Realizing Disillusionment

"Disillusionment", said John MacArthur, "is the product of illusion." Find out what you are disillusioned about and you will discover what your illusions are.

This thought has been on my mind over the last week as I have contemplated and reflected.  There is a certain disdain around my soul, a certain sort of quiet anger about the state of my life, which I have come to realize is due to the fact that I am disillusioned - I feel cheated of things that I somehow felt like I had been promised or led to believe were within my grasp.

As I sat down and considered it more, what I came to realize was that my illusions were in every case large things in my life:  A  job that was personally rewarding and deeply engaging, a position of leadership, relationships that were always full and what I desired, reaching the pinnacle of a career and then moving into a second career of my choosing in a location of my choosing.  All of these things - and others - I have clung to as things that were going to happen, that were in some ways bound to happen if I worked hard enough or believed strongly enough. 

But in fact, they are all illusions, false images that were created in my mind for one reason or another and came to be interpreted as things that were owed me, that had to occur - that were destined to occur.  My discontent can easily become anger when I feel I am cheated out of something which I had been promised.

So I had to make a decision, last night as I rethought over these issues.  I can either continue in the illusion, or completely accept that it all was an illusion and get back to perhaps what actual reality was.  And reality, when I sat down and looked at it, seemed to be a great deal like various pieces of thoughts I have voiced here earlier.

Love God.  Love others.Work whole heartedly at the job you have.  Live your life quietly and work with your hands.  Give.  Love your wife and sacrifice for her - and your family.  Learn to be content.

(If all of these sound a lot like the Apostle Paul, that is because he wrote all of them in the Epistles).

In other words, live quietly, humbly, and slowly fade to black.

Part of living quietly, of course, is learning to be untroubled by the world.  It is accelerating the withdrawal from social media and from what media I follow.  It is accepting that any one the things that I had thought would happen might happen - but if they never do that means I am no less of a person for them.

I will say that having made this decision - at least the first 24 hours - there a great sense of not striving and inner solitude.  Not that any of the work of life has gone away - in fact, it seems to have increased.  But having stripped myself of the illusions, I am finding that there is a greater peace.  Things, situations and people cannot disappoint - because demands of them are illusions as well.

It brings to mind the concept that much of life is not how much you are able to keep, but how much you are able to surrender.