Tag: guilt

When is enough, enough?

‘Enough’ is a difficult and almost dangerous word. It feels comforting and encouraging – who wouldn’t be helped by being told they’ve done enough or have enough?

But often it isn’t comforting because the word ‘enough’ can tyrannise us with feelings of guilt or inadequacy.

How could that happen? Here’s how. Let me retell a story from my days as a church pastor. A young man met with me to insist our church didn’t pray enough. He wasn’t referring to people’s private, personal prayers. His view was that the whole congregation needed to meet together often specifically for prayer. ‘We don’t pray enough,’ he said. We talked, didn’t agree, and finally I asked, ‘Could you imagine a time when the church did pray enough?’ He paused – for quite a long time – then replied, ‘No, I could never imagine we prayed enough’. As gently as I could, I said that if he couldn’t tell me how much ‘enough’ was, then saying ‘we don’t pray enough’ did not make easy sense.

If I won that argument I certainly didn’t win the man – he still didn’t believe we prayed enough.

I heard the concept of ‘enough’ – or, rather, ‘not enough’ – used with countless subjects. People would tell me ‘we don’t sing the old hymns enough’, or ‘we don’t care for the elderly enough’, or ‘we don’t give enough overseas aid’, or ‘we’re not friendly enough to newcomers’, and many more complaints. I had answers, but these statements hurt. When people said we (except often they meant me) were ‘not doing enough’ they meant we were falling short, not putting in sufficient effort or care. Even though I had defences, I felt attacked and guilty.

Of course there are times when we don’t do enough. We don’t reach the expected standard. People talk of doing enough but imply being perfect. We fall short. All of us do.

But there is a particular difficulty with the word ‘enough’. It’s summed up in a simple four word question. When is enough, enough?[1]

First, let’s accept we often won’t know. How could we ever be sure we’ve prayed enough, or thought enough, or been kind enough, or generous enough, or wise enough?

However, we get close to knowing when enough is enough in certain circumstances.

  • When we can define a precise goal in advance – like: ‘I need to walk 10,000 steps a day’ or ‘I must get eight hours sleep each night’ or ‘I must check my car’s tyre pressures every Saturday’. If your targets are the right ones, and you meet them, then you’ll have done enough.
  • When we have imprecise but reasonable awareness of reaching a limit. Well-disciplined people stop eating when they know they’re full (or, even better, nearly full). Confession: I’ve never that well-disciplined. But I knew when I was tired while driving, edging towards feeling sleepy, so would pull in to a service area for a nap or at least to walk in fresh air. These days I realise when my back is sending me warning signals that I’ve worked long enough at my desk and I should stretch and take a break. Speaking of which…

So, we can know when enough is enough, either by achieving precise targets or by having a good idea when we’re reaching limits.

But not everything is easily defined or deduced. Faced with a big decision – like taking up a new job offer – you could tell the prospective employer, ‘I’ll think about it for two days and then give you my answer’. That sounds reasonable, but who can guarantee that two days will be ‘enough’? Forty eight hours may be filled with thought but lacking a clear ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. In fact, no amount of time may ever be enough for certainty about some tough decisions.

The real world is one with confusion and doubt, from which we emerge unsure whether we’ve given something enough time or attention, or been sufficiently kind or generous, and so on. Not knowing if we’ve done enough is normal and often unavoidable.

Second, you’ve reached enough when doing more means something else gets less.

Economists refer to this as the opportunity cost. In their words that’s defined as ‘the forgone benefit that would have been derived from an option not chosen’.[2]

Quickly let me put opportunity cost in my words: to give more to one thing is to have less for another thing.

Imagine these scenarios:

  • You want to give your four children pocket money, but the most you can afford in total is £20 a week. You could give each £5, but perhaps the older ones need more than just £5. Perhaps one needs £8 and the other £6. But that means only £3 each is left for the youngest two, and that’s too little. What would happen? By giving the older kids enough, you’d give the younger ones less than enough.
  • Since you have four children you have a very busy life. But your aged aunt is frail, and your brother is sick, so you devote one evening per week to visit your aunt and one evening per week for your brother. Then your aunt’s health deteriorates, so now you need to see her at least twice per week. There are only two ways to make that possible – you can stop visiting your brother, or you can no longer spend that other evening with your spouse and children.

