While listening to Scott teach last Sunday about Going it Alone or Together the image of a story my dad told me flooded into my mind from who knows which archive buried in my brain.
He was in the Army in WWII and happened to be a smoker at the time. One day while in the middle of Africa he decided to quit. No patches, no support group or special gum. He just decided in his mind that he was done smoking. He told me that "the guys" would taunt him and try to get him to smoke – shaking their packs at him and other nonsense. After getting enough of it, at some point, while driving a truck ( I think an ammunition truck!) down a dusty road, he pulled his gun on one of them and told him "if you do that again I’ll shoot you".
I heard many stories from my dad about how he used brute force to solve his problems, so it didn’t shock me in any way to hear that. He was raised in rough times; in an orphanage, in foster homes, out on his own…on into the Army, nearly mortally injured, sent home to recover or die. What I was always impressed by – meaning, as a kid I was truly Impressed – is that he was able, by his own strength, to make up his mind and just do it; he set his mind and the task was done. I inherited that trait. I have always been proud of that trait.
Play - alone.
Move out on my own – alone.
Go to college – alone.
Take care of business – alone.
Make small and large decisions – alone.
Home repairs, car repairs, bodily damage repairs – alone.
Live – alone…. All until my late 30’s.
The toughest challenge is to live with another person well. I became aware on Sunday just how much my dad’s example has penetrated my character; how much it has possibly hindered my relationships, how much it has probably hurt me.
Going it alone has advantages, as Scott said. My mood affected no one – it didn’t bounce off anybody to come back and nail me. Life wasn’t so messy, it was simpler. It was soooo much simpler. I once told spouse-man the best vacation would be if he went somewhere with the girls for a week … and I got to stay home. Is that bad?
Now I am wondering and pondering about 1. being Proud of the trait and 2. the Trait itself. It is difficult to reach out and depend on other people, especially when God gave me so many physical talents and abilities to do things myself. Reaching out emotionally has netted great, great disappointment in the past. I find that people are quick to jump in to help with material things when someone is in need, but shy away from helping relationally - like schools of fish when you dip below the surface and swim near them. So I wonder how many others out there inherited a similar trait - one that keeps all of us hovering at a distance like a school of barracudas?
