Complacency

Ed often prays that we won’t become complacent in our contentment. The prayer is beautiful in both its simplicity and its depth. Complacency is certainly a violent threat to persons and to society. It’s what drags us into a standoff with change and what builds barriers against new experiences. We’re happy in our bubble, and will not move beyond it.

Even with his praying for our protection from such a curse, I regret to say that I am in the throws of complacency. I'm happy to sit at home, all day, every day, and pretend as though I'm going to be productive. More often than not, I dream up my next great project. Not that it ever materializes or ever even begins. I could, if I ever managed to drag myself beyond my complacency, accomplish my goals or complete all of my tasks. There are enough hours in the day. I could fix something within myself, or even fix something in this world. I have no excuses. Yet I seem to always be putting it off for tomorrow.

Flannery O’Connor really offers us an idea about what to do with this mindset in her short story, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” After a criminal holds a woman up at gun point, she suddenly begins to grasp just what it means to love others selflessly. O’Connor leaves us with the criminal’s reflection that the woman would have been a good person if there had been someone there to point a gun at her throughout her life.

Now I’m not about to pull a gun on myself, nor do I want to run into every dangerous situation simply to be reminded of my own mortality. But I do see a benefit in living as though I were going to die tomorrow. I don’t want to look back and regret those opportunities I let slip through my fingers. I want to live life more fully, to embrace each day, and to go to bed knowing that I’ve done all I could do with the time I’ve been given. Please, God, let that be my nightly thought for the rest of my life.