Opportunity cost is all about balancing resources, which can be time, money, skills, interests, companionship. Spend it one way, and you don’t have the opportunity to spend it another way.

So, if you work ‘til you drop, there’ll be a cost in missed time with family or for leisure and fitness.

Or, spend all your money in bars or clubs, there’ll be too much month at the end of the money, so the cost will be eating badly (or hardly at all).

Or, give too much time to church, community group, or a major hobby, the cost is that needy neighbours don’t get your support.

In other words, any of the sentences above could have been phrased: ‘if you give more than enough to… then there’s less than enough for…’ There is such a thing as ‘enough’, and you will know you’ve reached it when doing more with that thing would mean doing less with another thing. Wise people realise that moment has come, and try to make wise decisions.

Finally, staying within the limits of enough takes courage and determination. It’s normal to overstretch ourselves with things we love doing. Some of my golfing friends play a round every weekday, and go on golfing holidays two or three times a year. Some of Alison’s friends are so committed to dog agility training and competitions, not only do they practise with their dogs several times a week, they own large caravans / trailers and travel hundreds of miles to dog agility events. Why? They love it. Are they doing too much? I can’t make that judgment. But if they are over-committed – giving more than enough – they’ll have to be very brave and very resolute to change.

Such courage and determination is possible. And it’s necessary. Living ‘beyond enough’ is dangerous, especially when it affects health or relationships. Some don’t realise the ‘cost’ in their own life or lives of others until it’s too late. Enough really must be enough.

[1] Or is that only three words?

[2] From Investopedia: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/opportunitycost.asp#:~:text=Opportunity%20cost%20is%20the%20forgone,and%20weighed%20against%20the%20others.

When to say no

I don’t like trite formulae for success. But – when my life was overloaded – this saying made me stop and think: If you never say no, what is your yes worth?

It makes a serious point and, years later, I’m still trying to apply its question to my time choices.

Time choices aren’t usually between right and wrong options. Our dilemma is as simple but difficult as this: should I do this good thing, or should I do that good thing? Both are worthwhile, but we shouldn’t do both. Yet often we can’t say ‘no’ to either. Instead of making choices, we squeeze everything into our lives, and, in return, become inefficient, worn out, frustrated and stressed.

So, let’s find a way to say ‘no’.

Why is saying no so difficult?

Guilt    If something is well within my abilities, I feel guilty at not taking it on. I don’t have time for it, but my mindset is: ‘I could do this, so should do this’. That’s bad logic. Could doesn’t mean should. There are a hundred things we could do, but we should do only a fraction of those. Guilt cannot decide our priorities.

We’d let someone down    This was a problem in church life. Maggie starts visiting elderly people in a nearby care home, then persuades her friend Maureen to visit too. They try to persuade others to come along, saying, ‘If only more would join us, we could spend time with everyone in the care home.’ But people don’t join them. Maggie and Maureen are overstretched, and urge: ‘This is important work. You’ve got to help us.’ At last some do. They haven’t the time but feel they can’t let Maggie and Maureen down. Visiting the elderly is good work, but they were already doing other ‘good work’ and now have little time for it. It’s been sacrificed, principally because they didn’t feel able to let Maggie and Maureen down.

We like to please people    From my earliest times as minister of a church, I realised I had power to persuade people to take on responsibilities: join a task group, attend a meeting, give money to a cause. It didn’t work with everyone, but a sizeable number accepted roles because they wanted to please me. That was helpful for me, but not always for them. They had other things to do, whether with family, leisure, work, or other activities. They were busy people. But they wanted to please, so didn’t say ‘no’.

