Going Without

 

Ecclesiastes 3:6 A time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away. (AMP)

What have you had to go without lately? What had you taken for granted until it was gone?

Lately I’ve been thinking about going without and how many times I’ve been denied, lacked or abstained from things I took for granted as must-haves.

I love my lipstick collection but it’s been a long while since I used any because: masks. I have never been a shower skiver, not even in Nairobi winter. But during my treks up Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro, it never occurred to me to want a shower because: extreme cold. I love reading and my book collection attests to that but when I’m hiking, I have to concentrate on the trail. Eating is the way we nourish our bodies but once in a while, the body needs a break so that it can clean house and heal. Hence the seasons of fasting. These are all optional deprivations; I make a conscious decision to go without for a season.

What happens when your season of going without has been visited upon you by forces beyond your control? When you have been denied something you wanted or needed or are facing a season of lack?

Some people cannot fathom abstaining from anything for any reason. And we all have experience living like that, when we were infants. Any feeling of emptiness in the stomach, fullness in the diaper or unpleasant change of temperature sent us screaming until our caregivers attended to us. As toddlers, we learnt how to communicate our wants and begun asserting our authority – hence terrible twos. If we were brought up well, we were trained to delay gratification and wait or work for the things we wanted. Now that we’re grown up, some of us have regressed back to infancy and can’t fathom going without so we throw tantrums and manipulate others to ensure we get what we must have, or go into unnecessary debt because we have to have it now.

If we stop to reflect, there is always an alternative to what we are lacking that may even be better than what we originally wanted. It just takes drilling down to what utility you derive from your object of desire. For example, I love learning and I primarily learn by reading books. But I also love hiking and I cannot read and hike at the same time. Enter podcasts – I still learn, this time by listening, and all while as I walk; it’s a win-win. I need to eat but I don’t like having to shop, cook and clean. So I eat less often, fast longer daily and make every meal a well thought out feast. I get to enjoy the food when I eat, and my body gets the break it needs to mend; another win-win solution.

So, even for those things we feel like we have been unfairly deprived of (like my lipstick!) find a way around them or make peace with the season you’re in. Adult tantrums are ugly and only display your lack of maturity and suck-it-up muscle. Also, while you whine about your lack of shoes, someone else is praying for feet. We all go through hardships of one form or another and while all seasons come to pass, how we ride them determines whether we are growing, stagnant or regressing. Turn your seasons into harvests of wisdom nuggets; walk through them with patient grace.

“If you are owned by the things you own, you will lack yourself.” ~ Mahendar Singh Jakhar