Limits and Liberty ~ Chapter Three: You Cannot Have It All and Having It All Doesn’t Equal Happiness

Today’s contemplation of libery and limits is a long one. If you haven’t read the previous posts, you may want to start here and then read chapter two.

Quite some time ago, I read The New Midlife Crisis at Oprah.com. It’s long. And relevant.

Let me sum it up for you.

We (women in particular) have been sold a lie:

“You can have it all, and having it all will make you happy.”

At some point after that lie began, the ugly truth hit us.

“You are obligated to have it all, and you will be judged accordingly. You will always fall short.”

You must do it all, be it all, have it all, know it all. Everything is available to you so no excuses.

Options became obligations became oppression, and now we’re coming undone under the weight of it all.

You have 20 local gyms. You have countless excercise programs on countless platforms to stream to your television. Heck, stream them on your i-whatever, so you never have an excuse. Any time. Any place. Any weather. You must always be thin and sculpted.

You have a gazillion anti-aging products and procedures to choose from. You are expected not to age.

You have a gazillion beauty products to choose from, and a salon around every corner. You should look like you just stepped out of one.

Bronzed skin in February? Check. Precisely straight, unnaturally glow-in-the-dark white teeth? Required.

You can have any career you wish. It had better be impressive.

All the stuff? All the activities and vactions? That’s what credit cards, loans, and mortgages are for. No excuses.

Maybe, just maybe, we can shrug off the expectations. We can make a different choice for ourselves, self-limit, despite real or perceived judgment. But add kids to the equation? Mothers, in many cases, take a lion’s share of the child-raising obligations on their shoulders. Can we handle the judgment of others (including our kids) when we don’t provide or facilitate every possible opportunity for our children?

Speaking of children… No one has an excuse not to have children. And no one has an excuse to have more than two. Boy and girl, preferrably. Hair combed. Clothes clean. Top of their class. Leader of the team. All the activities. Best schools.

And, by golly, now that you have everything, you should be happy. Because we all know that independence, money, beauty, things, and success bring happiness, right?

A little over a month ago, I randomly stumbled on this raw-honest article written by Stacy London of What Not To Wear fame.

It’s worth reading, but I’ll sum it up for you.

Independence, money, beauty, things, and success don’t bring happiness.

Days before I read that article, Joshua Gibbs posted the following on Facebook:

"Money cannot buy happiness, but it can buy unhappiness."

One day prior, also on Facebook, a friend posted quotes from Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari.

“In 2012 about 56 million people died throughout the world; 620,000 of them died due to human violence. In contrast, 800,000 committed suicide, and 1.5 million died of diabetes. Sugar is now more dangerous than gunpowder."

"For all humanity’s astounding accomplishments in reducing the worst sufferings, our happiness levels really haven’t changed. Actually suicide is a greater problem, especially in developed countries."

I immediately grabbed Homo Deus at the library, and I’m riveted. For all of human history, we have battled three dominant problems: famine, plague, and war. Harari makes the case that we humans, in just the past few decades and for the first time in history, have transformed these “uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges.” Now that human striving has conquered these dominant problems, we have a new agenda which includes immortality and happiness.

On immortality:

“In truth they will actually be a-mortal, rather than immortal… So as long as no bomb shreds them to pieces or no truck runs them over, they could go on living indefinitely. Which will probably make them the most anxious people in history. We mortals daily take chances with our lives because we know they are going to end anyhow. So we go on treks in the Himalayas, swim in the sea, and do many other dangerous things like crossing the street or eating out. But if you believe you can live forever, you would be crazy to gamble on infinity like that.”

On happiness:

“On the psychological level, happiness depends on expectations rather than objective conditions. We don’t become satisfied by leading a peaceful and prosperous existence. Rather, we become satisfied when reality matches our expectations. The bad news is that as conditions improve, expectations balloon. Dramatic improvements in conditions, as humankind has experienced in recent decades, translate into greater expectations rather than greater contentment. If we don’t do something about this, our future achievements too might leave us as dissatisfied as ever.”

Anxious and dissatisfied. Not progress.

I’m only about 50 pages in, and the book is littered with sticky tabs. I’m curious to read his conclusions. I may have to purchase this one so I can highlight and underline to my heart’s content.

