Progress = Process

What happens when you climb the hill to find a mountain staring back at you?

Progress, everyone wants to make it. Our society places a high value on the concept of “progressing” in any given area of life, but what does progress look like? What does it entail? Sometimes people forget that progress does not happen all at once, and even when we make the progress we had hoped for, it may not always be what we imagine. This semester in graduate school, I starting treating my first client. Fast forward about a month, the client is doing great in therapy. There is even objective data to support this. I talk to the client, and they express frustration. So what happened? Well, progress is not the issue. Progress is being made; the trouble is that progress is slow and hard, I mean worth every ounce of effort, but not entirely pleasant. More than this, when you’ve met one goal, you find another, which of course, we all want, but is sometimes unexpected.

So what does happen when you face the hidden mountain lying behind “progress”? You trust the process, most importantly, G-d’s process. Many points could be made here about how this can be realized in our lives, but I’ll just stick with two. 

1) Let go of perfection.

I think that progress can be so hard because making progress gets confused with everything magically becoming perfect once you’ve reached a goal. I will never forget this one seminar I went to in undergrad. It was about perfection, and this very kind-looking priest, with long snowy white hair, got up and said (this is, of course, a paraphrase), “The pursuit of perfection is destructive.” A lot of people could really use to hear that, heck, I could record that and play it on a continuous loop. It’s just a great observation. If we could attain perfection through our own flawed human efforts, we wouldn’t need Yeshua (Jesus), and then we would really be in trouble. Now, of course, that doesn’t mean you don’t strive to be like Him, to be the person He’s called you to be, but He is not asking for perfection, just your best. We really have to replace perfection with progression. Not the unrealistic ideals created by society or in our own mind but real and raw progress, that continual growth that must be fought for each day empowered by the Spirit of G-d.

2) Hold on to grace.

G-d is not hard on us like we are on ourselves. As long as we are giving our best, He’s okay with right where we’re at, which raises the question, why can’t you be happy with, why can’t I, why can’t we be happy with our process? At this point, you may answer back that well, it’s just not where I’m supposed to be, and definitely not where I want to be. To which I say, true. Just because G-d gives us endless grace and patience where ever we are in our journey doesn’t mean He will just leave us there or that what He has promised us in our lives gets thrown out the window. Things just take time. If you haven’t gotten it yet, remember it’s in the title, PROCESS, say it with me, PRO-CESS. See that felt good because you weren’t putting insane amounts of pressure on yourself to make all the growth that you want to achieve in your life in 10 milliseconds. Let me leave you with this, yes progress requires effort, but it also can be enjoyable and natural even when challenging. Someone put it to me this way once, “Trees grow all the time, do hear them grunting and groaning to grow?”

Well, that’s it for now. If you enjoyed this blog and my odd sense of humor, don’t forget to like and share this post. Remember love where you’re it!!