CF Alum Mark Casper on identity, fear, and calling...

Reposted from Mark's blog Sons and Orphans: 

Big Wheels, Fearlessness, and My Brand New Blog

When I was a kid, I was fearless. No hill was too steep, no tree too high. Ok, so maybe my dad was a safety freak and made me wear a six-inch-thick styrofoam helmet whenever I Big Wheeled it.  But still, I was fearless. Not just when it came to Big Wheeling, but in every area of life. Nothing seemed too risky or too dangerous. I didn’t care about the opinion of others, nor for the consequences of failure. I lived fully and whole-heartedly in every moment. Many children live this way. Maybe it’s because they’re young and naive. Or maybe it’s because children innately know they are unconditionally loved and accepted.

Sons & Orphans

The older I get, the less inclined I am to do anything that could result in failure, rejection, disapproval, or mediocrity. It just seems risky, like putting all your chips on the table. The uncomfortable truth is, I spend most of my life seeking the approval of others or fearing their disapproval. I live like an orphan, trying to be good, do good, and prove my self worth—both to God and others.

In her book, Nothing Is Impossible with God, Rose Marie Miller describes her life as an orphan in this way:

The gospel was not my working theology: Mine was moralism and legalism — a religion of duty and self control through human willpower. The goal was self-justification, not the justification by faith in Christ that the gospel offers. But, as many people can tell you, moralism and legalism can “pass” for Christianity, at least outwardly, in the good times. It is only when crises come that you find there is no foundation on which to stand. And crises are what God used to reveal my heart’s true need for him. (4)

Rose Marie Miller’s husband, Jack, characterized her self-justification as orphanhood: “you act as if you are an orphan. You act as if there is no Father who loves you” (11).

• Orphans have to take care of themselves.
• Orphans want to be accepted, to belong.
• Orphans feel condemned, guilty, and unworthy before God and others. 
• Orphans live on a succeed/fail basis, are performance-oriented. 
• Orphans are anxious over felt needs: relationships, money, health. 
• Orphans tend to compare themselves to others—leading either to depression or pride. 
• Orphans cannot depend on anyone, cannot be weak. 
• Orphans crave to be taken in and loved but doubt they ever will.

I have long lived with an orphan mentality. This is why I have been afraid of writing. The thought is strange, even comical, since most of my life I’ve been told I have a gift for it. Yet, over the years I have shied away from writing. Why?

Fear of rejection. Fear of failure. Fear of mediocrity.

Ironically, I think sometimes we are afraid of using our gifts. It feels much safer to do things we are not naturally good at or haven’t put much time into. For those very reasons, we give ourselves lower expectations in these “ungifted” areas. Failure isn’t as soul crushing because it wasn’t “our thing” in the first place.

This is why I’ve been afraid to write. Since I have some natural ability in it, I expect more of myself. I fear what will happen if I actually pour my heart and soul into a piece of writing. What if it gets rejected? What if people say it’s garbage? What if someone is much better? If I’m not approved or affirmed in the very thing people say I’m “good” at, where does that leave me? It’s amazing how easily we confuse our performance and our work with our identity.

Yet deep down I know I am called to write. Since I was a boy I’ve always had a passion for stories and storytelling. It’s simply how God has wired me. And thankfully, because of his unfathomable mercy towards me, I know that my identity isn’t tied to my work. I am free to live, love, and work whole-heartedly, giving all that I am to all that I do with the understanding that my worth, future, and identity aren’t tied to my performance. I am free to fail. I am free from the burden of being at the top of my field. I am free because Jesus secured my identity as a son of God through his perfect life and obedient death on the cross.

Therefore, with this in mind,  I venture out into the blogosphere. I hope to use this blog to share book reviews, movie reviews, and my random thoughts on life this side of heaven.

With all that I am,

MC

A letter to your younger self...

...Lastly, I’m not giving you the details on the wins or the losses. Not tipping you off about the heartbreaks or the big victories. Part of the fun is not knowing how the story goes. But, if someone is interested in you in 27 years, that’s a decent sign that there’s a good story here. (Or … things didn’t pan out and you went directly into journalism). Either way, enjoy it all!

Work hard. Make us proud.

Older You.

The above is an excerpt from retired NHL great Brendan Shanahan's letter to his younger self. (Access the entire article here) The letter is an entertaining read, and the whole idea is an interesting concept, especially for Back to the Future fans. 

So how would a letter to your younger self read? What would you include? What would you leave out? How has it proved beneficial to not know where you'd end up as you've journeyed along thus far? What changes would you make? What would you have avoided? Who would you have listened to? What would you have taken more seriously? What were you wrong about? What was worth it? 

Now think about receiving a letter from your older self. After writing that letter to your younger self a few minutes ago, surely you now realize that between now and when you become your older self, there are a few things that are definitely true: 

You do not know everything. 

You do not have all the answers. 

Pain/hardship is necessary for growth. 

It would do you well to take yourself less seriously. 

If you need life to work out in a specific way to be happy, then you will be unhappy. 

Our Charlotte Fellows have an opportunity to hear a letter from people to their younger selves on a weekly basis at Roundtable, where men and women from all ages and walks of life share with the Fellows what they've learned thus far about God, work, family, love, life, and community on their journey. What a gift! 

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. (Proverbs 19:21)

"When I Get Where I'm Going"

Current Charlotte Fellow Emily Ann Higginbotham writes about a recent experience at work...

