Have Clear Motivations
There are a lot of things that I’d like to do. Almost every day, I get a new idea for some project or goal that I’d like to work on. It might be an area of my life or schedule that I want to improve, such as incorporating more reading time for Benedict. It might be a new book idea or some new app. All of these ideas are inspiring in the moment and really quite appealing. I’m often tempted to change direction or course and to charge at this new idea. After a few hours or a few days, most of the ideas subside and I’m left with the ones that really mean something to me.
Too often we set plans based on emotion. We don’t know why we’re doing something, only that we’re getting something out of it. It might be a feeling of fulfillment, a feeling of purpose, or actually seeing a positive result from our action. The problem with emotions is that they aren’t sustainable.
New Years resolutions, marriages, self-improvement plans and other things of this nature, when fueled solely by emotion, often flicker out before the end result is achieved. There’s a clear difference between emotion and passion. Emotion is fickle and can change based on little more than one’s mood. Passion comes from somewhere deep inside. Passion is the driver that doesn’t know that there’s a brake pedal. Emotion is the driver going 25 in 65. Emotion is cautious because even it knows its state is fragile.
When you embark on any major project, on any major goal, or even as you live out your vocation, there’s one distinct feature that, if you possess it, will catapult you into the world of success. You must have clear motivations.
If you don’t understand deeply why you’re doing something, you won’t have the energy to push through the difficult times. If you don’t understand deeply why you married your wife, in 5 years when things are very difficult, looking for an exit might be unduly tempting. If you don’t understand deeply why you decided to lose 20 lbs, every time you’re faced with dessert, you’ll grow weaker until you finally cave and go back to your old ways.
Determining your motivations is more easily said than done. Like the layers of an onion, you usually need to go a few layers deeper. Let’s look at an example. Let’s say that Timmy is getting ready to propose to his girlfriend of two years. Wisely, he’s taking the time to ensure that this is the right decision for both him and for his girlfriend. So, he sits down and tries to determine what his motivations for proposing will be. Here’s what he writes down.
Layer 1: I love her.
Layer 2: We get along well.
Layer 3: We have many of the same interests.
Layer 4: She encourages me to be a better person.
Layer 5: My friends and family think we make a good match.
Layer 6: She understands me better than anyone I’ve met before.
Layer 7: I feel a great sense of peace when considering that she might be my vocation.
Layer 8: I want our love to extend beyond us and into our children and their children’s children.
As you can see, Timmy worked from a very low level emotional reaction (Layer 1) all the way down to the definition of marriage (Layer 8). As he explored his motivations deeper, he came up with 8 excellent, progressively better motivations for proposing. I’d say that if his girlfriend has similar motivations, they’re going to have a very solid foundation for their marital relationship.
Writing down and saving your motivations will be helpful when times get difficult. When you no longer feel like running, or writing, or learning a new skill, you can quickly refer to that list and recapture that sense of excitement. Another great idea is to share your motivations with your wife. Not only will a 2nd set of eyes help you determine if you’re on the right track, she can be your cheerleader. Just the other day Alison paid me a very nice compliment that encouraged me to stay focused during the day with my writing.
Success and failure are ultimately up to us. If we have clear motivations and passion for what we’re doing, there’s nothing that we can’t accomplish.
Avoid Whatever Leads You to Sin
I’m usually not very forgetful, but there’s one time that I am. During Confession, after the priest says “Now say your Act of Contrition,” I typically blank. It’s not that I don’t know the words, or even that I’m nervous. It’s that I do much better praying out loud with a bunch of other people.
I generally get my act together (pun intended) after the first few lines and then I’m in the clear. One of the things I’ve been trying to do in the past few months is to really pray with empathy. I’ve prayed the Act of Contrition hundreds of times in my life, but in Confession, I try to pray it in a way that I’m having a conversation with Christ. I pray it in a way that I’d make an apology to a friend.
There’s one phrase that I get hung up on, because my follow through is very weak. “… and to avoid whatever leads me to sin.”
Oh.
We all know what things lead us to sin. I’ve written before about triggers and understanding where they come from and how they get tripped. In the Act of Contrition, and whenever we go to Confession, we promise to avoid those things, but I think it’s safe to say that we do a pretty bad job.
What does it take for us to do better? What does it take for us to actually follow through? How do we overcome the most serious things that lead us to sin, things that aren’t innately bad but cause us to sin anyway?