Then another friend (on FB) posted a quote from Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig.

“The world is increasingly designed to depress us. Happiness isn’t very good for the economy. If we were happy with what we had, why would we need more? How do you sell and antiaging moisturizer? You make someone worry about aging. How do you get people to vote for a political party? You make them worry about immigration. How do you get them to buy insurance? By making them worry about everything. How do you get them to have plastic surgery? By highlighting their physical flaws. How do you get them to watch a TV show? By making them worry about missing out. How do you get them to buy a new smartphone? By making them feel like they are being left behind.

“To be calm becomes a kind of revolutionary act. To be happy with your own nonupgraded existence. To be comfortable with our messy, human selves, would not be good for business.”

I immediately purchased (ha!) Matt Haig’s book. It’s an overwhelmingly helpful and, in the end, hopeful book about depression and anxiety from someone experienced with both.

Just today, yet another friend posted this jaw-dropping article: “Torches of Freedom”: The Anti-Literature of Advertising at Front Porch Republic.

“The object is to associate the sandwich with “freedom.” The technique is always the same: associate some salable commodity with some ineffable quality, preferably something deeply felt and visceral: love, peace, attractiveness, status. We cannot purchase freedom by the pound, but we can purchase sandwiches and cigarettes, and if the one can be associated with the other in our minds, it is not necessary to discuss the advantages of the product. After all, you can choose your own vegetables and select one of a dozen pre-packaged dressings. What more could freedom want?”

What more could freedom want? Exactly. All those choices and we think they bring happiness.

“This “new man” created by consumer culture can have anything he wants, except happiness; he must always be wanting and never be content, because contentment would be the death of consumerism. He must always seek his happiness in things rather than in persons, and then seek it again in some other thing; but he must never be allowed to become content; contentment would destroy the consumer culture...”

What’s to be done?

“Teachers of literature must train their students to apply the same techniques of literary criticism they learn in reading literature to their reading of anti-literature… “

[Go read the rest of the article!]

I have a few ideas that I’ll be sharing in later posts, but I’ll share two counter-cultural links.

:: Just as I Am: Accepting Our Limitations by Jennifer Hesse (Jenn is a friend of mine and she posted this as a response to the Oprah article.)

“Whereas human nature constrains our time, energy, and strength, God by his nature is eternal, infinite, and all-powerful.”

:: The Economy of Kindness at Rabbit Room

"The Kingdom of Christ and its economy of grace run deeper. When we offer the token of kindness to others, especially when they expect an exchange of money, we let them know that they have verged upon another land. Here, their money can buy nothing, but if they offer their need, they can dine on the richest of fare."

Limits and Liberty ~ Chapter Two: The Golden Mean (of Virtue)

[Read Chapter One here.]

“It is better to rise from life as from a banquet -
neither thirsty nor drunken.” 

~Aristotle

I’ve started doing yoga. What I’ve learned is what looks so very easy can be so very difficult.

Even when I’m not moving (especially when I’m not supposed to be moving).

It’s the balancing that gets me. It takes so much muscle control to remain still. I have constant checks (small and large) in one direction and then then other. Sometimes I completely lose any semblance of form and have to begin again.

Let’s return to our pendulum from chapter one. It feels great, at first, to swing from a place of oppression to a place of freedom, but some of us may have discovered that the swing away from tyranny brings us to a different form of slavery on the other extreme. Slavery to an over-loaded schedule, closet, or body, for example.

Seneca, the famous Stoic, wrote, “So-called pleasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishments…”

The solution seems so easy: just shed a few activities, pairs of shoes, or pounds.

But it takes an extraordinary amount of muscle control (and willingness to live in tension) to find that place of equilibrium and remain there. It’s a constant effort of self-imposed limits, and we’re easily tired by constant effort.

We make decisions. We second-guess ourselves. We give in to pleasure or convenience. We punish ourselves.

Aristotle, writing about ethics, examined moral behavior according to the “golden mean of virtue.” He argued that virtuous living is a balance within a sliding scale of deficiency and excess (the extremes). The deficiency and excess are both vices, and the golden mean is virtue.

“For both excessive and insufficient exercise destroy one’s strength, and both eating and drinking too much or too little destroy health, whereas the right quantity produces, increases or preserves it. So it is the same with temperance, courage and the other virtues… This much then, is clear: in all our conduct it is the mean that is to be commended.” [Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics]

True liberty is liberty from excess.

