Savage / Zen Newsletter No. 99
“Hope is not a plan, prayers need legs.” ~ Anonymous
For several years I’ve been fond of the expression that “hope is not a plan.” However, it wasn’t until recently that a client reframed this in an action oriented way, asserting to himself that “prayers need legs.”
Hope, or some resemblance of it, may be a pre-requisite for action lest we fall victim to the cynic’s safety blanket. If you’re not familiar with that concept, suffice to say that “if you’re miserable and get to be right, you’re still miserable and still not winning.” A pointed rebuttal to this would be “if it’s worth bitching about, it’s worth fixing.”
Complaining takes no effort. Accurate criticism takes only slightly more effort. Dreaming is not doing. Planning is not doing. Hope is not a plan. Prayers need legs.
Similarly, we hear motivational quips that “showing up is half the battle.” I’ve talked about this before and my opinion remains largely the same, that “showing up is none of the battle (Tim Grover).”
It’s not that showing up doesn’t matter, obviously you have to do that if you want to win. It’s that if you’re at a place where showing up – which, to be fair sometimes is a struggle – you’re probably not ready or able to “win”, though you may be willing.
We could also say that “knowing you have a problem is the first step towards change.” That is true. It is also true that “knowing” may be a change in and of itself, but it doesn’t inherently change or resolve “the problem.”
It’s a great place to start, and a terrible place to stop.
You can’t fake the process because it’s often inglorious. You can fake hype, it’s all over social media. You can also lie about results – also all over social media. You can cite “experts” and (bought-and-paid-for) “science.” But a person’s body of work has to be able to stand on it’s own, or not at all.
On the other hand, martyring ourselves for the sake of “grind-set” or romanticizing self-deprecation leaves us equally lost. This too is all over social media. It’s become quite trendy to “talk about problems”, even to make them your entire identity. Unfortunately, working on those problems hasn’t quite caught on the same.
That’s 372 words to tell you that “there’s no easy way worth taking.” We also don’t get extra credit for making things extra hard on ourselves. We’re going to have to learn. We’re going to have to try. We’re going to have to fail. We’re going to have to feel. We’re going to have to pay attention.
When our hope – or whatever you want to call it – is threatened, we – not God, The State, or any other benevolent onlooker – have to “give our prayers legs.”