We can’t cope with no-one doing it    A leader asks for a volunteer to take on a task. Heads go down. No-one speaks. The silence is deafening. Finally, George sighs, ‘Okay, I’ll do it if no-one else will.’ Why does George volunteer? It’s because George can’t stand the silence and can’t cope with no-one taking on the task. But George was already over his head with work so probably isn’t the right person for the task. Part of me wants to say ‘good for you’ to those who volunteer when others won’t, but it’s not good for them when they take on causes just because no-one else will. Especially if that means less time for the many things to which they were already committed. Neither embarrassment nor awkwardness is a reason to volunteer. We simply can’t fill every void that exists.

Personal ambition    People with drive and ambition often assume their work or responsibility limit is somewhere far ahead of where they are now. They can always take on something else. But most people don’t know they’ve reached their limit until they’ve passed it. And then they’re in trouble. Their drive to do more is commendable, but taking on too much only leads to problems down the line.

Overconfidence    Last week I listened to an interview with an American military commander who was reflecting on the war in Afghanistan. Sadly, he said, he couldn’t consider the 20-year conflict a success. Then he went on to describe (what he called) a dangerous ‘can do’ culture in the military. No matter how great or challenging the mission, the view was ‘we can do this’, as if anything was possible. If the strategists said there was only a 30% chance of ‘taking’ an enemy-occupied hill, they’d likely still charge up the slope. But it would cost the lives of many soldiers and the mission might well fail. Most of us don’t face life and death choices, but overconfidence – ‘I can take this on too’ – is a danger, not an asset.

So, what are the consequences of never saying no?

An unmanageable workload. When I talked about being over-busy, Hamish told me ‘all you need is to be well-organised’. Two years later he was in a senior role in an organisation, and working in his office in the early hours of the morning to meet a project deadline. When there’s more work to do than time to do it, even the best organisation isn’t enough.

An unfocused workload. When we don’t say ‘no’ we accept someone else’s agenda for our lives. We’re not prioritising what’s most important for us. That’s a bad strategy. We may succeed in a scattering of miscellaneous tasks, but fail in vital things that were uniquely for us to do.

We work outside our skill set. The big gain from making our own choices is that we play to our strengths. We do what we’re trained and skilled to do. When we accept choices made by others we lose that advantage, and struggle with tasks for which we’re not suited. If our church was looking for a new treasurer, and I agreed to take on the role, the church would be in financial chaos. I’m not a numbers person. Give me words to read or write, and I’m in my element. Give me a spreadsheet, and I’m lost. New challenges are good from time to time, but letting others define what we do is usually folly.

We experience serious stress. I can juggle two balls, and be relaxed enough to hold a conversation at the same time. Throw me a third ball, and I might keep them in the air but only with all my attention on the task. Throw me a fourth ball, and within seconds every ball would be on the floor. And perhaps I would be too. I could not juggle four balls. All of us can operate beyond our limits, but only for a very short time. After that we’re being damaged, and that’s always dangerous.

When should you say no?


When current obligations already fill your life    In theory you can always get more money, or more friends, or more possessions. But you can never get more time. I’ve often wished for 25 hours in the day, but there’s always been only 24. And when those 24 are full – including adequate time to sleep – fitting something else in only pressurises everything already there.

One way, though, to add a new thing is to throw out an existing thing. In an earlier blog I wrote about a friend who kept her house immaculately tidy by following that method ruthlessly. If she bought a new sweater, she got rid of an existing sweater. When she bought new shoes, she got rid of the old shoes. I could never be that severe, but it’s a principle which could be used to manage time. Providing, that is, you can be at peace with stopping something else. And that’s not easy. We may displease people by withdrawing our help, or leave no-one doing the task we’ve stopped. The new thing has to be weighed against the old things already filling our lives. Hard choices.

