At peace with one's nature

Mado seems to be at peace with her nature. Am I?

I was going to write next about Congo church music but first I have to say something that I came to understand about myself on this trip. It is that I am never going to work very hard toward being a published author, nor am I going to strive for other forms of success and achievement.

Retirement, in fact, is a kind of giving up on my part. I have given up on making my mark as an environmentalist just as I gave up on making my mark as an antinuclear crusader or a journalist or even as an editor—and now as a writer. I do not fault myself for this.

In fact, I would have liked for any or all of that to happen. But I have not wanted it enough to do the work that it takes. It was just a little too far beyond my nature, both inborn and cultural. I, the Little Mennonite Girl born in 1944, achieved quite a lot in my working life but not what I saw was possible, what I saw others doing. I was not cut out with the grit, determination, focus, and need to achieve the kinds of things that bring recognition. Recutting my own patterns to make that happen required just a little too much effort.

What I was cut out for was happiness. Balance and contentment come easily to me, as does the kind of success that comes easily to the peculiar gifts of my mind. I write well so I happily doodle around in a journal or a blog—happily is the key word; it makes me happy to write like this. Writing in other ways doesn’t make me happy so I have stopped trying to do it. I am not inclined to tout the positions I have achieved, the jobs I have done, because I don’t feel like I have achieved much of anything through effort. Whatever I have done has come fairly easily and naturally. I have always used my gifts well in teamwork and behind the scenes. But I simply have not had the drive to get my own ideas and creativity into the world, leave some kind of mark or legacy, or achieve recognition and other forms of success, even for the sake of making the world a better place.

I’m not saying happiness and success are mutually exclusive. I’m just saying I am this way and not that way. It’s a matter of nature. We can do a lot to shift and balance our own natures but that kind of shift becomes much more difficult as we get older.

Thus it was that on my latest trip to Congo I found myself quickly setting aside the idea of writing a book about Mennonites in Congo, in the style of a travelogue à la V.S. Naipaul or Ian Frazier. Who was I kidding? I was still a lazy notetaker, just like I have always been. That is, I was still too immersed in the experiences I was having to stop and take notes, even though I knew I would forget them later if I didn’t record them. I was still impatient with research. I was still not observant enough of the details that create telling pictures. I was still too focused on my own feelings and not enough on gathering the kind of information that I would need later to convey a full picture to readers. Face it: I would never be a Naipaul or a Frazier. I didn’t have the drive to start earlier in life to be a “real” writer and why had I ever dreamed that would suddenly come to me when I was pushing 68? Realizing this was one of many "wrong again" moments on that trip.

Instead, I found myself being attracted to working in a way to which I was accustomed: behind the scenes, as an encourager, an editor, a mentor, a team player. I met some Congolese writers whom I would like to serve in that way. I have some plans in mind to do that. If I am not going to write about Mennonites in Congo, I can find others who will. I will collaborate with some young, ambitious writers. I will encourage in others the drive that I myself do not possess.

I have often thought about how far we can push the natures and inclinations we were born with but which are also partly the products of our environments. I know ambitious people who really need success and recognition. I know people who do not have my peculiar gift for happiness and contentment. I am trying harder to understand such differences and not criticize them as failings, either in myself or in others. I realize that overcoming them may require work that I and others simply are unwilling to do or incapable of doing.

Perhaps there comes a time in life when we must work harder only to come to terms with our own natures, to be at peace with our lopsided selves. I may yet achieve certain forms of success, but only if they are fully integrated with my drive for happiness.

P.s. Yes, drive. I realized after I wrote this that it is not just that happiness comes easily to me. I am willing to work quite hard for it. To arrange my life around it.