Non-striving: It really works!

I have gotten myself really worked up in the past few weeks. I went to a Christian conference, and let’s just say that I got a little bit into the works-righteousness mode. I became super obsessed with becoming perfect and also started worrying about behaviors that I saw in my spouse and friends that didn’t reflect the “ideal.” As the weeks went on I got progressively more constrained and stressed.

Another thing that added to my stress was trying to make my writing marketable, whatever that means. I merely wanted more money so I could donate it, but then I realized that if I changed my message to “earn” money, then it would be tarnished. In this way, your typical book and publishing agreement is in itself a form of works-righteousness. I kind of want to change the way books are structured, sold and made. It all comes down to managing reader expectations. For this reason, Gen Z excites me! They’re so free form and out of the box!

While non-striving works as a defense against works-righteousness, I don’t think that this means we shouldn’t have goals. But I have realized that rather than goal-attainment and goal-setting, that I wanted my goals to be qualitative: I want to always show love. That is my goal. But it’s not a striving thing. It’s an existence thing.