For example, what if you sin when you use Facebook? What if using Facebook leads you to jealousy or rage or pride? If you promise to avoid whatever leads you to sin, that means you promise to avoid Facebook. Ouch.
Of course, this is the challenge in the spiritual life. Many things that are popular among our friends can be potentially dangerous to our spiritual well being. We should be saying no to far more things than we already do. At the end of the day, it really does come down to priorities.
This is a battle not easily won, especially if you find yourself having to give up something that you’ve done for a very long time. It becomes a matter of virtue and of discipline.
A promise is a promise. We should avoid whatever leads us to sin, we say we’ll avoid whatever leads us to sin, so let’s just actually get the job done this time.
The Benefit of Catholic Schools
Last week, we celebrated Catholic Schools Week. While this post would’ve been much more appropriate had I posted it then, the editorial calendar simply wouldn’t permit it. I would still like to share some thoughts about Catholic Schools in America and the role that they had in forming me.
With the exception of when I was in 4th and 5th grade, when there were no Catholic schools around us, I attended Catholic schools from Kindergarten through College. I believe, in total, I attended 9 different Catholic schools which is an unusually broad educational experience for a student. Each school had its strengths and weaknesses, but they all worked in a common direction.
Catholic schools are not immune to the social ills and societal forces that impact students in charter or public schools. Many parents mistakenly believe that if they send their children to Catholic schools, they’ll be sheltered from drugs, sex, and violence. Sadly, these societal issues are prevalent even among the Catholic school population. Some parents also believe that sending their child to Catholic schools will result in instant sainthood. Any experience of a Catholic school Mass will quickly dismiss that belief. So what makes Catholic schools so special and what makes them unique?
Like the Church, Catholic schools exist in the world. It’s impossible to shelter children from everything that is wrong or contrary to truth. A better approach is to share opposing viewpoints with students and, through discourse and academic study, help them to understand why a certain truth is able to be known. This is where Catholic school shine.
A strong Catholic identity helps schools to form young minds. Catholic schools partner with parents, who are the primary educators of children, to advance a student’s intellectual formation in the pursuit of reason. With a basis of logic, students are able to better identify truth and reject falsehood. Further, through a full integration with the Church’s saving mission, students are exposed to different aspects of the life of the Church. They experience Mass on a regular basis, perhaps even adoration. Mandatory service hours and retreats help them to better understand social justice and take time to work on their relationship with God. This Catholic identity, if it permeates everything a school does, provides a distinct advantage over public education.
Sadly, not all Catholic schools have this strong identity. When schools fall short in sharing the faith, providing opposing viewpoints, and helping to form young people within the context of truth and reason, they not only do a disservice to students, but they are effectively stealing from their constituencies and giving scandal to the Church.
My parents didn’t send me to Catholic school to be away from the world. They sent me to grow as a person. In that regard, they found success.
End Month One
If you can believe it, we’ve already reached January 30th. Yes, just 30 short days ago we all experienced the hope, newness, and excitement of the New Year! I, along with pretty much the rest of the Internet, talked about some strategies for setting goals and making this your best year yet!
Now things are getting real. You either had an awesome January that kept you on track, or you fell off the wagon somewhere along the way. As we bring the month to a close, it begs the simple questions: How’d you do?
A year is a long time. 365 days makes it easy for us to lose focus on the six things we’re trying to do. Excuses come easily and, well, skipping just one day won’t hurt. One day becomes two, two days becomes a week, and soon the task is all but forgotten.
Our calendar doesn’t just offer us one big reset every 365 days. It offers us a monthly reset every 30 days or so. It offers us a weekly reset every Sunday. It offers us a daily reset every morning when our feet hit the floor. It offers us an hourly reset when the clock turns over. Time is always slipping away, but it’s always presenting new opportunities to start fresh.
Goal setting, self-improvement, spiritual improvement, and any general action that moves you towards a better you isn’t about 365 days of perfection. It’s about getting out there and winning today. I don’t know if I’ll be able to run tomorrow, but I can run today. So I do. I don’t know if I’ll find the time to pray the rosary tomorrow, but I have 15 minutes right now. So I do. I don’t know if I’ll want to read this book tomorrow, but I can read it right now. So I do.
Time is very fluid, don’t build artificial dams. Dust yourself off, reset your mindset, refocus, and do better next month, starting today.
