This post is not for you

I wanted to write a short follow-up to my post to an article earlier this week: Analysis Paralysis and making the first move. In that post I shared a quotation from the TV show “Person of Interest” about playing the game of chess:

“No one could possibly predict [all the possibilites]… Which means that that first move can be terrifying…there’s a virtually infinite sea of possibilities… But it also means that if you make a mistake, there’s a nearly infinite amount of ways to fix it. So you should simply relax and play.” – Harold Finch

This post was one of my most popular, so thank you to all of you who shared it on Facebook. It’s always great to know that something I’ve written has been of interest and encouragement 🙂

What has prompted this current post is a discussion I saw about the post Reddit. On one of the threads there were concerns that this quotation could simply be an excuse to avoid making careful decisions. I would like to respond to this concern by telling a story from my time at school…

Academic Life

In English schools, at the start of each school day, all the students meet for Assembly, to listen to the notices for the day and to hear some words from the Headmaster. In the time leading up to the Christmas and Summer exams, the headmaster would keep saying things like “You boys need to work harder in these last few weeks” and “All of you need to be spending more time revising”.

Now, from about the age of ten onwards, I was a diligent student. I didn’t find school easy, but I worked hard. Even during the school holidays I would spend a good amount of time studying.

As a result, whenever the headmaster would give these admonitions at Assembly, I would get very uptight. Work harder?! Revise more?! When I would express these concerns to my mother, she would simply say “The headmaster’s words are not for you”. She explained that he was speaking to the students who weren’t focussed on their studies and weren’t applying themselves. His message was not for me.

Spiritual Life

Consider the spiritual life and the different messages we need at different times. For example, a person who is naturally hyper-scrupulous will often not really benefit from a homily about the need to search out sin in our lives. Such a person would most likely benefit far more from a homily which emphasizes the free gift of grace.

In contrast, the person who has turned the grace of God into license for sin would most likely be in great need of a homily about the need to expunge sinful habits and to allow grace to manifest itself in good works and holy living.

I may need to hear each of these messages at different points in my life. It is much like Confession in that sometimes a priest needs to tell me that I’m being too hard on myself and at other times he needs to tell me that I’m taking a particular sin too lightly.

Living Life

I’d now like to return to the quotation from “Person of Interest” which I shared in the original post.

The various commentators are correct, this quotation could be used as an excuse for laziness and failing to do any planning. However, those people are not the intended audience for my original post.

If you are a “Type A” person who insists on planning everything down to the last detail, who is in constant danger of stagnating in fear, being overwhelmed by all the possibilities…then this quotation is meant to comfort and encourage you. Otherwise, this post is not for you.