True liberty is liberty to choose virtue.

Not cowardice or recklessness, but courage.
Not stinginess or extravagance, but generosity.
Not sloth or greed, but ambition.
Not bashfulness or flamboyance, but modesty.
Not apathy or aggression, but patience.
Not indecisiveness or impulsiveness, but self-control.
Not starvation or gluttony, but sufficiency.
Not cacophony or monotony, but harmony.
Not tyranny or anarchy, but freedom.
Not laziness or obsessiveness, but perseverance.
Not uniformity or eccentricity, but individuality.
Not false-modesty or boastfulness, but truthfulness.
Not chaos or reginmentation, but order.
Not self-deprecation or vanity, but confidence.
Not quarrelsomeness or flattery, but friendliness.
Not moroseness or absurdity, but good humor.

In our culture’s quest for freedom, we think in terms of “freedom from” rather than “freedom to.” We want freedom from limits (seeking pleasure and happiness) instead of the freedom to do what we ought (seeking virtue and character).

“Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” - Pope John Paul II

Do I have a handle on this in my own life? Absolutely not. I’m just a shaky tree pose over here. You’ll hear me chanting “I am, I can, I ought, I will,” as I wobble, fall, and start again.

In upcoming posts, I’ll be sharing how the “golden mean” applies to various areas in my life.

:: Charlotte Mason’s Students Motto @ Ambleside Online

“I am, I can, I ought, I will.”

:: Stratford Caldecott, Beauty in the Word

We imagine that the more choices we have, the freer we are. In reality, a multitude of choices makes us no freer than we were before unless we have the freedom (that is, the power, the ability) to choose between the right action and the wrong action... A myriad of evil choices is no choice at all.

:: Letter 39: On Noble Aspirations ~Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

Utility measures our needs; but by what standard can you check the superfluous?

It is for this reason that men sink themselves in pleasures, and they cannot do without them when once they have become accustomed to them, and for this reason they are most wretched, because they have reached such a pass that what was once superfluous to them has become indispensable.

And so they are the slaves of their pleasures instead of enjoying them; they even love their own ills, - and that is the worst ill of all! Then it is that the height of unhappiness is reached, when men are not only attracted, but even pleased, by shameful things, and when there is no longer any room for a cure, now that those things which once were vices have become habits.

:: The Virtuous Life: Moderation @ The Art of Manliness

This is certainly the answer society gives us for our restlessness, our boredom, our anxiousness, and unhappiness. The answer is always MORE. More stimulation. More sex, more movies, more music, more drinking, more money, more freedom, more food. More of anything is sold as the cure for everything. Yet paradoxically, the more stimulation we receive, the less joy and enjoyment we get out of it. The key to experiencing greater fulfillment and pleasure is actually moderation.

:: The Stoic Range of Virtue: In Defense of Moderation @ The Daily Stoic

As a society we pride ourselves on extremes. We flaunt how few hours of sleep we maintain, how insatiable we are in our careers, and how comfortable our lives are thanks to an excess of luxury goods. But the problem is that when we aspire to extremes, we also run the risk of taking our virtues too far, which collapse into their opposite-crippling flaws in character.

Oppression, Freedom, and the Toothpaste Aisle

Eleven years ago I began blogging. Eleven years ago I was in the early stages of parenting (my boys were 5, 2, and 8 months). Eleven years ago we moved into our little “forever home.” Eleven years ago we began our homeschooling adventure.

I had plans. I had big plans.

I had it all figured out.

My dreams, if I admitted them, were ambitious. On paper (and in blog posts), a decade ahead was the decade when it all came together. I would be experienced. I would be successful. My kids, oh, they would be amazing. All my passions would have become honed talents. Photography, interior design, parenting, homeschooling, reading, blogging, writing and speaking—expert level, right?!

Maybe you have noticed how quiet the blog has been for a year, or two or three.

Turns out, I don’t have it all figured out. The further into this life gig I get, the less I know and the less I feel qualified to share what I think I still know. Not only do I know less, but I do less.