Room to Breathe
We all need a little wiggle room. In the course of a week, most of your time is spoken for. Living an overly burdened schedule can lead to exhaustion, burnout, and you not giving your very best every day. You deserve, and you need, room to breathe.
Idle hands are the Devil’s tools, there’s little doubt about that. Idleness can get anyone in trouble very quickly, but room to breathe isn’t about being idle, it’s about taking the time to manage a slowdown. There are plenty of things that you could do during your downtime, but I’d be willing to bet that you know what your favorites are.
On Saturday afternoon, after a full week of tending to Benedict, writing, and a top-to-bottom house cleaning, I’m ready for a break. In all of the busyness, I don’t have time for one of my favorite downtime activities, computer games. I’m not a big gamer and I don’t really care about the outcome. It’s a little escape that lets me do something different. I have two main games that I’ll play, Civilization V or Modern Warfare 3. During the week, I’ll spend no time playing at all because, honestly, I’ve got a full schedule just working towards my goals. So on Saturday, after the chores are done, and on Sunday, I’ll take the time, while Benedict sleeps, to play for a while.
In those times, I’m not worried about all of the other things that I could be doing. I’m not concerned with looming deadlines or how much writing I could get done. I’m not thinking about other ways that I could be doing with that precious time. Instead, I’m recognizing that I need room to breathe and that by taking this time to play, I won’t be tempted during the week.
Downtime is crucial for goal attainment. Time management is all about doing the right thing in the moment and not being concerned about anything else. When I know that I’ll have time to play during the weekend, I can sit down and write with a clear mind. When I know that I’ve scheduled time to write during the week and that the household cleaning is done, I can play on the weekend with a clean conscience.
If you overload your schedule, you won’t be successful. Life is all about balance, and balance demands that you give yourself space. The time is there, you just have to allocate it.
There Will Be Stress
In marriage you share everything, including stress. You won’t find that little jewel printed on any brochure and you most likely didn’t hear it in your pre-marriage counseling, but it’s the truth.
Stress is a natural occurrence in the human experience. We recognize our fear of the unknown and our lack of control over many things in our world and that recognition leads to increased stress levels. We’re stressed as we wait for the results of a diagnostic test, we’re stressed over uncertainty in our company, and we’re stressed about political unrest. We say “let go and let God,” but that’s a very difficult catchphrase to put into practice.
Perhaps the greatest stress is being nearly helpless in easing the burdens on your spouse’s mind. A few weeks ago, Alison took a major test for licensure. It was incredibly expensive (thankfully we didn’t have to pay for it) and, honestly, a lot was riding on it. I couldn’t help her study, I couldn’t be with her for the 8 hour long test, all I could do was support her. I supported her through prayer, through giving her the space and time she needed to study, and by putting on hold all minor activities and decisions until the test was done.
Your role as the primary support structure for your wife is one of the great practical ways that marriage works for the family. Spouses are able to seamlessly transfer responsibilities to one another as needed. When Alison needs to study, I can watch Benedict. When I’m behind on work, Alison can make dinner. When the weather is bad, I can drive Alison to work. When I’m sick, Alison can do the laundry. When Alison is preparing for a major test or certification, I can handle the family’s administrative and financial affairs.
Family perfectly makes sense within the context of marriage because we need permanence in our lives. We need margin for grace and mercy. We need communication and connection so deep and so lasting that small quarrels stay small. We need that stability so that when the world around us is up in the air, we can rely on the Church and our wife to be the same.
The benefit of a strong martial relationship is that you’ll be able to sense when your wife’s stress level is elevated and you’ll intuitively know how to proceed. You’ll know what conversations and decisions can wait, and you’ll know what things to do to help make her day a little bit better, like getting water for her nightstand.
Sharing stress in your marriage is inevitable. Be alert, able, and willing to take on added responsibilities when your wife needs you to.
The Importance of Stable Sleep
The best indicator of how well your day is going to go is how well you slept last night. Sleep is the biggest contributor to your overall health, your happiness, your energy to make it through the day, and your emotional health. For such a big deal, we don’t spend enough time working to improve our sleep.
I’ve written on sleep a number of times, including on sleep hygiene and bedtime routines. I know that good sleep is important in my life because it’s the best way for me to manage my chronic migraines. Deviating from my sleep schedule, taking too many naps, or getting poor quality sleep is a recipe for a migraine that will knock me out for days.
