A Delicate Matter

Dear A Delicate Matter,

Now that’s what I call a question. Thank you for articulating so very well this daily, hourly, minutely conundrum we all, and that includes me, face. It is indeed a delicate matter. But I do not believe you can approach it delicately. Let me try my best to explain.

What you’re hinting at in your question is achieving, what I call, the Goldilocks effect. You don’t want to be too humble and you don’t want to be too confident, you want to be just right. Man oh man, how I get that. It would astound you how much I struggle with this.  But since you’re asking, I’m gonna tell you that like the Goldilocks story itself, that approach to living is a fairy tale. Understandable? Goodness yes. Real? Nope.

Years ago a trusted friend sent me a cd set by the poet David Whyte titled “Midlife and the Great Unknown.” It is fantastic, a wonderful way to spend $10. I listen to it over and over again. Of the many takeaways in it, one of the most important for me was the concept Whyte calls the arrogance of belonging. He says, in a nutshell, that if you really believe you belong to this earth and this time in which you find yourself alive, that the sense others around you will have of you (including yourself) is that of arrogance. That’s right – arrogance. Now if you follow his progression there, the first question for each of us to answer is do I belong? That is, as they say, a biggie. But if you answer yes, then you go and do whatever it is you do and do it with everything you’ve got. As you do this – teach school, tend bar, play tennis, raise chickens, write poetry, whatever – others will no doubt perceive you as being a little too big for your britches (and they’ll gladly tell you so in a variety of ways).

Now I get the sense that you carry a heightened awareness of your own flaws. In other words, that you have a tender heart. My gut tells me the greater struggle for you is to believe in your own beauty. Now sure, your arrogance may get out of hand from time to time. The best way to keep a good eye on that? Stay thankful my friend, practice gratitude without ceasing. My experience has been that when I let that get out of hand that life itself will step in and let me know. But I’m not sure that’s as often as we sometimes think.  The more common experience is that we let the voices/opinions/thoughts of others cause us to question our belonging-ness, and unfortunately that comes because they’re questioning their belonging-ness. Yes, fear loves company. The last Dear John question I responded to indicated the importance of others, what some call community. It is important, but there is an almost unquestioning worship of community these days. There are dangers to community, one of the most subtle being that most of the time the group prefers conformity. I didn’t say all of the time, but I did say most of the time.

You cannot approach this delicately like some Goldilocks picking out the nicest mattress. No, you must be stubborn. Do you believe you belong? For what its worth, please hear me say I believe you belong. But you have to answer that for yourself (and you have to answer it over and over and over again). Answer it, and know that belonging will always feel arrogant, maybe especially so for the tenderhearted. But the world so needs your tenderhearted beauty. Its why you’re here, it really is.

Sincerely,

John