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I have been thinking this Christmas about hidden pain around holidays. Despite the ebullient social media posts with which we deluge one another this time of year, if we are honest, many of us will recognize that the holidays also wield a unique power to make us sad.
Why? I think it is in part because unhappiness is driven by the gap between expectation and reality. And expectations skyrocket around holidays, making that gap more likely.
Around holidays, we expect to be with certain people, have certain positive experiences, be free of other negative experiences. And it can be devastating when these expectations are unmet, as of course will eventually happen.
The problem with the regress of escalating expectations, however, is not just that it'll inevitably go unmet, but that it distracts us from what we do have. And while what we do have may not be all that we think we should have--it's still worth rejoicing over in its own right.
Indeed, our finite frame glides over an infinite number of reasons to rejoice. We take them for granted, but that doesn't mean they're any less real--eg, running water, shelter, the existence of even one person who cares, our abilities (whatever form)...even just our breath.
It is perverse that we allow Christmas, of all things, to disaffect us from what we have. It is, after all, when we celebrate someone born in a feeding trough, who never married or had kids, struggled materially, was betrayed and denied by his friends, & put to death in his 30s.
So, rather than throw us into a frenzy over whether everything is perfect—celebrating Jesus's birth should stop, not speed, the regress of expectations. And it should reveal, not conceal, the many things we do have in our lives & the joy they might sustain.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