The single biggest challenge facing anyone who’s attempting to improve their quality of sleep is bringing stability into the equation. The best thing that you can do for your body is to go to sleep at the same time and wake up at the same time, every day. This will not only help your body adjust it’s processes to produce enough melatonin at the right time in the evening so that you’ll fall asleep fast, but it will help wake you up at the right time in the morning without the need for an alarm clock.
Getting into this habit of stable sleep is a challenge for two reasons. First, we love to sleep in on the weekends. Second, our schedule precludes us from having a convenient schedule.
Let’s look at the weekends. We know that going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time is an important factor in good sleep, but we’ve come to see the weekends as cheat days. There usually isn’t anything prompting you to get out of bed as early as you’d need to in order to get ready for work. In fact, during the week you may have “lost” some sleep and are trying to make some of it up. The problem is that when you disrupt your sleep pattern, it’s hard to get back into it. This just ends up making Monday morning absolutely dreadful.
Instead of pushing back your wake-up time on Saturday and Sunday, look at that time as bonus “you time.” If you’re getting up at 5 and your family doesn’t start stirring until 8, that’s three hours for you to do whatever you want. You could read the paper, watch a movie, get ahead on chores, or play a game. You can literally do anything you want without the guilt of stealing time from your family.
The other big challenge is when life keeps you from having an ideal schedule. In a perfect world, your day would have nice boundaries that would allow you to go to bed around 10 or 11 and wake up between 6 or 7. In reality, your job demands might have you starting at various times and your evenings are full of shuttling kids around, meetings, activities, projects, and even shows that you want to watch. If you’re in some career fields, you might even work in the evenings.
My best advice is to look at the past couple of months and find times that have consistently been safe. For Alison and I, we’ve found that 9pm to 5am is generally “safe.” A 5am wakeup for her will get her anywhere she needs to be on time. A 9pm bedtime is guaranteed, except for when she has night call. Is going to bed at 9pm convenient? No. I’d rather stay up a bit later, especially when Benedict goes to bed around 7:30pm. However, I want stability in my sleep, and I want to go to sleep with her, so that’s what we’ve done.
Stable sleep can be challenging to achieve and it certainly requires no small effort. However, achieving and continuing to achieve stable sleep pays off day after day.
Make this Lent Matter
It’s hard to believe, but in a little over three weeks, we’ll begin our annual journey called Lent. While Easter is the biggest liturgical holiday/party of the year, the season of Lent leading up to it is, well, less fun.
It was only a few years ago that I abhorred Lent. I didn’t like the color purple, I was less than inspired with the Sunday readings, and the whole season was just a pain to get through. This view of Lent was partially rooted in the cultural reduction of the season. It’s become a sort of Catholic New Year filled with “resolutions” that we all but abandon a few days into the season.
Lent is spring cleaning for your soul, but too many of us view it as a time of pointless suffering. We give up sweets or TV or something else that’s trivial and then we whine about it for the six weeks until Easter. That’s because we too often chose to give something up with ulterior motives.
We give up sweets so we can lose weight. We give up TV and instead we fritter all of that time away on the Internet. Lent is about sacrifice, it’s about fasting to gain greater self-control, but more importantly, its changes should be lasting.
What good is giving up sweets if on Easter you tear through the candy aisle like a castaway returning to civilization? What good is giving up TV if on Easter Monday you’re back to watching 8 hours a day?
This Lent, I challenge you to do something lasting. Make this Lent mean something! We all have vices that need attention, or relationships that need healing. Fast from something, yes, but make that a small part of your Lenten journey, not the whole enchilada.
Maybe this is the Lent that you get serious about your prayer life. Six weeks of carving out daily prayer time will more than prepare you for the post-Lenten challenge of continuing your good works.
Maybe this is the Lent that you get serious about going to Mass as a family. Maybe this is the Lent that you get serious about growing in relationship with Mary or with a particular saint. Maybe this is the Lent that you finally punch your biggest habitual sin in the face.
Lent can be so much more than something to get through. A solid preparation throughout the Lenten season can lead to a more joyful Easter celebration. As with goals for the new year, the key to a successful Lent is early preparation.
Take some time to consider your spiritual health, identify areas for improvement, and commit to using this Lent to help you reach those goals. If you’re looking for something to help you with your spiritual refresh, “Grant Us Peace” will make an excellent companion to your Lenten journey.
