encouragement casualty, part two: you can be anything you want

Last time I talked about how the phrase, ‘you are special’ may have negatively affected my life. This time I want to talk about how the phrase, ‘you can be anything you want to be’ similarly affected me.

The phrase, "you can be anything 

you want to be' shaped my 

identity growing up. 

The phrase, "you can be anything you want to be" shaped my identity growing up. I took this motto to heart and trusted it as "truth." I allowed this "truth" to dig itself deeply into my heart. In fact, this one phrase has shaped the identity of myself and my peers so deeply that it is unlikely we will ever concede that it is not "truth." I believe that this phrase is a lie from hell, and that it has confused and delayed the pending adulthood of my generation. I know that there is much more to blame for the continued adolescence of my peers, but this ideology has played it's tragic role. It may be true that if you work hard enough you can achieve much, but it is simply a bold-faced, damnable lie to tell everybody they can literally achieve anything and everything they want.

I don’t want to seem like I am overstating myself because I have harshly attacked this common ‘encouraging’ phrase, but I do feel justified in my aggression towards it. I realize that there are many other factors as to why someone exhibits a lack of commitment. But as I have said before, every poor choice I have made is my fault alone. I believe that behind this phrase there exists a mindset, and I believe that this mindset permeates our current cultural climate. I believe that this phrase is just one way that this mindset portrays itself. This mindset is what I’m talking about, and this phrase is just the vehicle in which I rode. I chose this vehicle because it greatly influenced my life, is common to most people, and it is seemingly harmless. What bad could come from telling your kid that they can do anything they want? Is this phrase seriously that big of a deal? I guess at the surface these are valid questions, but once you get to the mindset that this phrase creates then I believe that you will see how dangerous it actually is.

...life is not a buffet of 

choices where you can pick

 anything you want.

First off, most people will probably agree with me when I say that this encouragement does not line up with reality. Everybody on this side of high school, college, or their first job knows that life is not a buffet of choices where you can pick anything you want. I suppose I should have learned this a long time ago, but unfortunately I took it to heart and allowed it to shape my decision making identity. This motto, ever present in the back of my skull, has lurched forward every time something difficult has come along. When something hard happens at work, at school, or in life, then I think, “Well, I can do anything I want. So, I'm going to do something else because this sucks." It seems trivial, but when one makes decisions like this for 16 years straight, then NOTHING gets done. When every option is available, when ALL doors are open, when any avenue is driveable, you sit at the intersection dumbfounded by confusion, laziness, and fear. This motto helped to create a lack of commitment in my heart. I truly believed that I could do anything that I wanted, and therefore I didn't have to do anything I didn't want to do. I was at a stalemate in life always looking for something better and never committing to anything.

The second issue is far more devastating than the first, and it permeates the culture of my generation. The two phrases I have been highlighting, ‘YOU are special,’ and ‘YOU can be anything YOU want’ begin (at a young age) to create in the heart of their hearers a heart of self-centeredness, entitlement, and overwhelming self-idolatry. Another word for mindset is worldview -- how we see the world, and in turn, how we interpret what we see. I believe that the motto, ‘You can be anything you want’ points to a very specific worldview. There are a lot of other phrases out there that contribute to this worldview -- for instance, ‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps,’ God helps those who help themselves,’ and ‘The only obstacle is yourself.’ The common thread in these common sayings is You, and I believe that this thread is at the core of our worldview. This thread is the center of this post and this thread is the heart of my issues with my childhood encouragement. These phrases contributed to one thing in my life; one incredibly horrific, life-sucking, deeply dangerous thing -- they contributed to me making myself my own god.

...everyone everywhere is 

worshipping all the time. 

I don’t think that you have to be told these things to grow up serving yourself, but I do think that this reinforces a preset disposition to self-idolatry. I firmly believe that everyone everywhere is worshiping all the time. This does not necessarily mean that you are worshipping the God of the Bible, but you are worshipping something -- just look at sports, concerts, and malls. We all spend our time, energy and money on something, and that thing is the object of our worship. For some people it is not self worship, but instead relationship worship (but even these people usually put so much effort into their relationships because they need something for themselves). These people may focus on their families, spouses, or children, but either way they are expending their lives for the sake of something and this is worship. 

With that in mind, I now realize that I grew up with me as the center of my life. I poured out my energy, my focus, my money, my everything for my sake. I was the center of my world. And I believe that these two phrases helped to put me there. In fact, me being the center was celebrated, encouraged, and the norm. I grew up with a generation of kids that were told to think of themselves, look out for themselves, fight for themselves, help themselves, be themselves, stand up for their rights, not to back down, to shoot for the stars, and to be anything that they wanted to be. Some of these things have a time and a place, but when your world revolves around these mindsets, then your world revolves around YOU.

My world revolved around me. Therefore, I made the selfish decisions. I looked out only for myself. I only helped others when it was trendy (and I didn't have to give away any money). I spent my time worrying about how I would have fun, how I could relax, how I might be comfortable, and how I could get away with the smallest amount of work possible. I became selfish, lethargic, apathetic, lazy, uncommitted, and terribly boring because the only subject that filled my mind was me.

I'm afraid that the problem 

is far greater than we are 

willing to admit.

I’m afraid that this is where we all are (and I sometimes still am). I’m afraid that we care for ourselves far too much. I’m afraid that we are so wrapped up in ourselves that we would be nothing but offended by this very notion. I’m afraid that the problem is far greater than we are willing to admit. I’m afraid that we are so caught up in believing that we are special, and I’m afraid that we are so caught up on believing that we can be anything we want to be, that we will never be able to see past the waiter’s poor service and to the fact that he is a human being with a tired soul. I’m afraid that we are so caught up with the idea of, ‘I’m spending money here. This is his job. Why can’t he get it right?,’ that we cannot see that the cashier is a broken and hurt individual. I’m afraid that we are so deeply entitled to our own comfort, security, and pleasure that we would rather talk behind a man’s back, than to ask him how his day is going. I am afraid we actually, truly believe that we are special. And I know for a fact that ‘me’ being the center of the universe is so deeply driven into our culture it will take something much greater than myself to break it loose. 

We could argue all day about whether or not some of us are special. It doesn’t matter. I think that my point has been made. I grew up thinking far too highly of myself, and that worldview has led me down some difficult paths. I now see that we need to believe that we are alive for a far greater reason than ourselves. We are alive for a more beautiful purpose than our entitlement, comfort, security, and pleasure. I believe that we are alive to glorify God. And to glorify God we have knock ourselves down a few pegs. We can no longer be number one. We can’t even be number two. To glorify God we need to serve, love, and help others. This is one of the most practical and loving ways to glorify God. And even if you don’t agree that we should be living for God, then I hope that you can agree that one’s life should be others focused -- that we should think of others before we think of ourselves. In essence, we should think that everyone besides ‘me’ is the special one and we should treat them as such.


Do you agree with these thoughts? Disagree? If so, let’s talk about it in the comments.