Episode 17: Rain Will Make the Flowers Grow

[00:00:00] Seth: We are made by our hardest moments. Have you ever felt proud over something that was easy for you? I mean, I suppose it's possible to be proud of something like natural good looks or intelligence, but when you think of your life and how you got to where you are today, do you think of the hard times or do you think of the easy times?

Did you ever enjoy playing a game where you were guaranteed to win? Do you like watching movies or reading books where nothing bad ever happens to the protagonist? One of the most insightful comments I ever heard came from a writer giving a lecture I watched on YouTube, and he said he felt bad sometimes for the really terrible things that he made happen to his characters, but that he knew it was necessary to give them a story where they could grow.

He then casually commented that maybe that's what it was like for God orchestrating our stories. In a very real sense, it is a writer's job to torment their characters, and the characters of those stories benefit from it. So there's a storytelling mechanism called the hero's journey. It's fairly simple, if you're not familiar with it.

The hero starts out content, and then a problem arises, which then prompts the hero to pursue a solution. Which sets the hero off on a journey, where the hero is then tested and tried and has to overcome a difficult challenge. And when the hero returns, the world the hero left is usually the same, but the hero is now a different person.

If it sounds familiar, it's because this is the simplified plot for almost every adventure story ever written. It's also symbolic of the same journeys that we pursue in our own life. I mean, the only reason we have any interest in any story whatsoever is because of the problem that the story revolves around.

Even when you're complaining to your neighbor about your lawn dying, it's only interesting to them because you've presented a problem. When you tell your friend that your kid graduated college, it's only exciting because you're The kid had to do something that required some amount of difficulty. I mean, one would hope, anyways, hard to tell sometimes.

At the very least, it represents that that child survived successfully to adulthood. And as much as I hate my problems, I need them. With no problems in my life, my life ceases to be a story. And with no challenge, then there are no true accomplishments. With no darkness, there is no light, just as with no misery, We would not know joy.

My life is harder now than when I was a kid. I have bigger problems now. I'm divorced and I have kids with their own unique needs and challenges. I have a company and no one up the chain above me to take on the big problems. When the company loses money, I lose money. Despite my responsibilities and my problems and the added challenges they present to my life.

I wouldn't have it any other way. My problems may be bigger than when I was a child, but my capacity to handle them has grown to be able to match them. See, my problems are my opportunity to take my own hero's journey, for the possibility of failure is high, if not likely. My company could fail. My kids could grow up and ignore everything I ever taught them.

Or heaven forbid I could fail in keeping my kids safe and actually lose one of them. See, the more responsibility you take on, the more opportunity you've created for yourself to fail. So why do we insist on taking these responsibilities and these problems on in our lives? I mean, does anything sound more foolish than pursuing things that are just beyond our reach?

It's because we want to grow. One of my favorite stories of all time is Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. I don't know if I pronounced that right. But anyways, in that story, he presents some of the absolute worst parts of humanity. They're on display. In order to shine a light on the best parts of it. The protagonist, Jean Valjean, starts off the story as a thief who's been embittered by decades in prison over stealing a loaf of bread.

And when he's free, he has this crucial interaction with a priest that sets him on a path of redemption. I won't spoil that for you, I'll let you read that, or maybe you already know it. From that point onward, it seems that his efforts to live a godly life are thwarted over, and over, and over, and in the process the reader comes to admire this fictional character like few others.

As he persists in his commitment to living a godly life. The title of the book is super appropriate. Obviously in English, Les Miserables is The Miserables. The Miserable People. Few good things happen in that story. But somehow Victor Hugo ended up writing one of the most inspiring tales I have ever heard.

There is no decisive victory won. There's no narrow escapes from death. Well actually, I guess There are a few of those. Good wins, not because it's necessarily winning the war or winning the battle, but because people are persisting in doing it, regardless the consequences. I think a greater tragedy than the pain of Jean Valjean, our protagonist, and everything he experiences, would be to rob him of his trials.

See, through this story and through all of the, the terrible things that happen to this guy, a simple man, It's the hard things we go through in life that turn us into something more. Like the coal that turns to diamond under pressure, or the forest that's renewed by the wildfires, or the sword that is forged through heat and hammers, the muscle that only grows through strain, the friendship that blooms through hard times together.

Bad things are going to happen to us. When I was a child. One of my greatest fears, if not my greatest, was the possibility of my parents splitting up. And when I got divorced, I can recall journaling about that fear of mine as a child. And, and, writing in there that I felt like I was subjecting my own children to my own worst nightmare.

And would you believe it, like, two nights later, I'm with my little seven year old daughter at the time, and she tells me, unprompted, that having her mom and I divorce, Was her worst nightmare, and now it was coming true. I have never felt like more of a failure than in that moment. One always hopes that the troubled journey we embark on doesn't have to start too early for our children, but sometimes that journey is forced upon us, and sometimes we fail.

I don't know how that's going to affect my journey. And I don't know how it's going to affect my children's journey. All I know is that the journey is not done yet, and I have not given up on giving my children the best possible raising in spite of my circumstances. Their hearts may be broken. But hearts can heal, and that's what I need to help them do as part of my journey.

The beautiful thing in all of this is that even though we may fail in life's journeys, we can get back up again. I love the line from Gone with the Wind at the very end after a huge loss, Scarlett O'Hara says, Tomorrow is another day. And our story doesn't really end until we die, and maybe our story won't have to stop there.

The pain and the hardships. handle at times, but just keep in mind that rain will make the flowers grow.