On Our Internal and External Lives

Several days ago, I received a letter from my brother. I had sent him a letter a week earlier, mainly focused on all the cool stuff I was doing. The keyword here being “doing”… Not “being” or “feeling” or “thinking”… In his letter to me, my brother wrote the following:

“Life sounds filled with cool activities – choral music, skating, XC skiing, which are all awesome – but how is the internal life – passions, energy, dreams, hopes, struggles?”

midnight cross-country skiing

I thought to myself “You’re right. All I did was list all the outwardly exciting activities I’ve done recently, forsaking how I really actually was.” As I look back on my blog posts, they are virtually all focused on external events, not thoughts, feelings, or ideas. It’s all too easy to get caught up in one’s external life as the internal life goes to the wayside. I find myself, far too often, using my external life to distract from really addressing my internal life; my “passions,… dreams, hopes, struggles.” When asked, “So how was your week,” many people (including myself) seem to respond with a generic “good” and then go on to list the external things they did. Yet it is usually the subtle, quiet, mundane things – not the flashy, exciting activities – that determine how meaningful our lives are.

backyard camping in 0 degree temperatures

a friendly moose out the dining room window

 So while sledding, midnight cross-country skiing, and photography are all enjoyable things, you should also know that I had a good conversation with one of my unit mates, spent the commute to work reflecting on a number of questions and thoughts, really enjoyed the 20 minutes of piano I was able to play one morning, and that I have a hard time apologizing to those around me when I mess up. These are not particularly breathtaking activities, but in a way, they give a better representation of my life than the fact I did this or that snow sport.

Relationships – with God, others, and ourselves – are the most important things in life. It is to these that we should devote our time and energy. The good news is that with a healthy and vibrant “inner life”, cool external experiences usually follow. But they must not be a mask that gets in the way of grappling with our dreams, struggles, and passions.