When important people would be hurt by saying yes    I’ve always been busy with studies, with church, with employment. It would have been very easy to miss the children’s growing up years. In part, I did. But, I hope, only in part. As often as I could I was home for dinner, listening to their stories, then tucking them into bed. Sometimes I watched them at swimming practice. When our son was about seven I drove miles to buy him a second hand Sinclair ZX81 (the most basic of computers). His work today is with electronics. When heavy snow was on the ground, I took one of our daughters on the back of my motorbike to deliver newspapers. (I’ve no idea now why she was safer on my motorbike.) I protected time so I could attend school concerts and athletic events. Later, when I travelled to dozens of countries, I sent them postcards, not so much so they saw a pretty picture but knew I was thinking about them. None of this was perfect, but we muddled through with a lot of laughter and togetherness. Those children are now adults, and also great friends.

Through all these years I was acutely aware that the time spent with the family would never come back. That sharpened my will when people wanted more of my time. To be away even more from my family was to impose a sacrifice on them as much as on me. Very easily we ask too much of people who care for us. Saying ‘yes’ to things may hurt most those who care for us most.

When your health would suffer    Being over-committed doesn’t directly cause conditions like depression. But taking on too much doesn’t help. We’re overtired and over-stressed. We don’t feel in control. We don’t cope. And our mental health deteriorates. Also, we can’t be experts at everything, so an overloaded life will include work for which we’re not suited. Then we’re both time-pressured and out of our depth. Quality of work suffers, as does quality of life. That’s bad, very bad. And not survivable in the long-term.

We can’t just ignore these truths, grit our teeth, and plough on with a chaotic life. Our health matters. Abusing it has serious consequences, affecting not just us but everyone who depends on us. Guarding our health is a primary reason to work up the courage to say ‘no’ to things we shouldn’t be doing.

Many of us don’t find it easy to turn down new opportunities. We hate disappointing others, or leaving a task undone. We feel obliged to help.

Maybe cold-hearted people who don’t care about consequences have no problem saying ‘no’. For the rest of us, it isn’t a simple decision. We’re faced with things that must be done, and there’s no-one else to do them. So we compromise.

But let that be the exception, not the rule. We’re in trouble very quickly when we open the floodgates for anything and everything to take over our lives. Saying ‘yes’ can ruin us and others we love. Instead, be polite but say ‘no’. Your life will be richer for using that little two letter word.

Regrets

The American golfer Hale Irwin nearly sank a 20 foot putt in the third round of the 1983 Open Championship, his ball stopping only an inch or two from the hole. Irwin casually swung his putter to tap the ball into the cup. He missed! The ball didn’t miss the hole; Irwin missed the ball. But he’d made a stroke so it counted. In the final analysis that might not have mattered, except Irwin finished the tournament exactly one stroke behind the winner, Tom Watson. If only he’d holed that putt… Irwin played in future years but never won the Championship. He would forever regret his two inch miss.

All of us do things wrong, whether honest mistakes or deliberate actions, and deeply wish we could have that moment over again.

Imagine this scenario. A young man is in love, truly believes he’s met the girl of his dreams and they’ll spend their lives together. But he says something which deeply offends his young lady, so much that she breaks off the relationship. ‘I said something wrong,’ he laments, and longs to go back to yesterday and do everything differently. But he can’t. So now he needs a place to hide away.

You may realise I’ve just described the 1965 Beatles song ‘Yesterday’, voted the best song of the 20th century in a BBC poll. Why so popular? The lyrics aren’t marvellous. But they home in on the human experience of regret. Something happens which should never have happened. We can’t change it and we can’t forget it. And its shadow hangs over us from that day forward.

Before going further, let’s be clear that missing a putt in a golf match – no matter how famous a golf match – is as nothing compared to the human trials and tragedies which leave unbearable regret – things that forever seriously changed our lives or the lives of other people.

What kinds of things create regret like that?

