#65 Consigning Discouragement to the Past

Here's a new way to think about discouragement. What if the most potent part of it is already past? When we face hard things now, the feelings of discouragement that overwhelm us are from our childhood-when we really were little and our best efforts often failed-and they really don't belong in the present at all. It's a hard concept to wrap the mind around: there's a way it makes sense, but surely there are discouraging things in our world in the present. Indeed, isn't most of our world pretty discouraging? Isn't that one of the things that takes the shine off our enjoyment of life?

I decided to investigate. When I tried conjuring up the discouraging messages from my childhood, I heard a plaintive little voice saying, "This is way too big, and there's nothing I can do to change it." Then I tried to think about the most discouraging thing that I'm facing in my current life; what came to mind was the possible financial failure of an organization to which I'm deeply committed. When I listen for the sound of my discouragement about it, it's that same plaintive message I hear inside my head: "This is way too big, and there's nothing I can do to change it."

But when I reflect on it, I see that this message really doesn't fit the current situation. The problem is big, for sure, and there's no guarantee of success. My efforts, and the efforts of others, may ultimately prove to be inadequate. On the other hand, I'm big now too. And I'm smart. And I'm surrounded by other smart grown-ups who want the same thing and have a chance of making it happen. When I erase the old message, when I drain out the old discouragement, the whole tone is different. What I'm left with is basically just a challenge. And who would want to live a life without challenges? Of course this is more easily said than done, but there's something about the shift in perspective that I find very hopeful.


In a way, we have it backwards. We say, for example, that the environmental crisis makes us feel discouraged. But, if we're really honest, we've felt discouraged for a long time (way before we knew about global warming) and the crisis gives us something to attach those feelings of discouragement to in the present. If we consigned them to the past, if we drained away their old potency, we'd just be left with a situation. And we'd be in a much stronger position to size up the situation, gather others around, and think about what we want to do.