The first time I knew I wanted to be a sportswriter was…well, probably back in high school.
But I knew it for real around sixteen years ago. I was at a point in life of coming off a bad breakup, and dealing with self-induced problems that came from chasing the almighty dollar.
One Saturday morning in March I was taking notes on college basketball teams, getting ready for the NCAA Tournament, and realizing that this was what I wanted to do. It wasn’t until twelve years later that I’d actually work in sportswriting though, and three years after that before I decided to invest in launching my own website.
What took me so long? There’s a lot of reasons and some of them good—not every idea comes to fruition immediately. But I also look back on that period of my life and I know I wasted a lot valuable time by doing things according to what I perceived as the wisdom of the world, rather than following what was in my heart.
The mistaken path I often followed at key moments of choice—a mistake driven by doubt and disbelief that what I really wanted could actually also be what God wanted—has implications well beyond decisions one makes on a career path or an entrepreneurial venture.
It also affects the decisions made in pursuing a spouse.
A prime example would be this—do we choose social activities based solely on the fact that it might be a good place to meet someone, even if that activity is not something we really enjoy? I’m not suggesting that the possibility of meeting someone can’t be considered a positive factor in choosing one’s activities or even that it’s wrong to give such an activity the benefit of the doubt. But is it really worth twisting oneself into a pretzel just to be “out there”?
The analogy to this in the career world would be doing things exclusively because they can get you money, or some type of resume enhancement. These are legitimate—and to a certain extent, necessary—factors to consider when choosing a course of action, but to give them too much primacy means another round of twisting yourself into a pretzel.
Even when you choose the right path—the one that’s there in your heart, it’s easy to get sidetracked. A couple months ago I made a decision to veer away from a certain content strategy I was on with my website—one in which I was writing about topics I liked—and to an alternate strategy that would cover the things I “should” be writing about. Not only did I enjoy it less and feel less pride in the product, but the actual traffic numbers suffered.
The wisdom of the world provides us certain templates of thought, a framework for making decisions.
Not all—or even most of that wisdom is bad. But it has to always be subordinate to the wisdom of God, which the Church teaches we find through prayer, reflection, reaching into our hearts, and sharing the guidance we feel we’ve received with respected confidants.
God has His own template for our lives, and following it requires a willingness to let go of our own preconceived notions about what is wise and what is foolish. It requires a willingness to be counter-cultural—not in the superficial 1960s hippie kind of way, but a way with actual depth.
It’s hard, and I fail at it a lot more than I succeed. Indeed, most of the lessons I can cite from it are the hard ones of trying my own way and seeing how badly it messed up, with only a precious few from reaping the rewards of allowing God to lead me outside the box.
Perhaps one day I’ll get smart enough to let that balance change.
What I do know from experience and having tried a lot of paths, is that thinking with the mindset of the world ultimately doesn’t get you anywhere. In work, that’s a variation of “how much money will this get me?” In the single life it boils down to “will I meet my spouse this way?”
In reality, the only question we have to answer is this—is this the path God wants me to walk down? All the concerns of prudence we have will be covered by Him.
