Every Sunday morning I settle in with a cup of coffee and read Dr. Mardy Groethe — a writer who has a gift for finding the quote that names what you’re already feeling. This week, his subject was life’s struggles — and what, if anything, they mean.
What role has struggle played in your life? Much of my formation relates to how I see and deal with my struggles, large and small. How we deal with struggle defines us.
It landed like a hammer. Struggles are universal — no one escapes them. My mental health depends on recognizing and dealing with my own. My great weakness is the irresistible pull to help others deal with theirs.
My parents expressed a thought I didn’t understand at the time, “God, grant me my cross”. Only as an adult did I realize this biblical thought meant we learn and grow stronger through life’s inevitable tragedies.
The Buddha taught that “life is suffering.” He also taught that the cause of suffering is grasping or pushing away the very thoughts that trouble us. And finally, that the end of suffering is letting go — following the path he laid out for accepting both suffering and joy, each in its moment.
Starting in the mid-90s, I’ve focused on seeing my own struggles as they are instead of making them larger or smaller. Mom said, “let go and let God.” Buddhists like to say, “pain is mandatory, suffering is optional”.
I spent the week with my five surviving siblings, celebrating our “senior” sister’s 80th birthday — ten to twelve hours a day together, all six of us within seven years of each other. Irish sextuplets, anyone?
We were all sleepless for days beforehand, giddy with anticipation — the people, the funny stories, the shared memories that formed us. Some of us, though not all, arrived carrying unresolved struggles alongside the laughter. And though huge and wonderful memories were made, it ended in a cluster of old wounds reopened. All of us went home licking them.
So, what’s the message?
For me, my siblings and Mardy’s great blog were reminding me to pay attention to my own struggles. First and foremost, for me, don’t make someone else’s struggle my own. There lies the curse that comes from the blessing of peacemaker, the role I enjoy most in life.
Whether aligning resources to build a great business, or offering skills and encouragement to those willing to do the hard work of changing their lives — my role is the same in both. I’m a helper, not a pioneer. I work with talent and ambition that already exists; I don’t manufacture it.
The tricky part of this work is that a percentage of people who tell me they are committed to change actually want me to either change for them, or to shut up and watch them “change”.
So the message, received over and over and yet sometimes forgotten: counsel given me long ago, and still the truest thing I know — “not every thought deserves a voice.”
Peace,
Tim McCarthy
Quote of the Month: Dr. Mardy Grothe
“Where there is no struggle, there is no strength. But when the struggle becomes overwhelming, strength also means knowing when to get help.”
--- Dr. Mardy Grothe
Song of the Month: "The Things I Wish I'd Done" by Keywest
Favorite Lyric:
"Say I love you every night, say I'm sorry when you fight
And leave your anger in the past"
Truly Funny:
Proof of my age: I wear a fitness ring and I’ve noticed lately that my morning shower registers as a “core exercise”.
