I live a good life. I have many reasons to thank my Creator for His blessings. In the past several weeks, I have been barely missed by inattentive drivers in the morning while I jog or cycle through the neighborhood. I have survived furloughs and reductions in staffing. I have my health and can get up and work out and enjoy good food. I even have a few friends. Life is great. I know it could be greater.
Many of the people I know are not so lucky. Far too many of them settle for the status quo. I remember once a student telling me that he stayed with his girlfriend because he didn’t want the hassle of looking for a new one. I had friends who were so desperate for attention that they tolerated abuse rather than being alone. Neighbors of mine work jobs they hate because they are afraid to leave. One of my coworkers told me that she stays because she has tenure and doesn’t want to start over. They let fear of what might happen keep them from discovering what will.
This morning, I slid in one of my old mix cassettes for the drive to work. “If you see a chance, take it. Find romance, make it. It all depends on you.” Wow. You don’t hear that kind of thing much. You hear people unjustly ascribing blame to everyone else because some of the people who venerate the status quo want you dependent. They want you to depend on them. The trouble with that is that nobody can decide better than you what is good for you, and so it’s very unlikely unless by accident that your life will be any greater than it is now as long as you wait on others to change your life.
I teach my students that chemistry is the study of change, of how we convert what we have into what we desire. At this point in my life, I feel like I’m sitting in a state of equilibrium where, even though some things vary, there is really no net change. While I sit at this standstill, I feel thwarted, as if there are no conditions under which I can have a yield from my efforts any greater than “the best I can manage”. I ask God several times weekly for a Le Chatlier effect in my life that will shift the equilibrium to the products of my efforts that I desire. Teaching animates me because it’s a win-win scenario. I get paid to enrich their lives. Some of the students resist it and reject it, but there are always a few who walk away with a different perspective and understanding on universal principles, and since I have changed they way they think, I have changed their options to win.
Unfortunately, as much as I detest research, I find myself doing research and attempting to do what apparently no man has done before. The more I learn about the world, the more I realize that I am not seeing what I thought I saw, and that most people are playing parts. They settle for semblance over substance even when they know there is something greater than what they have. As a pioneer in the world of doing right things for the right reasons, even though I know I’m not alone, I don’t know who else is researching the same effort, and so it feels futile and furtive and frustrating, and I feel dejected, neglected and rejected not just by people but by the forces of the universe. There is so much I don’t understand.
I do what I do, say what I say, and think what I think because I believe that things can be greater than they are. They can be more than they are, better than they are, and more enriching than they are. I know that good is wonderful, and I know that there is better and best out there for those willing to seek it. I know I could settle for something, but I believe in something greater than myself, in something greater than what is, in something greater than I can imagine, and I ask, why not that for me? For this reason, I am eager to share my life, because life is greater than it is now when you share it with people who mean something to you.
Maybe I don’t have the tools or the understanding to change what I have into what I desire. Maybe it’s not up to me. I invite the Lord continually to intercede on my behalf and bring me as He did for the people of Moses to my Land of Promise. I have seen the splendor of Egypt, and I know of its spoils. I have been in the deserts of Sinai, and I know the emptiness of its soils. God gave me a vision of Israel, and I share in Joshua’s report. God delivered me from Pharoah, and I know what power He sports. It would not have been better to have remained in Egypt and subsist. When you stand at the Red Sea and see the villainous armies of the Oppressor converge upon you, you can either break down, or you can break through. You can either face your problems and emancipate yourself from them or you can continue to carry the chains.
If your life is not greater than it is, that could be because of you. Even when I do the best I can, I realize that one reason at least why I am not happier is because of my attitude. When I take stock of what I have, sometimes I lose track because what I lack looms large. We are acutely aware when we lose an arm, but we take them for granted as long as everything is well. Having both of our arms means something. I know there are people who wish they had what I have.
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