I had trouble getting to [Insert Unrealistic Expectations Here]
It’s amazing what children’s books can teach you.
Seriously, pick up a really good children’s book and you might learn something if you’re not robotically reading as you think about all the things you need to do (which I find myself doing way too often).
I’ve read Dr. Seuss’, “I Had Trouble Getting to Solla Sollew” a handful of times in the last 2 years, but the last time I read it I was floored. The light bulb came on, the heart softened, and the eyes might have even gotten a little misty. Feel free to chuckle or blame hormones- or both, but Dr. Seuss was nothing short of a philosopher and a really good one at that.
To summarize, our narrator (unnamed) was having a pretty decent life when some things went unexpectedly wrong. Having never encountered real trouble before, a passing man convinces him to journey to Solla Sollew (“where they never have troubles, at least very few”) and in the process of finding this mystical land the narrator learns a few things- one of which is that -SPOILER ALERT- there is no place where troubles aren’t and the moral of this story is pretty amazing. Some might call it obvious, but our narrator purchases a bat and decides to return home stating in the most bad-ass way possible, “now my troubles are going to have troubles with me.” To which I have a choice phrase I want to say while fist pumping the air, but don’t because Eliza doesn’t need to learn about cuss words quite yet.
This narrator and I are on the same wavelength. We could sit in a coffee shop and really get into a head nodding war. The pursuit of a place where no trouble exists is one we seem to all strive for- you can see it in our Facebook posts, our Instagrams, our snarky tweets. We live to get to the time when we’ve arrived, but oddly enough we just can’t seem to get where we’re going. I’m guilty of this- God, am I guilty. When we learned our son has HLHS, my initial heart response was, “Are you f@$%ing serious right now? When am I going to get a break?” As if God owed me my very own Solla Sollew- hadn’t I suffered enough already?
I realize now that we I have exerted a lot of energy trying to get to a place that doesn’t exist in this world. It has left me, and I suspect some of you, bitter and disillusioned, which in retrospect seems a pretty reasonable response, all things considered. I’ve gone searching for a thing which cannot be attained. Of course, I’m going to be angry and frustrated. Of course, I’m going to shake my fist at the sky and yell profanities.
Now, look, I’m no philosopher, so all I’ll say is that understanding the futility of my search for a place where no troubles exist has been liberating. I don’t have to look anymore. I don’t have to be disappointed I’m not there yet because there is no arrival destination. This is it. This life is complex and painful and honestly, sometimes it’s total shit. But it’s also beautiful and clarifying- particularly if I decide not to run away from inevitable strife, but to purchase a bat and face it with the kind of determination this unfair world demands. I think 2 Corinthians 4:9 sums it up well, ”We are cruelly attacked, but not without hope; we are made low, but we are not without help.” I heard someone paraphrase part of this scripture as, “knocked down, but not knocked out” and I have to say, that is spot-on. We take a ton of licks in this life, but we don’t have to be KO’d. Unlike boxing, we have the ability to put on some pretty great armor as we race headlong into the fray. Unfortunately, our first instinct is to hunker down and demand to know where God is or, better yet, to confirm in our hearts what we suspected all along- that God and the trouble-less land are both fantasies. I think this way of thinking- my way of thinking- is the height of hubris and worse, completely misses the point of the Gospel. Perhaps more on those thoughts later.
So, whether you’re a parent or not, I encourage you to purchase Dr. Seuss’ parable at your earliest convenience. Even if you’re not quite ready to embrace the moral, the rhymes are pretty great.
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