It happens all too easily.

You have forgotten how to have fun. Insults are spoken. Feelings are hurt. Defenses go up. Relationships are severed.

All of these happen when we think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think.

The result is pride, which gets in the way as often as possible.

When pride is present, love is blocked.

How can there be love if you are too busy judging others? When you choose convenience over relationships and being right over forgiveness?

Then there’s the other side of pride: self-pity.

You messed up again. Everything is going poorly. There’s no help for you, just more misery. You’ll never be as good as the next guy.

Again, love is missing.

How can there be love if you are too busy attacking yourself? Thinking insulting thoughts and putting everyone else around you on a pedestal?

Either way, pride leads to self.

It’s hard being humble. Very hard. No one claims it is easy.

But it’s better — and easier — than being a slave to pride all your life.

Time to stop being miserable.

We love to believe stuff will make us happy. Things will fulfill us. Material possessions provide satisfaction. As if we’ll suddenly be complete and experience lasting happiness thanks to what we own.

(Do you agree or disagree with this idea? Share your first thoughts in a comment.)

But I just don’t buy it. I can’t buy it.

Let’s discuss why.

If stuff can make you happy, then the person with the most stuff should be happiest, right?

Ha! Have you ever met miserable rich people? They’re everywhere. Think of the people with huge incomes, multiple houses, many cars, and even fame. Yet they are far from happy.

Likewise, owning less stuff won’t make you miserable. I’ve met families with little money and few possessions. Yet happiness in the home is overflowing.

(Greed and envy can be part of the problem, but let’s leave those for another post.)

When we put pressure on stuff to make us happy and it fails to deliver, the stuff is not the problem. Stuff is neutral.

Poor expectations are a common reason for unhappiness.

So what is the remedy?

Let’s not over-simplify the answer, but do take it with a grain of salt.

Being grateful for what you have — contentment — is a breath of fresh air. Thankfulness is a powerful antidote to keeping up with the Joneses.

By the way, the Joneses are insecure, depressed, and are a couple of paychecks away from bankruptcy.

Sadly, it’s because they’re too busy keeping up with the Andersons.

The only way to win is not to play.

Our good friends have a dog named Scooter. She is a massive English mastiff roughly the size of a pony. Of course, she assumes she is a tiny lap dog and is constantly hoping to cuddle. She is sweet, just in a super-sized in-your-face kind of way.

She sounds adorable and easy to love, right?

Photo © Nathan Landis

Actually, Scooter is pretty annoying. A lot.

She drools everywhere, whines constantly, and has an irrational fear of steps — not a good sign in a three-story townhouse!

My question is this: How do you love when you just don’t feel like loving?

Scooter’s owners love her dearly. But to understand why, you first have to understand their definition of love.

I’m not talking about the fuzzy feeling you get when you like being around them. Nor the sense of attraction to or desire for something else. I’m talking about the verb — the active, intentional, “I’m going to love you no matter what you do” kind of love.

Scooter’s owners made the conscious decision not to base their love on her behavior. Or how much she barks. Or how often she poops on the floor. They displaced that “love” with a pure, unconditional love not dependent on anything she could do to earn or lose it.

How beautiful.

Since they’ve made that decision to love Scooter, they’ve been free to enjoy her more and be amused by her desire to drool and cuddle all over your lap.

I’m not saying it’s rainbows and butterflies, because it isn’t. Our friends do get irritated with Scooter. But this is infinitely better than the alternative: “Love” as a feeling based on how others act and treat you.

As a noun, “love” is shallow. It is easier, though fleeting and hopeless and empty.

Yet love as a verb is fulfilling and powerful and lasting. And tough.

What are you going to do about your annoying family member or awkward neighbor? How will you treat your co-worker with the shady morals?

If you are waiting to feel “love” [noun] before you love [verb] someone, it isn’t going to happen at all.

Victims have a distinct vocabulary. They tend to use certain words and phrases very often. It is pretty easy to spot one just by what she says.

But it’s not just the words themselves. It’s the big picture perspective and avoidance of all personal accountability.

See if you recognize these words from the victim vocabulary, as compared to the vocabulary of a proactive person:

• I can’t vs I won’t
• I had to vs I chose to
• I didn’t have the time vs I didn’t make the time
• I couldn’t help it vs I could have avoided it
• No one’s doing well in this economy vs Hard times point out our weaknesses

Did you ever notice how things “happen to” a victim? It’s like life has them in a headlock and keeps dealing them bad hands. Everything is awful and not at all preventable.

Victims have no influence over anything, including their own actions! Everyone else has all the power and they are helpless. They have no personal accountability.

Proactive people, however, realize they are entirely responsible for their own actions, which have natural good and bad consequences. They see how they got themselves into messes. They do not avoid admitting imperfections.

Victims are weak and powerless.

Proactive people are powerful and wise.

So what keeps people in the victim mentality? Maybe it’s a combination of several reasons.

Maybe it’s pride.

Pride prevents people from admitting they are not perfect. Or made a mistake. Or screwed up bigtime.

Instead of owning up to the responsibility for a car accident, we explain it was completely unavoidable. We rationalize petty theft and white lies. We blame our family / boss / job / car / friends for our problems.

But you know better than to use the vocabulary of a victim.

You know to read encouraging books like QBQ! and accept personal accountability for your thoughts and actions. You realize your power to be proactive and respond well when things go wrong.

And you definitely know better than to say the words and phrases above.

Though I’ve been told I’m a good person, I strongly disagree. I have never done anything good.

Neither have you, for that matter!

I have, however, done many awful things. Everything from gossip to illegal downloading to lousy grades to foolish decisions — I take full responsibility for all of it. I am prideful, selfish, and downright evil.

Yes, evil. That is the real me.

Again, every good thing I have ever done is absolutely not because of me.

I am not a good person.

In fact, none of us are good. King David referred to our hopelessness in the Bible.

There is no one who does good, not even one.
– Psalm 14:3

We do not even have the ability… to a degree, anyway. The book of Isaiah confirms how badly we fail.

All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.
– Isaiah 64:6

This could get quite long, but the short story is this: I am completely unable to do good on my own.

As a follower of Christ, I admit responsibility for everything awful I have ever done. (This is key!)

Any good thing I have ever done is definitely not me. Instead, it is Christ living through me. It is me giving up, getting out of the way, and dying to self so God can do good things despite me — not because of anything I have done.

I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
– Galatians 2:20

I’m not a good person. But I am absolutely thrilled to know God can do good things through me.

Despite me, that is.