Isaiah Roman

Agenda, Adequacy, Acceptance

Without an agenda, you have no mission.

As children grow up, they are often asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Such a trivial thing. We know that nine times out of ten, or ninety-nine out of a hundred, that will never happen. The grander the dream, the less the odds in favor. Yet, we ask. Deep down we know that what we do is who we are.

People who are kind to others are kind to others. People who are astronauts are astronauts. Your career doesn’t define your self, but what you choose as a career shows who you are. Some people work their whole lives in a thankless, menial job and feel perfectly satisfied with what they do. The reason is clear; they have an agenda.

People seek out endeavors that fulfill an agenda. Perhaps more often than not that agenda is not consciously worked out. The thrill seeker seems to bounce from place to place, experience to experience, without a central theme. But, the central theme is the thrill. That’s the agenda. Everything else becomes secondary.

The alcoholic has an agenda; drink, get drunk. Everything else is just a means of working that agenda out. Jobs are money to buy booze. Friends are people with whom one can drink. The hours without alcohol are the moments between drinks. Every addiction is the same.

Yet, an agenda is a path towards a goal state. This is the thing that people don’t usually consider; what’s the end game?

People don’t consider their actions as part of an agenda, because they think of each action as an individual thing. Some think of them as destiny, some think of them as effects. Very few actually recognize them for what they really are; steps on a path. Where does that path lead?

If you don’t recognize that your steps are leading you somewhere, you feel like you’re wandering aimlessly. You feel lost. Most people associate being lost with a map and truly, that’s what I’m writing about; a map. Maps describe conditions that exist. They always refer back to some standard. Always, without fail, maps attempt to accurately show that reference, that standard. If it’s a street map, it gets updated, but it shows streets. If it’s a topographical map, it shows land features in elevation, but it shows topography. If you know how to use a map, you can usually find your way around.

We have maps in our heads. If we know an area well enough, we keep the map stored in our brain. When we travel, we access that information and it carries us along towards our destination. If we don’t know where something is, we may ask someone who has been there, thereby accessing the information from their stored map. We do this all the time, in more ways than one.

Maps don’t necessarily have to be about topography, or geography. Lot’s of people look for a life map. That’s why we have the term “Star” which describes entertainment icons. People look to stars, sports heroes, politicians and yes, even astronauts and say “I wanna be like that some day.” That’s your agenda, but what map do you use to get there? Some people have bad maps with outdated or ill-informed sources. Some people get good maps, but only make part of the journey. Some dare all and go the whole distance.

Most people who “make it” find out that once they’re there, it’s suddenly no longer exiting. The journey is over and now they have to actually live where they find themselves. There’s an old saying, “it’s easy to win a war, it’s much harder to win the peace.”

You’ll never fulfill the mission if you’re not up to the task.

Most people who never start a journey, never look for a map, never count their steps for what they are, wander around aimlessly because they don’t feel adequate. If you don’t feel up to the task, you won’t bother moving.

Smoking dope robs you of your ambition. Comparing the manic thrashing shown in “Reefer Madness” to real stoners is pretty amusing. Stoners are who they are because they have – in the core of their being – a deep sense of inadequacy. The same is true of alcoholics. They use the alcohol as an excuse, a crutch, for their own feelings of ineptitude, then create a culture around that ineptitude that deludes them into believing that the ineptitude is really just another part of the culture. Sex addicts are looking for fulfillment because they have a deep sense of inadequacy. They need to know if they’re up to the task, because somehow that proves their virility, their youth, their power… whatever.

People who are considered confident feel adequate to the task. They have an inner sense of well being about the thing they’ve chosen to do. Everyone, from time to time, has self-doubt. Those persons who are successful, however, overcome that doubt because they know, in their hearts, that they are adequate.

How do you gain a sense of adequacy? It’s not through education, although education can fill you up with a false sense of adequacy. We call that brain-washing. As a young man the military taught me that I was a soldier, that my training made me adequate to the task. Then I got to my duty station and found out that I had a lot to learn. Then I joined the National Guard and found out that what I had learned put me head and shoulders above the rest of the weekend warriors. Not their fault, mind you. They were good guys in general, but one weekend a month and two weeks out of the year simply can’t compare with someone who trains every day, all day.

There lies the secret; doing. It’s one thing to learn the theory about something, it’s another to do it. Training, practicing, working are all terms for how you get good at the thing you’ve chosen to do. The more varied ways you employ your skills, the more you learn. These aren’t secrets. They’re simple life axioms that everyone should know. If you want to be an astronaut, then train for it. No one’s going to pick you to fly into space unless you can prove that you’re adequate to the task.

You’ll never complete the mission unless you can find acceptance.

People everywhere are looking for acceptance. That’s what the game of life is all about. We need to feel accepted in order to gain adequacy. We need acceptance, affirmation, of our agenda if we are to walk the path. That’s why alcoholics create a culture around their addiction. They need affirmation for their actions, so they seek acceptance from people of like mind.

Acceptance is ego. The need to know that others around us support what we do is nothing more than an innate sense of weakness. We know that we are subjects of nature, slaves to our creation. No matter how much science wails and blusters about the ascendancy of the human spirit and the ability of man to overcome, they have to look inward and see the societies and organizations they’ve created in order to support their assertions. The National Science Foundation supports those scientists who sign on to the agenda. It gives them acceptance and assures their adequacy.

This is a simple structure that forms the basis of all human life. It starts with the family. If there isn’t a solid sub-structure of acceptance by a loving mother and father, then the child gains a sense of inadequacy. From that the child ceases to look at their actions as an agenda, and instead looks on their actions as independent effects. They cannot complete the mission of living a fulfilled life, because they simply don’t know that such a thing exists… but they still yearn for it all the same.

When children grow up they join groups. Those groups give them acceptance. The group that accepts without judgement is usually the group children bond to the quickest. People generally dislike the discomfort of guilt. If a group makes you feel guilt, or inadequacy, then you don’t want to join; that is, unless you’ve been taught that guilt and inadequacy are not permanent conditions.

That’s what a map does. A map keeps your eyes on the eventual goal. It tells you that between here and there you may encounter rough patches, bogs, road blocks, or detours. A map tells you how to get past these things and work your way onward. A map leads you towards the goal, but when you get there, it’s comes back full circle. It’s acceptance that keeps you there. It’s adequacy that gives you the strength, but it’s acceptance that keeps you thriving in the mission.

If you feel accepted, you stay. We call this love, or encouragement, or support system, or any number of other sayings. The fact is, the more accepted we feel, the more confident we are. So, in many ways, we feel inadequate because of a lack of acceptance. We fail in our agenda because we lack acceptance. We, as humans, have this built-in desire; a deep seated, all encompassing, intrinsic desire towards community. It feeds everything that we are.

Everyone wants to feel wanted, productive, useful. These feelings all come with acceptance. It’s a lonely road to be sure of your path and not have acceptance. It’s a hard row to hoe when you have a clear agenda and no one supports your decisions. Each of us, from time to time, will do things specifically for attention. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. That’s not necessarily a good thing. It is a thing. If you haven’t asked yourself already, then I suggest you ask, “where did that come from?”

Where did the need for community come from? Why do we seek through the diversity of life for the common element of community? Is it really no more than a vestigial remnant of herd life, or is there something else, something more at play? Moreover, why do we feel the need to walk a path? Why do we need maps? Why do we have this inbuilt desire for a mission?

You’re on a journey. Do you have an agenda? Do you feel adequate? Do you feel accepted?

In the end, you have to ask yourself this one simple question; how good is your map?

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” – John 3:16-17