Keep Faith, Steal Responsibility

Morning Thoughts #73

Dearest fellow neurotics, we who temperamentally are mere beginners in the art of faith, let us venture to practice it anyway! We, who are by nature so wobbly, here just might find the missing leg we've been searching for all along. I speak not of religions or denominations but of a mindset. Big picture faith (what will my life become?) isn't the product of anything except a disavowal of perpetual anxiety. Small picture faith (how will specific undertakings of the day unfold?) is the reward for well-considered actions and honest living. Right action deserves faith, wrong action neuroticism, worry, and anxiety. And true, sometimes we just have no way of knowing if we have acted correctly, but when we do know, no matter how uncertain the result, have faith! However, we neurotics are a funny lot. We can take actions we know are correct and still worry, worry, worry about them! A thousand alternate future universes plunge into us at sharp angles, driving us to ask: but what if this, what if that?

Oh, my neurotic friends! Let us reserve the train of such torturous questions for when we know we have reason to suspect we are in the wrong or have half-heartedly committed to something or performed some work not as well as we could. But when we give our all, there can be no response more proper than faith that it shall be well-received. Let our neurotic tendencies be useful canaries, warning us of something unconsidered or left by the wayside. However, when we have done all we can and placed that seed into the universe's garden hands, have faith that it will grow as it should. And if it doesn't, we can blame chance rather than ourselves. But here's the catch: you still have to take responsibility for chance. Think of chance as your superior for whom you're tasked to graciously take the fall, by virtue of your inherent mortal position. But what counts is when you know and still believe in an action taken, even after its fruits did not go according to plan. Bravo to you who've kept the faith and stolen the responsibility! This faith is worth keeping because this universe that you bail out time and again, sometime, somewhere, its chance will finally land in your favor, possibly when it seems you least deserve it. But in the bigger picture, this seeming favor is only the repayment of a debt owed.

Tell me not your credit rating; I care only for your faith score! Try to bargain with the universe for long enough, and you will realize its systems only accept faith!