Reclaim

[enthusiasm] intense and eager enjoyment, interest, or approval [a bit of inspiration] "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt [Q & A with Matthew] [Jack]: Let's jump into our first topic. I think with all of these topics it's important to get clear on a definition of what we are talking about. And I think enthusiasm is one of the most important to define. How would you define enthusiasm? What is it and what does it look like? [Matthew]: I've spent a lot of time on this one outside of this project over the last couple of years. If I had to tell you what enthusiasm is in one sentence, I really believe that enthusiasm is the secret to eternal youth. I stumbled onto this while working on Dynamic Catholic's upcoming Catholic Moment project on aging and dying. I was looking at elderly people and I realized: okay we've got this person here, still very engaged in life, and this person here seemingly going through the motions. And they represent enormous groups within the elderly demographic. What's the difference? Essentially what I arrived at was enthusiasm. It might be an oversimplification, but everything good in life adds to our store of enthusiasm and everything bad in life takes from that store of enthusiasm. And I mean everything. A good parent adds to that store of enthusiasm and a bad parent drains it. Not that it's binary, but an unintentional or selfish parent takes from that store of enthusiasm. We all know parents who have psychologically or emotionally beaten the enthusiasm out of their children before they were 5 or 10 or 15 or 21.. I really do believe that enthusiasm is the secret to the fountain of youth. Enthusiasm is the secret to staying young in ways that matter and are possible. But it is also the secret to aging gracefully, which is an art unto itself that nobody teaches, or even talks about. "It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living." - Oliver Wendell Holmes [Jack]: That makes me think about how there are certain seasons of life in which enthusiasm is celebrated and other seasons of life when enthusiasm is considered unattractive. Like enthusiasm in a child is one of the most attractive things. It naturally sparks enthusiasm in other people. But, in the work that I've done with teens-13, 14, and 15 years old-I've seen that once you get to about that age, enthusiasm is basically outlawed. It's like you get to a certain point in adulthood and it's inappropriate to be excited about life and excited about doing things. And then, enthusiasm comes back into style again. There are few things more attractive than an old person who is constantly smiling. Do you think it's true that enthusiasm comes in and out of style through the seasons of life? And why do you think the culture goes through these periods of trying to temper people's enthusiasm? [Matthew]: Yeah, so I do think that's true, though I think the culprit or the villain is different at different times. For example, in the teen years I think it is sort of a cocktail of peer pressure and insecurity, which is natural at that age. It has a rightful place, because a person is trying to develop a sense of self. When we're trying to develop a sense of self, we are naturally insecure and rightfully so. But combine that with peer pressure and I think you can end up killing enthusiasm. So, it's important to say the malfunction is peer pressure. I don't think the malfunction is necessarily the larger society or culture for teenagers. I have also seen grown adults mock other grown adults for being too enthusiastic about a project at work or something happening in their lives. This mocking of enthusiasm is especially unattractive, even repulsive. [Jack]: So clearly, there are a lot of potential misconceptions around enthusiasm. Are there any other misconceptions on enthusiasm that you want to address? [Matthew]: Well, you gave the example of people who are always happy or constantly smiling. It's the "constantly" that gives enthusiasm a bad reputation. The person who is always joyful cannot be trusted. Because there is something disingenuous about always being joyful. That's not life. We all experience pain and suffering, disappointment, and betrayal. Life is messy. Everyone's got something going on and so the person who is always smiling, I think there's something disingenuous about that. It's a persona of types. First and foremost, we are called to be enthusiastically ourselves. There is room for happiness, sadness, and every other emotion and experience in that. [Jack]: Alright, let's talk about the relationship between enthusiasm and circumstances. For a long time, I assumed that enthusiasm was something that was facilitated through exciting things happening in life, that it was the result of circumstances. Can you be enthusiastic regardless of circumstances or does enthusiasm have to be dependent on circumstance? [Matthew]: No, it doesn't. I think it's important to point out that the goal is not to be enthusiastic all the time. I don't have to be enthusiastic about going to the dentist. I just don't, and so again, these principles don't have to be universally applied. But we also can't wait around hoping that the right circumstances for enthusiasm will strike. We must learn to stoke the flames of enthusiasm in our lives. There will be times when enthusiasm rightfully belongs, and we don't naturally have it-it didn't show up on that day. It's crucial that we learn how to stoke and fan the flames of enthusiasm, so we can get it to grow. It is also important that we learn to recognize when our enthusiasm is waning and what is causing that. There are going to be circumstances that rob us of our enthusiasm. But it is not like you have one tank of enthusiasm for your life and when it's empty, you're done. I feel like a lot of people live their life that way, saying: "I used to have that kind of enthusiasm." What they are really saying is, "I already used up all my enthusiasm and don't have any left." But that just isn't true. Our enthusiasm tank can be refilled, and we can do things to refill it, and we can do things to refill other people's enthusiasm. Depending on how you see life, circumstances good and bad take on massively different meanings. I think the more spiritual we become, and the more we understand life as a quest to become the best-version-of-ourselves, the more we realize that truth about circumstances. St. Ignatius wrote about indifference as a spiritual quality, as a way of surrendering to God's will. It's the idea that you shouldn't prefer health to illness or prefer riches to poverty. He's got a whole list. It's an extreme form of detachment. But it's something I have always struggled with because part of me feels like God does actually prefer health to sickness. And yet, I accept that both are opportunities to grow, and that the downside might be a better opportunity to grow. These difficult situations force us to grow, and human beings don't naturally seek out growth. "We must make ourselves indifferent to all created things, as far as we are allowed. Consequently. we should not prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, a long life to a short life. The same holds for all other things. Our one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we were created." (#23 of The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola) [Jack]: Yeah, it's an interesting point because I'm not a product of my circumstances, or at least I try to live like I'm not a product of my circumstances. But I also have to respond to my circumstances appropriately. For instance, if my grandmother dies, my emotions are a product of the circumstance, because they should be in many ways. I should feel sad that day. And I should appear sad, I shouldn't be doing cartwheels that day. [Matthew]: Okay, so there's some very complex statements there. We don't choose our emotions. So, I don't think it's accurate to say you should feel sad that day. I do agree with what you followed...