Here are seven examples:

  • Annie delayed getting the lump in her breast checked out. By the time a biopsy was done, she had stage 4 cancer and only a year or two to live.
  • Brody drank too much, then got in his car, failed to stop at a junction, and killed a young, newly married couple.
  • Clara was told her operation was routine, but the surgeon made mistakes and left her unable ever to give birth to a child.
  • Davey knew Danielle liked him, really liked him, but he couldn’t work up the courage to ask her out, and then she fell in love with his best friend and married him. Davey never met another like Danielle.
  • Eva was offered a fabulous promotion, but she had other things going on in her life so said ‘Not now’. No opportunity like that ever came again.
  • Fuller wasn’t a good father to his son – demanding, scolding, pushy. His son left home for university, and then took a job 200 miles from home. Fuller didn’t try to keep in touch, and now they never speak and never visit.
  • Gemma got drunk at an office party. In an alcohol haze what followed was a one-night fling with a colleague. Within days she told her husband. The marriage survived, but became cold and distant.

I’ve imagined every one of these people, but the events are typical of experiences which lead to years of unresolved regret. Something went terribly wrong, and now it can’t be fixed. Perhaps they asked for forgiveness, but it wasn’t given. Perhaps they tried to put the problem right, but only made it worse. ‘If only I hadn’t…’ the person says. Year after year regret eats away at their joy.

There is no guaranteed remedy for the mistakes or wrongs of the past. And some level of regret almost always lingers, even when there’s forgiveness at the human or divine levels.

But some things help, and I hope I’ll outline some of them now.

Never let the regret occur    This seems like perfect but impossible counsel. How often do we see disaster before it happens? Actually, more often than we admit. My friend Ray stopped driving when he was 90. For a few years he’d known his driving wasn’t good, so only drove locally. Then one day he misjudged a bend and bounced up the kerb onto the sidewalk. No-one was there so no-one was hurt. ‘But,’ Ray told me, ‘there could have been a mother and child on that corner, and I would have killed them.’ He sold his car, and never drove again.

It isn’t impossible to avert disaster before it happens. Occasionally we see warning signs, and the wise person acts before there’s something deeply serious to regret.

Regret doesn’t always involve guilt    It was a stormy day, so Sophie was driving her daughter to school. She was doing no more than a modest speed but suddenly a tree fell across the road. With no time to brake, Sophie crashed into the tree. She was fine but her daughter was injured and taken to hospital. She went through two operations, and suffered a lot of pain before eventually recovering. Sophie was tormented with regret. Her girl would never have gone through all that if only she hadn’t taken her on that road at exactly that time… Regret, regret, regret. But Sophie was regretting an event when she did nothing wrong. She wasn’t speeding. She hadn’t taken a notoriously dangerous route. She couldn’t have known a tree would fall. It was an accident. She can regret that it happened – be sad or sorry – but there’s no reason to feel guilty. There was nothing for which she should blame herself.

When we do something foolish or wrong, we regret our guilt. But not everything we regret involves guilt.

But sometimes there is guilt for what happened. How do we deal with regret then?

Face up to your regret    Personally, I don’t always do that. I find it easier to move past regrets rather than face them and identify what I did wrong. Why? Because what happened is a horrible and painful memory, so I don’t want to think about it. But not thinking about it lets it live on, and sometimes grow and become even more painful. If, instead of trying to ignore my regret, I face it honestly and thoughtfully three things can happen:

  • I can forgive myself. First, I need to accept God’s forgiveness, and I can do that. But forgiving myself is a step further. It’s easier to mull over my failings than let them go. In Robert Burns’ poem, Tam O’Shanter, Tam’s wife sits at home waiting for her drunken man to return. Burns writes that she’s ‘Nursing her wrath to keep it warm’. I can be guilty of nursing my failings to keep them warm. But not if I face up to them full-on, confess the wrong I’ve done, and then make a deliberate choice to let it go. If I sidestep my regret, it still has life. If I face it, I can leave it.
  • I may realise my guilt isn’t as bad as I thought. If I’d delivered a poorly prepared sermon, I’d really regret that. The congregation deserved better. But if I think more fully about what happened that week, maybe I’ll understand why that sermon wasn’t my best. Probably the previous days were consumed by human problems and  tragedies – a youth died, a young mum was diagnosed with cancer, a marriage split up, and I’d been in bed for two days with flu. Actually, it was remarkable I’d prepared any sermon for that Sunday. I regret that it was less than ideal, but it happened because that sermon had to be put together at an unusually messy time. Life is messy for all of us, and regret should be diminished by reasonableness.
  • I may see actions I can take to diminish the harm that’s been done. I can’t be the only boss who, in the heat of a pressurised moment, appeared grouchy or spoke harshly to a colleague? And later felt regretful? Life would rush me on to the next thing, but what would stay with me was the regret. It didn’t go away. But, if I stopped and really thought about what I was regretting, I’d realise there were colleagues I should apologise to. An apology isn’t always a cure, but it may diminish a harm done. And the less harm done, the less regret that lives with us.

