One of my strengths, I think so anyway, is that I’m a really quick learner. I’m highly competitive, I always like to be out in front of the pack, so all my life I’ve worked on being a quick learner. If I get a new task I just want to go out and do it better than anybody’s ever done it on the first try, and that means that I have to pick things up fast. (it also means I’m often disappointed because, really, how often can you be the best at something the first few tries you do it!? But I digress.)
The other day I mentioned Spiraling Down, and how just every now and again I get feeling so far down.
I realized today that so much of it comes to trying to do too much on my own. Because I am a fast learner, I want to take whatever God gives me and do it really well. On my own. It isn’t that I exclude him, or want him out, but more like, I’m a little kid and I want my dad to be proud of what I can do on my own.
But ‘on my own’ is such a terribly bankrupt place to be. On my own, I personify the wins and (even more so) the losses. On my own, I get lost and sad and scared. On my own, I compete rather than collaborate. On my own, other people’s wins are my losses. On my own, I can’t do it.
For being a fast learner, I’m learning quite slowly that I don’t need to and shouldn’t want to be out on my own. On my own leads to nothing but spiritual bankruptcy and emptiness. Sometimes I need to be reigned in and reminded why we shouldn’t be out on our own.