these times we request comfort and quarter when there isn’t any.
Key Take-away: The source of our malcontent drives from our inability to see our obligations as opportunities to take responsibility and control for our own lives. Instead, we see the failure to fulfill them as confirmation that we are not good enough.
You are good enough.
Stay Savage!
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