Love Letters from the Past
Recently, I went through all of my Facebook messages and deleted old conversations. I’ve never been big into using Facebook messages for communicating, but for some odd reason, Facebook preserved just about every message I’ve sent using the service for the past 8 years. It took me about 2 hours to get rid of all of them, but I did it.
Something very uncomfortable happened while I was deleting those messages-I was extremely embarrassed. The things I wrote, said, and did were, well, juvenile. Certainly they were somewhat appropriate for my age at the time, but older, married, father Chet blushed a little bit.
We all feel that way. We were all dumb when we were younger. I have no doubt that 10 years from now, as I read the early blog posts from Catholic Husband, the experienced writer in me will blush at the messy constructs, poor grammar, and reliance on the same old conventions in post after post.
I recently came across another set of writings, scribbled on random pieces of paper, many years ago. While the author is embarrassed about them, I actually treasure them.
In a small wicker box next to my bed is a collection of love letters that Alison wrote to me many years ago. While I’ve only started to delve into this trove of insights into the woman who would become my wife, I can’t help but be flattered, and, well, chuckle a bit.
Each letter focuses around the set of emotions and thoughts that she was exploring at any given time. There is talk of her crushes, struggle with friends, and even the occasional talk of becoming a nun.
What I find particularly comforting is her writing about praying for me. We grew up hundreds (and at times, thousands) of miles apart. Yet, many times when she wrote about praying for me, I know based on the date, that I really needed it.
She also has a pretty good sense of self-awareness and wrote up an excellent profile of me, 3 years before we met.
How can this make us better husbands, today? No doubt you already know your wife, so it’s a bit late to be writing down some notes filled with teen angst and impatience waiting for her.
I think that this brings me back to my commitment to love letters. They’re fairly infrequent these days because I want the element of surprise to be a part of it, only making their way into Alison’s hands a few times a year. Nonetheless, they’re still deeply important. As a man, I really like getting love letters, even ones from the past. As a woman, I know that Alison loves getting them ten times more than I do.
Love letters from the past are an amazing thing. For me, they’re just small reminders of just how much Alison really loves me.
Why We March
Today marks both a sobering anniversary and a special anniversary. Today is the anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that ushered in a new era of misnomers in healthcare and encouraged a culture that viewed children as the ultimate burden, as opposed to the ultimate blessing.
Today’s anniversary is also quite special. Every year, since 1973, Americans from all faiths, socio-economic backgrounds, educational backgrounds, and political beliefs, have descended upon our Nation’s Capital. Joining arms, carrying banners, and walking past the chambers of government, Americans have voiced both their support for the rights of Americans in the womb and raised awareness about the devastation that abortion brings to the life of the mother, father, and child.
The March for Life isn’t about shaming people who’ve had abortions or advocating for a radical religious agenda. The March for Life is a beautiful, peaceful expression of the belief held by so many in our country that not only is every life precious, but that the so-called right to have an abortion is no right at all.
Each year, we’re reminded of the grizzly underworld of abortion as clinics and providers across the country undergo shocking and sickening inspections, investigations and legal proceedings. Abortion clinics are being closed in every state because, although they perform outpatient ambulatory surgery, they fail to meet even the basic requirements of health regulations pertaining to facilities that perform the types of procedures that they do. Equipment is not sterile, doors are not wide enough for gurneys in the event that an emergency transfer to a hospital is required, and patients are not given informed consent. Even worse, the physicians performing the abortions lack basic hospital admitting privileges to care for patients in the event that the procedure goes wrong.
Today, Alison, Benedict, and I will be traveling to Washington DC to join students, clergy, medical professionals, elected officials, and families to call for an end to this insanity. Millions of Americans have been aborted since 1973, with a disproportionately high number in impoverished and minority communities. No doubt we have suffered as humanity at the loss of what would have been some of the most brilliant minds of our time.
Even more foundational than this pragmatic approach to opposition to abortion is something so simple, yet often completely overlooked. Men and women deserve to know the joy it is to be a parent. They deserve to sit in the labor and delivery recovery room and hold a new life, just minutes after birth. They deserve the right to take adorable infant pictures and brag about them on Facebook. They deserve to have endless Pinterest boards planning out birthday parties, daytime activities, and weddings. Parents deserve to hear their child reach for them and speak those sweet words, “Ma ma,” “Da da.” And every child deserves the chance to speak them.
It’s an unbearable tragedy that $300 is all it takes in America to end one life and change two more forever.
That’s why we march.