Thursday Evening Thoughts
At the dawn of a new semester, I find myself more than ever, and with greater frequency than ever, thinking, “What will this all amount to?” More than just a question of career and not to be mistaken with unhappiness or dissatisfaction, as my classes are stimulating and my professors are influential. At the end of the day, I find myself becoming increasingly inspired by everything. Although that sounds like a gross overstatement, it is to be taken quite literally. Being back in academia after working full time over the summer really put a lot of things into perspective. There’s been a paradigm shift in my personal outlook over the course of the past two or so months.
Up until last year, school was a task, a never ending list of to-do’s that needed to be done, and my personal measure of success at the end of the day was to check that task off as completed. Granted I still take satisfaction in narrowing my list of pending assignments, this summer truly taught me that you’re never really done with anything. I was stuck in this mindset that at some point there is satisfaction that you can look forward to.
Today, I was reminded of a mantra that I had long since forgotten: “delayed gratification.” It’s an incomplete thought, but a powerful idea nonetheless. The allusion in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech (April 3, 1968) was brought up:
Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop.
And I don’t mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!
And so I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!
Alluding to Moses, MLK himself knew he was not going to see his work to fruition. And like Moses, he didn’t (Deut. 34:1-4):
Moses went up from the steppes of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the summit of Pisgah, opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land…And the Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, ‘I will assign it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross there.”
This is such a common motif in literature, and in life itself, this idea that that hardest tasks are least rewarded. This applies to leaders, revolutionaries, writers, researchers, and even the matriarchs and patriarchs of our own families. (I swear, after every lecture of Dr. Shreibman’s class, I leave believing more and more that the Torah is essentially the ultimate precursor to modern life and times as we know it.) When it comes to motivations, goals, and hard work—although one wishes to taste the fruits of labor, drink the sweet nectar of success, live in the land of milk and honey—in the lives of great leaders, often does their work remain unrewarded in their lifetime. But at some point in time, they accept that they may not see this, because they themselves have effectively been to the mountaintop. They have seen something, experienced some moment, and been endowed with some priceless insight that allows them to place their confidence in something more: into a higher power, into humanity, into the future. What it is they’ve put their faith in is a debate in and of itself, but it is undeniable that something greater has affected them in some unfathomable manner.
There is a lesson to be learned here. Although I had forgotten the explicit expression “delayed gratification,” I realize that I’ve known about it all along. I’ve only needed to be reminded of it. From transitioning from full-time work to school, academia is not a list that can be finished. I get that. They tell you in school that life is much more complicated outside of educational walls, and I knew that. I saw it. I experienced it. But there’s this different outlook that I have. You’re given work, you get it done. That’s all there is to it. There is no questioning it. Because life is work, and until we experience our own unfathomable moment of insight, we will always ask ourselves, “What will this amount to?”
And after the day where we no longer ask that question—when we truly have no need to ask that questions—we transcend work into service.
But that’s Thursday Evening Thought for another week.