I have a gazillion blog posts started. One of three things always happens:

1. I’m too lazy or distracted to finish it.

2. My perfectionist side can’t get it up to snuff.

3. I realize I am in no place to give any sort of advice or encouragement. About anything.

But a web, of sorts, has been forming in my mind and in my heart over the past six months. I’ve resisted writing a blog post because this web is woven of many different topics (the golden mean of virtue, politics, health, freedom vs liberty, minimalism vs hoarding, self-care vs self-limits, slothfulness vs leisure, independence vs community, depression, stoicism, Charlotte Mason). There are few topics the web doesn’t touch, and my thoughts are not linear. My perfectionism wants them organized in three winsome persuasive parallel points. With alliteration.

Of course, I also want these ideas to have transformed my life so I can share my successful experience. And I can be an expert.

Truth is, I’m wrestling with these ideas and preaching to myself. You can join me if you like. Wrestle with me. Discuss with me. Share with me your thoughts and experiences.

I have to take this in bite-sized pieces, so I’ll give you the short version if you’re the type of person who reads the last page of the book before starting the first chapter.

Short Version

Unbridled freedom is not freedom.

Options become obligations become oppression.

We can mitigate the damage in two ways:

• By limiting ourselves.
• By loving our neighbor.

The cruicible in which these actions are practiced is FAMILY.

Chapter One (of the Long Version)

I’ve been thinking about the sliding scale (or pendulum swing) between the oppressive lack of freedom and choices that much of humanity has had in other times or other cultures and the unbridled freedom and abundance of our own age.

For so many people throughout history, the occupation of their hours was fixed, their diet was fixed, their relationships were fixed, their knowledge was fixed, their cultural traditions and village of residence was fixed, their housing, clothing, number of children, personal hygiene, careers, creative outlets were fixed. So little freedom. So few choices.

But in this culture in this age?

We have a rapacious appetite for freedoms and choices. We resist all external limits.

You cannot tell me what I should or should not, may not have. You cannot tell me what I should or should not, may not do.

I have the freedom and ability to purchase 100 different items for personal hygiene. When I run out of one of these, let’s say toothpaste, I am faced with a string of decisions/judgments.

When shall I go to the store to buy more? Is it in the budget, or shall I go into debt? Which of the 20 nearby stores shall I visit? (This in itself requires a long string of judgments including distance, convenience, selection, thriftiness, and business ethics.) On the dental hygiene aisle (loaded with countless types of tools and potions just for teeth), I have 40 different toothpastes to choose from. Which is safest? Which is most effective for the purpose I wish it to fulfill? Which is the most economical? Which is healthy? Which is tastiest? Which packaging is attractive? Which one impacts the environment the least? Which company is most ethical? The list goes on. Do I buy just one, or do I stock up? What fits in my budget? What fits in my space? Will that save me time, energy, or money? Do I buy other items at the store while I’m there? Shall I pay with cash, check, or credit card? Which of the 10 credit cards in my wallet shall I use? Is the transaction safe?

We are so conditioned to face these endless strings of judgments and choices every single moment of every day that we hardly notice them.

But do we know what toll they take on us, emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually?

Is it healthy to demand no limits to our choices? Decisions that fatigue or paralyze us. Closets and counters overflowing with stuff that clutters our life. Excess or harmful food that weighs us down and cripples our bodies, minds, and emotions. Relationships that break us. Debt that burdens. Immoral or unethical actions or thoughts that destroy us spiritually.

Or is it possible to self-limit in a healthy way that brings us to the center of the pendulum swing, to a place of equilibrium, a golden mean?

In order not to be damaged by unlimited freedom and choices, I must have the self-discipline to set my own limits.

That is difficult in a culture in which choices are a right, almost an obligation. It is difficult in a culture of excess and permissiveness to find the self-discipline to deny ourselves any pleasure, convenience, desire, privilege, or entitlement. Especially when these limits seem (or are) arbitrary.

What if I choose to reject my 465 health care options? What if I wear the same items of clothing every day? What if I haven’t changed my hair style in 20 years? What if I choose to eliminate electronics from my life? What if I choose not to take a promotion? What if I choose to eat the same meal for dinner every evening?

*

I have been contemplating the idea of freedom and self-limits and finding that it is applicable in myriad arenas of life. I am hoping to share how this concept illuminates specific topics in future blog posts. Let’s see if I can write chapter two…