The Winter of Our Discontent…a.k.a How to Make Good Choices in Life

“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”

William Shakespeare, Richard III

Can somebody please make it stop snowing? Really! I’m absolutely done with all the cold and the slush and the ice? How about you?

For those of us in the Midwest, summer is but a figment of our imagination — a promise of better days, soaked with sunshine and berries and every good thing.

February, on the other hand, is the absolute worst of all the winter months — and so we buckle up and we grow contemplative and we try to encourage the people around us ’til the sun doth shine and all is well with the world again.

If you can’t already tell, I’m not exactly sure where I am going with this post, but I’m excited to see where it all ends up!

Instead of planning for my post this week, I had a little bout of a nasty bug — which left me lying in bed, bemoaning the fact that whenever I feel nautious, I have the strange inclination to eat extra spicy food.

Not sure why I feel that is a good solution to cure my ills — but let me assure you, it is not.

When I finally was feeling better, and I looked outside to another snowy day, I must admit that I made the awful mistake of looking up our skymiles balance and began figuring out what warm destination I could fly my family of 8 to with said skymiles.

It’s an awful thing I tend to do in the bleak winter months, which is why February is the month we often book most of our family adventures.

But it brings up a very good bit of advice that I have heard throughout the years — “don’t make decisions in crisis”.

The concept is attributed to St. Ignatius. Ignatius was particularly good about helping people to discern God’s will in their lives.

He recognized that most decisions were made under three common circumstances:

When there is certainty. This kind of knowledge is a gift from God, and the person can simply act on these decisions with peace. Easy enough.

When emotions are calm. In this case, it is best to weigh the pros and cons and make a good decision based on them. Emotions don’t seem to play as significant a role here.

When we feel unsure and emotional. Sometimes our emotions are all over the place and we find it harder to discern the right answer. (Note: emotions are not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, they can be quite good. We need to discern where they are springing from: God or our own fears and doubts or the evil one, for example.) Hence the need to be patient and discern well, as explained below.

St. Ignatius gave us Practical Discernment Techniques to approach most every important decision in life. (Note: what to have for dinner doesn’t fall under this category). (Also Note: you can read this yourself in his Spiritual Exercises, 178-187)

Here are the major points:

1. Put before your mind the actual thing you are discerning. (for example, whether or not to take that job or pursue that vocation — or heck, even whether to book that trip!)
2. Pray for the grace to desire God’s will above all else and to try to be neutral in your choice in the matter. (Note: Think “Switzerland” — unless of course, you are discerning a trip to Switzerland, in which case, think “balanced scale”.)
3. Then pray to God. Ask Him to enlighten you and move you to desire, or lean towards, what would be most in line with loving Him and serving Him.
4. Ignatius suggests you imagine meeting somebody you don’t know and laying out the situation to them and then seeing what advice they would give to you, based on the facts.
5. Ignatius also suggests imagining how you would look back on this decision from your death bed? Also imagine, if Christ came to you at your deathbed and you presented this choice to Him, how do you think He would look upon it? Then try to make the decision that you would be most happy to present to God. (Note: Daily prayer is essential in getting to know God and recognize His voice, so you can make choices based on an accurate understanding of Who He Is.)
6. When all else fails, try to use reason to weigh the matter carefully. Make a list of “pros” and “cons” for the decision at hand, and notice which pros and cons stick out as more relevant. (Note: In other words, 7 “pro’s” and 8 “con’s” don’t necessarily balance out to a “no”. Some pro’s and con’s are weightier than others).
7. After making a decision, turn again to God and say, “Lord this is where I’m leaning, please make it clear to me whether or not I am headed in the right direction”. (Note: usually He won’t send miraculous “thumbs up” signs. Instead it’s about a feeling of peace with the decision. ) This is a very important step, since the feeling of rightness, peace, and joy about a decision is a good indicator that we have made the right decision –while feelings of anxiety, heaviness, sadness, and darkness often indicate the opposite.
8. If you continue to feel anxious, heaviness, sadness and darkness with your choice — it might be cause to re-examine the question or to examine the cause behind those reactions. To seek out spiritual direction with a wise and holy person (preferably a priest) could also be most helpful in moments like these.

That, my friends, is some amazing wisdom from one of our greatest Saints and it really is a great little step by step that will hopefully help you to discern how God is leading you in particular choices in life.

Have no fear, though, even if we make a mess of things God is big enough to help us out of the mess we have created with our poor choices.

Clearly, the best case scenario is to use our God-given reason (and even our emotions) to help make good choices with our lives — following St. Ignatius’ guidelines are a great way to do just that.

Well, I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting this post to go to St. Ignatius of Loyola principles of discernment, but there you have it.

There is so much practical wisdom contained within the writings of Saints. Hope it helps you when discerning those important things in your life.

Off to run my own race right now. Have a great weekend!

Sharing over at Kelly’s