Be the one who reaches out to heal hurts    Bertha and Bonny are sisters, but they have nothing to do with each other. Listen to Bertha, and Bonny is at fault. Listen to Bonny, and Bertha is at fault. Bertha thinks Bonny said something offensive. Bonny thinks her words were fine but Bertha’s response was offensive. Each is convinced they’re right and the other is wrong. So they’ve had nothing to do with each other for more than 30 years. Yet here’s the odd thing. Each hates the separation and wishes it had never happened. But Bertha thinks Bonny needs to apologise, and, of course, Bonny thinks Bertha needs to apologise. That’s stalemate. Nothing will change, and Bertha and Bonny will go to their graves regretting their separation. That regret doesn’t have to be permanent. But it will be unless one of these sisters swallows her anger and pride and talks to the other. Not to prove she’s right and the other wrong. Just to heal the relationship. That won’t be easy. But Bertha and Bonny may find both of them want reconciliation, and taking slow steps towards each other has at least a chance of healing decades of regret.

It may seem nothing can be done to fix a past wrong. Often that’s not true. But nothing will be fixed until someone takes a step toward healing.

Mistakes made can make you a better person    I watched a TV healthy living programme about heart attacks. It showed a 55-year-old man jogging, and when interviewed he said his heart attack was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Why? ‘Because,’ he said, ‘before then I had an appalling diet, took almost no exercise, became seriously obese, lacked energy, felt dreadful, and then nearly died with a heart attack. But now I eat well, exercise daily, maintain the right weight and have more energy than when I was 20. My life is so much better.’

That man’s story isn’t every person’s story. But it does show that we can turn some negatives to positives in our lives. His near-death didn’t just make him regret, but rethink and change his lifestyle. Regret was replaced with gratitude. When possible, that’s the ideal way out of regret. Recognise what was wrong. Learn from it. Live better.

Live in today    One of the repeated lines in ‘Yesterday’ is ‘Oh, I believe in yesterday’. The singer wishes he could return to yesterday because now he’s just half the man he used to be. But a fixation on yesterday is never good. Brody can’t go back to before he started drinking that fateful night; Fuller can’t get back the childhood years with his son; Gemma can’t return to a time before the office party. Yesterday happened. And horrible as it was, it can’t be changed.

What we can do is live in today. Whatever happened yesterday, today can be a day of good things. The more we find fulfilment now, the more we’re able to move on from the frustration and failure of the past.

It’s not easy. ‘Yesterday’ also has the line ‘There’s a shadow hanging over me’. That’s how regret feels. But shadows don’t last forever. New dreams, new opportunities, new attitudes, new people, new places, new activities, can all make shadows fade. It’s not that we don’t remember yesterday, but ‘yesterday’ doesn’t control us now. Its significance has been replaced by the overwhelmingly better ‘today’.

I have regrets. I wish I’d never put my life in danger running in front of a car when I was five, and getting lost on a mountain because I was ill-equipped, and plenty other things I haven’t (yet) written about. But I hardly ever think about them because I love the life I have now. It’s a good life, a positive life, and I don’t waste it reflecting endlessly on old mistakes. I am where I am, and where I am is a good place. May that be true for you too.

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