Being an intern at a financial firm has given me incredible exposure to the ins and outs of wealth management. It has also afforded me prolonged exposure to the copy machine, the supply closet, and a never-ending amount of envelopes to stuff. With the company’s annual symposium coming up, my last few weeks have consisted of mailing out invitations, creating nametags, and preparing packets for clients to have at the conference. For the last several days, I have primarily functioned as a one-woman packet assembly line. A dozen sheets of paper stretched out over a long table, my task was to walk down this long table, picking up one sheet after the other, and neatly placing them into a packet with a couple’s name written across the front.

After an hour or so, I thought to turn on some music to help pass the time. As I set my Pandora station to “Brad Paisley” I was not prepared for what happened next. Although I had been handling the same sheets of paper for what seemed like an eternity, I began to actually read what was written on each sheet, conference breakout sessions with titles like “How to Create a Digitized Will”, “How Alzheimer’s Relates to Financial Planning”, and “How to Prepare for Estate Planning”. Simultaneously, I took note of the unusually somber songs playing on my Pandora station – songs about growing old, losing loved ones, and preparing for eternity. I was overwhelmed!

In a moment, God had given me the gift of connecting my seemingly small and mundane work with his immensely purposeful and perfect work. I was no longer blind to the small but significant role he had called me to play in the lives of these people. I was helping offer comfort and peace to people facing aging, Alzheimer’s, and losing loved ones. Couples who had spent a lifetime together were now navigating strange and unfamiliar territory together, and it was too heavy for me! I felt led to pray for these people by name, praying for their financial situations, their marriages, and their relationship with their Creator. As Brad Paisley’s “When I Get Where I’m Going” washed over me, I couldn’t believe that I had let weeks go by without giving a single thought to the lives of these clients I was serving.

Walking down the assembly line again, I realized that this revelation hadn’t changed my job responsibilities at all – after all, I was still in a room by myself, stuffing papers neatly into a packet. My job had not suddenly become more riveting. My work still felt like work. But in God’s grace, if just for a moment, He had given me a glimpse of the bigger picture. And I felt such freedom in knowing that even when we can’t see it – God is using our work to bless others. All of a sudden I didn’t mind as much that my work was menial or repetitive, because God had met me in the mundane to tell me that my work mattered to my employer, our clients, and that, most of all, it mattered to Him. 

Education that leads to thriving...what Gallup found

Reading a recent Gallup Business Journal article, I couldn't help but think about what we do here at the Charlotte Fellows and why it is so important to recent college graduates: 

The Gallup-Purdue Index surveyed more than 30,000 graduates to find out whether they are engaged in their work and thriving in their overall well-being. In simple terms, did they end up with great jobs and great lives? 

We learned some stunning things. But one of the most important is that where you went to college matters less to your work life and well-being after graduation than how you went to college. ...

Six critical elements during college jumped off the pages of our research as being strongly linked to long-term success in work and life after graduation. Three of these elements relate to experiential and deep learning: having an internship or job where students were able to apply what they were learning in the classroom, being actively involved in extracurricular activities and organizations, and working on projects that took a semester or more to complete.

[T]he three most potent elements linked to long-term success for college grads relate to emotional support: feeling that they had a professor who made them excited about learning, that the professors at their alma mater cared about them as a person, and that they had a mentor who encouraged them to pursue their goals and dreams. If graduates strongly agree with these three things, it doubles the odds that they are engaged in their work and thriving in their overall well-being. ...[but] about eight in 10 college graduates lacked a mentor in college.

Given how profound the impact of emotional support can be, it's thoroughly depressing to learn how few college graduates receive it. 

Sharing friendships with and learning from wise and caring mentors is vital. So is learning how to practically integrate what you believe/know into every area of life. If you are a college senior, then consider applying to our one-year graduate fellowship. There's not a better way to spend your first year out as a young professional. 

Loving the job you have today is possible...

Recently Fast Company published an article entitled "Do You Have the Best Job in the World?" in which Yale School of Management psychology professor Amy Wrzesniewski's findings on job satisfaction are summarized as follows:

Throughout numerous studies, Wrzesniewski has examined how the way we view our work impacts our satisfaction. Those who view their work as a “job” are only interested in the material benefits derived from their work. Daily work life is only a means to allow these individuals to acquire the resources needed to enjoy their time away from the job. Their major interests and ambitions are not exercised through their daily job tasks. Those who view their work as merely a “job” consistently have the lowest levels of job satisfaction and engagement.

Those who view their work as a “career,” on the other hand, have a deeper personal investment in their work and focus on advancement and increases in prestige and power that come from that advancement. But Wrzesniewski says those who have the highest levels of job satisfaction are those who see their work as a calling. These individuals don’t view their work as merely a means for financial gain or career advancement, but find the work itself personally fulfilling. “The work is an end in and of itself,” says Wrzesniewski. Those who viewed their work as a calling also reported fewer days of work missed than those who viewed their work as a job or a career.

...Wrzesniewski says within any occupation, you can find individuals with all three kinds of relations to their work. She found hospital janitors and groundskeepers who viewed their work as a calling, and physicians and nurses who viewed their work as merely a job.

Though a great reminder, Wrzesniewski's findings are neither new nor surprising given what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Colossae over 2,000 years ago: 

Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. (Col. 3:22-24)

All of our jobs are callings...yes, even yours** (Remember, Paul is addressing slaves here). Our work matters because we have been called to do it by the God of the universe for both our good and the good of our neighbor.  We are not slaves to validation from public praise or pay raises. We needn't fear others being promoted over us or receiving credit for our work.

Does this mean that it's wrong to look for another job? No, but it does mean that joy and satisfaction are possible in even the most menial jobs performed in even the harshest conditions...including yours! If you really believed that what Paul said is true, how would that change things at your current job? 

**Unless your job is somehow intrinsically illegal or otherwise contrary to God's character.