Wrecked, Chapter Two: "You Won't Find Yourself Where You're Looking"

I'm trying to extract the essence of what Goins is asserting in this book and to minimize the impact of the manner by which the ideas are asserted. (But it's hard.[1]) One part of my frustration with the "manner" of the book may be a concern with audience. I'm still not quite sure to whom he's writing. Christian? Non-Christian? Those who want to be wrecked? Those who are wrecked? Those who should be wrecked, whether they want to be or not? At various points in the book, any or all of these audiences seem to be in play. As a result, the book seems to send contradictory messages. 

For example, Goins attempts to distinguish his book from "self-help books" by noting that they hold different basic assumptions. Self-help books function on the assumption that "life is supposed to be comfortable" (45), whereas Wrecked posits as different approach:

You can't grow without pain; you can't find your life's purpose if you aren't willing to embrace discomfort and join others in their suffering. Simply reading this book won't help. You need to act, too--to do something hard, even dangerous. Because it will change you, .... (53)

Just as chapter one had a nugget that one wants to embrace while getting rid of what surrounds it, this brief passage is the most direct, succinct, and powerful statement in chapter two. Unfortunately, it is once again linked back to the romantic, essentialist mindset of chapter one:

... and you will find that piece of you lost in the process of growing up, of becoming wise and aware of how the world works. You will become a child again. (53)

If possible, my children tend to avoid anything painful.  They will endure discomfort in order to be obedient, but left to their own devices, they would just as soon do what they deem comfortable at any given moment of the day.  So, I have a difficult time understanding why the choice to "embrace discomfort and join others in their suffering" is not dependent upon the wisdom and insight we gain as we mature.  I don’t understand what Goins seeks to achieve through enticing us with an idealized notion of childhood.  It’s this kind of stuff that makes it seem like he’s selling something.

There are other aspects of this chapter that I found problematic, also.  In describing the tendencies of our culture, Goins notes that “We think it’s about self-actualization, about becoming the best version of ourselves.  It’s not.  It’s about losing ourselves” (48).  Well, yes.  As a Christian seeking to decrease so that Christ-in-me might increase, I agree.  But then, about five pages later, we’re told that “Even if we get turned around in the process [of journeying beyond what is comfortable] and end up on our own doorstep, it will have been worth it, because we will have changed” (52-53).  Well, that risks sounding a lot like prioritizing self-actualization.

Then, of course, there’s the sentence following what I’ve quoted in the last paragraph: “That’s why I don’t believe in books and programs” (53).  Check out Goins’s website (http://goinswriter.com)  and let me know if you find that assertion slightly problematic.

I like what Goins is getting at—or, at least, what I understand Goins to be getting at.  Let’s combine our chapter-one nugget with our chapter-two nugget.

If we are to follow the Jesus who suffered with us and bled for us, we too must suffer. We must hold the dying in our arms. We must shed tears for hungry stomachs, trafficked children, and wandering souls. This is what He wants for us. It’s the reason we are called to lay down our nets and take up our crosses to pursue the Suffering Servant. And it’s the one thing we will avoid at all costs. It is not enough to feel bad. […] We must act. (40)

You can't grow without pain; you can't find your life's purpose if you aren't willing to embrace discomfort and join others in their suffering. Simply reading this book won't help. You need to act, too--to do something hard, even dangerous. Because it will change you, .... (53)

My issue with Goins continues to be the manner in which these points and conveyed.  I guess this brings me back to the question of audience.  Perhaps I’m simply not part of his.

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[1] This chapter, we’ve traded in John Mayer for Jason Bourne and Yoda.

Diving Into Wrecked

In connection with a group at my church, I've been asked to read Wrecked: When a Broken World Slams Into Your Comfortable Life, by Jeff Goins.  Given the gravitas of the group reading the book and the discussions that will be generated through our reading, this felt like a text I wanted to respond to a bit more formally--a text for which I wanted to articulate my thinking rather than merely scribble notes and comments in the margins. So, I'll try to respond chapter by chapter and see where it takes me.

Chapter 1: You Must Get Wrecked

Well, the chapter starts off with a John Mayer quotation, so I'm not sure what to think about that.  I assume that the quotation--"Something's missing, and I don't know what it is"--is a lyric from one of Mayer's songs.  I will say that it aligns with this first chapter pretty well.  Like Mayer, Goins is also asserting that something is missing, some unknown "it" that get referred to again and again but not quite identified.

