This weekend finished Jamal Jivanjee’s book Living for a
Living. My friend Emilee sent this to me and I'm so grateful. Because of her recommendation, Nick and I read it together which took us a while as we squeezed in a chapter here and there.
It really tied in with a lot that I’ve been thinking about in
terms of unschooling and shedding even more of the arbitrary restrictions
placed on us by society and culture. He does a good job using examples and real
life dialogues to drive home his point, which is basically about
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Being alive to the present
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Awareness about western cultural strongholds re:
materialism, workaholism, and the idolatry of self-reliance and individualism,
and global beliefs in scarcity.
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He refers to Jesus often but doesn’t throw in
random out of context scripture passages in an annoying way
I struggled with this book because I love individualism and
self-reliance. I do rely on others but I am fairly uncomfortable with it. It
was good to examine that a bit. It has negatively affected me in the past. Like all things, we have to be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water. There are many good things about self reliance and working hard and elements of our cultural heritage. We have to carefully integrate these ideas.
I felt like the voice of cynicism was really alive in me as
he talked about pursuing dreams and so forth. I also feel like it’s a needed
call. Working hard can be a good thing. We also have this one short life to
live out on a beautiful earth. I often think of Thoreau’s famous quote “most
men lead lives of quiet desperation.” It’s a favorite of mine because I’d rather
risk losing my security rather than losing the chance to live a life full of
meaning and beauty. I think it’s important to differentiate between pursuing
meaning and pursuing sheer pleasure and happiness which is a slippery slope.
Towards the end he talks about Anthony
Robbins theory about the six essential needs: 1. Certainty 2. Uncertainty 3. Significance
4. Love and connection 5. Growth 6. Contribution
This was really interesting. I kept thinking about the uncertainty
part. Perhaps that’s what’s missing in my life. As I was hiking with my husband
in the desert, I really wanted to go down a rocky ravine in which I didn’t know
if it would lead us out to the bottom of the canyon safely. Part of the
attraction (besides scrambling over sharp rocks) was the NOT knowing.
Because of these needs, sometimes we embrace substitutes that
seem to meet these needs, even if they truly don’t. These become addictions.
This is something I want to talk about with my kids, particularly my high
schooler. This is what I want to impart not: Biology, Geometry, honors English,
Physical Education, elective, elective which is what the culture tells her she should
be spending 70% of her time doing.
What
will you do with what you’ve been given right now?
Will you
appreciate the beauty of all you’ve already been given, or will you pursue an
illusion of what you think you lack?
This last section struck a chord. I’ve spent seasons of my
life where I became so fixated on obtaining something or someone that I ceased
to enjoy the present season at all.
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