— by William Dascombe
Live life “in day-tight compartments.”
“Work as if everything depended upon you,
pray as if everything depended upon God,”
and {try to} relax.
INTRODUCTION
COVID represented a wonderful opportunity to reawaken and rely upon my mental/spiritual/philosophical talisman—or lucky charm—to deal with a challenging problem or circumstance. So, how does one address difficult and bewildering problems in life? One option is to live life “in day-tight compartments,” and, in that day, to do three things: work, pray, and relax.
This “way of life” was engendered out of the necessity to competently deal with the rigors of surgical training that almost always demanded working 100 plus hours a week for over 8 continuous years. Perhaps it might have some relevance to you and any challenges in your life.
LIVING LIFE IN DAY-TIGHT COMPARTMENTS
I try to limit my horizon to a 24-hour day without forward-looking and retrospective thoughts. It is only for this day that I am to ask for my daily bread, and I am guided to limit my thoughts for tomorrow. As Osler and Carlyle exhort:
“The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past.”
“Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”
WORK
The idea here is to get up and get moving, regardless of whether I feel inspired. My attitude sometimes tries to awaken my courage by thinking, “This challenge might kill me, but it won’t hurt me!”
The Bible offers multiple references to the value of work. Perhaps one of the most interesting is that, in the commandment to honor the Sabbath, there are the words to work six of the seven days. Others have offered insights into the value of work.
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
All that I can do is everything that I can do. I periodically ask myself, “Am I doing my best to be my very best?”
PRAYER
Prayer is a common theme in the Bible. It can be a continual conversation with God while I work, as so wonderfully summarized by Brother Lawrence in The Practice of the Presence of God. As I meditate in prayer, I ask the following questions:
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Should I retreat so that my next advance is wiser and more clever and more sustainable?
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Or should I retreat on my mission altogether so that I can live to fight another day?
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Do my goals and vision of the outcome of this challenge need more resiliency or, perhaps, adaptability?
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Put another way, does my situation today mandate an iron will or an adaptable will?
I remind myself that God can change anything, but, more often than not, God probably needs to change me so that I can more effectively change the dynamic in front of me.