Virtue Quest

[A historical note: I started writing this post over a week ago... and have only now got round to finishing it. Urp!]

I think I mentioned that I’d given up computer games for Lent. I’m not much of a gamer, as gamers go. Spider solitaire and a third-party version of Risk are my favorites. Never got into the MMOGs. But I’ll be honest, those games can waste hours at a time. That’s plural hours. As in, way too many.

So, that’s a big reason I’ve been slowly growing sleep deprived since Easter Sunday. End of day comes, and I think, hey, I’m allowed my games. And next thing I know it’s 1am (or later), and I have to be up for work the next morning.

Run away! Run away!

Sure, I play games to relax. But it often becomes something more than that. It turns into an attempt to escape from my life.

Not that my life is all that rough. But I am, as I’ve said, a lazy man and I resist any intrusion on my comforts. It quickly becomes a matter of principle: if work takes time away from leisure, then play takes time away from sleep.

Sleep, of course, ultimately takes its time back … usually at the least convenient moment.

All of this could have been avoided if only I’d been a little more disciplined, a little more realistic. I just don’t have all the time I’d like to play and relax and make a fool of myself. None of us do. There’s lots of good in life, but some parts of life are just plain tough, and that’s normal.

Penance and parties

I think that’s one of the lessons of Lent: that part of life is hard work, is difficult, even painful. But the penance leads to a celebration: our work bears fruit, and there’s a greater joy than the mere escape of vegging out with a computer game.

So I’m trying to remind myself of the good things that arise from giving up computer games and other distractions – good things like a full night’s sleep and the ability to enjoy life the next day.

And when I restrict my game playing to times when I really have nothing better to do, I find I actually enjoy the game more. Who’d have thought it?

For my small handful of international readers, this week the U.S. is celebrating its Thanksgiving holiday. It’s one of the few holidays on the national calendar that truly deserves the name: it is a day dedicated to a holy act – giving thanks for the good we have received.

The attitude of gratitude

I find it ironic that a festival for giving thanks has both taken deep cultural root in the U.S. and even has become a civil holiday. Why? Because “the American dream” is so rooted in self-reliance, in pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps, in the notion of independence. The American ideal is to take what one earns rather than to receive what one is given.

But I think most people – American or otherwise – are too wise to believe all that. I’m certainly aware of how much I have been given without a hint of deserving or earning on my part: my very life, to begin with; my education; the love of my friends and family; the benefits of growing up in the late twentieth century in the wealthiest nation on the planet.

I think there are two ways to show gratitude: first is to rejoice at the gift, and to celebrate the one who gave you the gift; the second way is to use the gift, to unwrap it and give it a place in your life. In other words, when Grandma gives you a sweater, you tell her “Thank you” and then you wear it the next time you see her.

Developing the virtue of gratitude

For much of my life, I felt guilty about all the gifts I’d been given. I actually hated my birthday and Christmas because I had done nothing to deserve the presents I received. I somehow felt like they weren’t actually mine if I hadn’t earned them.

In other words, I’d let the “American ideal” overcome the natural order of things in my life.

Needless to say, “Thank you” did not come easily from my lips – until I realized that gifts are the most natural thing in the world. I realized that gifts always come before accomplishments or “earnings”. And that almost all the anxiety and frustration in my life came from refusing to receive anything as a gift.

So, over the past few years, I’ve been practicing the virtue of gratitude. I don’t mean just saying “Thank you.” I mean pushing aside that feeling of unworthiness and focusing on the goodness of the gift. This is even true of gifts that I don’t want or that are useless to me: I can focus on the love that someone is expressing by giving me something.

And, like all virtues, it grows with practice. By receiving small gifts, physical gifts, I find it’s easier to see the less tangible gifts. I find it’s easier to rejoice in my family, my friends, even co-workers and colleagues. I find it’s easier to see what is good in my church, my country, my home. I find it easier to give thanks for my own life, and I want to use my life for a good purpose.