I should say that Goins and I got off on the wrong foot, as his opening chapter makes—or at least begins with—the same sort of simplistic, essentialist assertions found in the Eldredge books (e.g., Wild at Heart).  For instance, he asserts, “We begin life with a simple understanding—that our lives are tales worth telling and we have an important part to play” (27).  Well, no.  We don’t begin life which this understanding.  This perspective is something that is cultivated--to varying degrees--within us as we grow.  Goins even undercuts his own point—this very point—in his next paragraph.  Like Eldredge, Goins presents our lives in romanticized terms.  In this case, all children are imaginative and uninhibited by a concern with “trivial things” like money, sex, and recognition.  “Without prompting, kids know how to dream up adventures and slay dragons.  To embark on epic voyages and live out idyllic scenes.  To spend hours in the backyard with nothing but their imaginations” (28).  Well, that’s crap.  Kids are raised and encouraged to “embark” on such voyages, just as men and women are raised and encouraged to embrace the roles and perspectives that Eldredge presents as being intrinsic to our nature. 

 
Eventually, chapter one got a little better, but I could never really escape the feeling that Goins was pushing too hard, that he was selling something—namely discontent and the promise of contentment.

Something is missing. Something important. Something necessary to making a difference in the world. And most of us are afraid to find out what it is. Because we know. It’s the secret we’re afraid to admit: this will cost us our lives. (29)

Well, sure.  Many of us do have the sense that something is missing.  On the other hand, we live in a culture that operates largely by seeking to cultivate discontentment in order to market things to us.  Marketers assure us that our lives are empty, so we should pursue thrill and independence by purchasing a new car.  Or our lives are provincial and dull, so we should travel.  Or our lives are filled with unnecessary burdens, so we should by a robotic vacuum.   

To be clear, I should say that I don’t think Goins is merely trying to “sell us something,” but his tone and rhetoric just feel too…unexamined…too consistent with the very status quo he’s attempting to help us see beyond.  Because of this, he risks seeming disingenuous.  When introducing the title of the book, he writes: “…they all sang a similar song: wherever there is pain without explanation, hope amidst despair, redemption in spite of tragedy, that’s where they wanted to be.  Walking away from each experience, people would tell me how they felt, and they all used the same interesting word: wrecked” (29-30).  On this point, I simply don’t believe him.  All of these folks with their various experiences all used the word wrecked to describe their experience.  The word doesn’t strike me as that common.  I recognize this may say more about my mindset as I read the chapter than it does about Goins and/or his argument, but the presentation of this anecdote leads me to feel like Goins is trying to create a buzzword rather than being honest.  

Certainly, Goins presents moments and perspectives that challenge and encourage in meaningful ways.  I really like the definition of wrecked as being “disabused of the status quo “ (32), and I really like the acknowledgment that compassion “means literally ‘to suffer with’” (37).  I think the best articulation of what he’s getting at is found on page 40: 

If we are to follow the Jesus who suffered with us and bled for us, we too must suffer. We must hold the dying in our arms. We must shed tears for hungry stomachs, trafficked children, and wandering souls. This is what He wants for us. It’s the reason we are called to lay down our nets and take up our crosses to pursue the Suffering Servant. And it’s the one thing we will avoid at all costs. It is not enough to feel bad. […] We must act. (40)

 Yes.  Go with that.  Help us explore and pursue that calling.  But do so without resorting to a romanticized and essentialist ideal of youth that presents adulthood as the problem.  Do so without the hyperbole that seems to turn this whole concern into a decidedly First World problem.[1]  And, for the sake of all that is holy, do so without mangling Emily Dickinson.

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[1] The whole paragraph with Jimmy set me off a bit.  Says Jimmy (from Peru!), “Traveling helps me realize what my preferences are, who my true friends and family are, and where my home is.  It gives me a clearer understanding of the need to have an anchor in this uncertain, steady life”(36).  This is all fine for folks like Jimmy who can travel to Peru.  I’m hoping there are avenues to a deeper life for those of us who can’t travel in search of self-definition, for those who are working multiple jobs just to put food on the table.  I pray there is hope when wrecked is not merely a metaphor, hope for those who are suffering and not just for those (who seem to be the audience of this book) who are trying to find ways to “suffer with.”  I’m reminded of a recent article in Slate titled “In the Name of Love: Elites Embrace the ‘Do What You Love’ Mantra.  But It Devalues Work and Hurts Workers.”  The article critiques the now clichéd advice that each of us should “Do What You Love” (www.slate.com).  This first chapter of Goins’s book seems tinted with a similar sort of privilege.