Today was one of those days where I didn't get quite as much done as I would have liked to, but I'm alright with that because I took some time to really settle some things and 'smell the roses' in my life, as my dad would say. The over-arching theme of my musing lately has been around the issue of contentment: I'm not content, I would be content if...(fill in the blank), I was content until...(again, fill in the blank), and Why has my mindset changed when the circumstances of my life haven't? This all came to a head over the weekend (oh the irony of wrestling with contentment on Thanksgiving weekend!), but felt wholly unsettled until I was driving home just now. Amazingly, the most simple way to explain the conclusion that I've come to is by telling you about a class I'm taking at school!
I should add a small disclaimer here: There are two things that you should know about me. First, I'm the type of student who actually really loves school, and as such, I tend to take any chance I can get to apply (and therefore better understand) the things that I'm learning. Second, one of my favourite things about God is that He speaks to us in the language that we understand...I understand Biology and Physiology so you can guess the types of analogies for Kingdom Principles that make the most sense to me. All of that to say, this will not be the first and last time that I nerd out about something I'm learning in school that challenged my spiritual life, BUT I will do my very best to warn you when it is happening and to make it as painless as possible for everyone who God speaks to in other ways than through physiology. Deal? Sweet.
So, here's what got me thinking today...
I'm taking a class called 'Stress and Chronic Disease' and one of the theories that we talk about in regards to stress describes a person's appraisal process for - or how they perceive and react to - any given situation. In a nut shell, Primary Appraisal is the decision to view an event as either stressful, beneficial, or neutral. If the event is stressful, the primary appraisal also includes a decision about whether or not you have any control (potential to improve the situation). Secondary Appraisal is the process of choosing a way of coping with the stressful event based on the resources available. Typically, the less control you have, the less you feel you can do to influence the outcome, and the more likely you are to have a negative view and negative results in your attempts to cope effectively.
So in essence, everything after the initial evaluation of the circumstance is built on the framework of viewing that circumstance from the chosen perspective: either stressful (bad) or not (good). And if the event is deemed stressful, one's ability to handle it effectively is directly dependent on the amount of perceived control.
How does this relate to contentment, you ask? Well let me explain.
In my life there are things that I can control (how I spend my time, how I spend my money, what I choose to do, say, or think about at any given moment) and things that I can't control (exactly how my life will look in five years, whether I'll win any scholarships or get into medical school, when or even whether I'll get married). For those things that I can't control, human instinct tells me to treat them as stressors and to try to execute control over them; that I must master them or be mastered (psychologically). The later would doubtlessly end in a defeat response of eventual apathy towards my life; and the former would result in a series of 'take it now' decisions that would have me compromising my pursuit of one dream in order to fulfill another and ultimately looking back on my life, realizing that none of the purity of the things that I once valued is left.
The problem with both of these is that, in one case I would be manufacturing control when in fact I have none, and in the other I would be recognizing my own lack without attributing control to God. Ultimately in both of these responses, my primary appraisal has deemed the situation of my life to be uncontrolled, and therefore stressful and negative.
But this need not be the case! It's true that I don't have control over a lot of things in my life; there are questions that are unanswered and there always will be. God, on the other hand, does have control over each of my unknowns, and if I am diligent to do the things He has before me to do right now, and allow Him to guide me and make adjustments as I go, I know that I'll one day look up and be right in the middle of everything that He's promised me. From that perspective, these things aren't stressors at all. In fact, they're actually benefits - one less thing I have to worry about!
With this in mind, how can I be content? I simply need to reevaluate my primary appraisal. If I change the mindset at the top of the process, the whole train of thought changes directions, and I must say the tracks run through some pretty stunning view-points.
I should add a small disclaimer here: There are two things that you should know about me. First, I'm the type of student who actually really loves school, and as such, I tend to take any chance I can get to apply (and therefore better understand) the things that I'm learning. Second, one of my favourite things about God is that He speaks to us in the language that we understand...I understand Biology and Physiology so you can guess the types of analogies for Kingdom Principles that make the most sense to me. All of that to say, this will not be the first and last time that I nerd out about something I'm learning in school that challenged my spiritual life, BUT I will do my very best to warn you when it is happening and to make it as painless as possible for everyone who God speaks to in other ways than through physiology. Deal? Sweet.
So, here's what got me thinking today...
I'm taking a class called 'Stress and Chronic Disease' and one of the theories that we talk about in regards to stress describes a person's appraisal process for - or how they perceive and react to - any given situation. In a nut shell, Primary Appraisal is the decision to view an event as either stressful, beneficial, or neutral. If the event is stressful, the primary appraisal also includes a decision about whether or not you have any control (potential to improve the situation). Secondary Appraisal is the process of choosing a way of coping with the stressful event based on the resources available. Typically, the less control you have, the less you feel you can do to influence the outcome, and the more likely you are to have a negative view and negative results in your attempts to cope effectively.
So in essence, everything after the initial evaluation of the circumstance is built on the framework of viewing that circumstance from the chosen perspective: either stressful (bad) or not (good). And if the event is deemed stressful, one's ability to handle it effectively is directly dependent on the amount of perceived control.
How does this relate to contentment, you ask? Well let me explain.
In my life there are things that I can control (how I spend my time, how I spend my money, what I choose to do, say, or think about at any given moment) and things that I can't control (exactly how my life will look in five years, whether I'll win any scholarships or get into medical school, when or even whether I'll get married). For those things that I can't control, human instinct tells me to treat them as stressors and to try to execute control over them; that I must master them or be mastered (psychologically). The later would doubtlessly end in a defeat response of eventual apathy towards my life; and the former would result in a series of 'take it now' decisions that would have me compromising my pursuit of one dream in order to fulfill another and ultimately looking back on my life, realizing that none of the purity of the things that I once valued is left.
The problem with both of these is that, in one case I would be manufacturing control when in fact I have none, and in the other I would be recognizing my own lack without attributing control to God. Ultimately in both of these responses, my primary appraisal has deemed the situation of my life to be uncontrolled, and therefore stressful and negative.
But this need not be the case! It's true that I don't have control over a lot of things in my life; there are questions that are unanswered and there always will be. God, on the other hand, does have control over each of my unknowns, and if I am diligent to do the things He has before me to do right now, and allow Him to guide me and make adjustments as I go, I know that I'll one day look up and be right in the middle of everything that He's promised me. From that perspective, these things aren't stressors at all. In fact, they're actually benefits - one less thing I have to worry about!
With this in mind, how can I be content? I simply need to reevaluate my primary appraisal. If I change the mindset at the top of the process, the whole train of thought changes directions, and I must say the tracks run through some pretty stunning view-points.
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