Category: Uncategorized

For much of my life, I understood faith through the language of strength.

Stand firm.

Believe.

Do not give up.

Trust that God has a better plan.

See challenges as opportunities to grow.

There is truth in all of this. Difficult experiences can strengthen us. Faith can give us courage to continue when circumstances seem impossible.

But I am beginning to realize that there may be another kind of faith for the deepest seasons of life.

Sometimes the pain is too deep to transform immediately into growth.

Sometimes we do not understand what is happening.

Sometimes there is no action that can repair what has been lost.

And in those moments, even the encouragement to “be strong” can become another burden.

We begin to feel that we must suffer well.

We must remain positive.

We must discover the lesson.

We must demonstrate strong faith.

Pain enters our life, and we expect ourselves to somehow convert it into growth.

But perhaps true healing sometimes begins when we stop requiring our suffering to become useful.

The story of Job speaks differently to me when I think about this.

Job loses almost everything that normally gives a person security. His friends try to explain why it happened. They search for reasons, causes, and answers.

But Job does something much more human.

He grieves.

He questions.

He becomes angry.

He sits in the ashes.

Eventually, the story does not give him the kind of explanation he was seeking.

Instead, Job encounters God.

Perhaps there are moments when explanation is not what our heart needs most.

Perhaps it needs presence.

I sometimes imagine standing before God and slowly removing the garments I normally wear.

The garment of achievement.

The garment of competence.

The garment of discipline.

The garment of optimism.

Even the garment of being someone with strong faith.

Underneath all of them is simply myself.

Nothing to prove.

Nothing to accomplish.

Nothing to explain.

I can simply say:

God, I am here.

Maybe I am disappointed.

Maybe I am angry.

Maybe I am frightened.

Maybe I do not understand.

And then perhaps there is nothing more to say.

Silence.

This is very different from the faith I practiced while building my life.

That faith often gave me strength to move forward.

This faith asks me to stop moving for a moment.

To allow.

To receive.

To grieve.

To be present.

Perhaps this is the difference between recovery and healing.

Recovery often asks:

How can I return to where I was?

Deep healing asks something quieter:

Can I allow what happened to become part of my story without allowing it to define my life?

That process cannot be forced.

There is no timetable.

There may be days of peace followed by days when the pain suddenly returns.

Perhaps that does not mean healing has failed.

Perhaps healing is happening somewhere deeper than our emotions can immediately recognize.

I am learning that there are moments when faith does not mean holding tightly onto God.

It means opening my hands completely.

No explanation.

No achievement.

No spiritual performance.

Just presence.

And perhaps, when everything else has been removed, we discover something we could not discover while trying so hard to remain strong:

We do not have to hold everything together in order to be held by God.

For most of my life, discipline meant one thing: doing what needed to be done.

Wake up early.

Work hard.

Stay focused.

Develop skills.

Continue when things become difficult.

Set a goal and organize resources around achieving it.

This is the first discipline.

It is enormously important, particularly in the first half of life.

We need to build something.

We need education, skills, a career, financial security, relationships, and the ability to support those who depend on us. None of these appear simply because we wait patiently for life to unfold.

They require effort.

The first discipline therefore pushes us outward into the world.

We interact with people. We enter organizations. We compete. We cooperate. We succeed and fail. We receive evaluations. We learn how society works.

Gradually, we build the foundation of a life.

But I am beginning to realize that there is another discipline.

I call it the second discipline.

It does not begin with doing.

It begins with allowing.

Allowing ourselves to stop.

Allowing ourselves to receive.

Allowing sadness to exist without immediately trying to fix it.

Allowing an unanswered question to remain unanswered.

Allowing an afternoon to have no measurable productivity.

Allowing ourselves simply to listen.

The first discipline asks:

What can I build?

The second asks:

What is happening inside me?

These disciplines require different environments.

The first often needs interaction with society. It needs people, goals, deadlines, feedback, responsibility, and action.

The second often needs less noise.

Solitude.

A quiet room.

Nature.

Prayer.

Writing.

A long walk or run.

An unhurried conversation.

Not because society is bad, but because the things we are trying to hear during the second discipline are much quieter.

Perhaps the first discipline accumulates experience, while the second discipline integrates experience.

During decades of living, we accumulate successes, failures, relationships, disappointments, skills, mistakes, joy, and pain.

But experience alone does not automatically become wisdom.

We need space to understand what those experiences have formed within us.

This may be particularly important in the second half of life.

Eventually, continuing to achieve more does not necessarily make life richer.

Another set of questions begins to emerge.

Who have I become?

What do I no longer need to prove?

What gives me life?

What have I been given that can now be offered to others?

What is God quietly asking me to notice?

These questions cannot always be answered by working harder.

Sometimes we need to become quiet enough to hear them.

Perhaps this is why the two disciplines ultimately belong together.

The first discipline builds the foundation.

The second creates the inner richness that can inhabit it.

And eventually, we return to the world again—but differently.

Less to prove.

Less to acquire.

Less to establish ourselves.

More to give.

The rhythm of the second half of life may therefore become:

Build.

Make room.

Listen.

Integrate.

Contribute.

The first discipline taught me how to make things happen.

The second is teaching me how to allow life to come toward me.

Perhaps a mature life requires both:

the strength to act when action is needed, and enough inner space to receive what cannot be achieved by effort alone.

For most of my life, I thought discipline meant doing.

Wake up early.

Follow the plan.

Keep working when I am tired.

Stay focused when others become distracted.

Set a goal and organize my time, energy, and attention around achieving it.

This kind of discipline is powerful. It helps us develop skills, overcome difficulties, and accomplish things that once seemed impossible. Much of what we build in the first half of life may depend on it.

But recently, I have begun to wonder whether there is another kind of discipline that becomes increasingly important as life matures.

The discipline of allowing.

For someone accustomed to achievement, allowing can feel almost irresponsible.

If I have free time, I should use it.

If I have a problem, I should solve it.

If I feel sad, I should understand why and move beyond it.

If I travel, I should accomplish something.

Even rest can quietly become another project: recover efficiently so that I can return to being productive.

But perhaps not everything in life needs to produce something.

Perhaps there are times when the most important thing we can do is make room.

Make room for sadness without immediately trying to remove it.

Make room for a conversation without needing it to lead anywhere.

Make room for solitude without demanding an answer.

Make room for beauty without photographing it.

Make room for prayer without asking for anything.

Make room for an afternoon that accomplishes absolutely nothing.

This is surprisingly difficult.

Doing gives us control.

Allowing requires us to loosen our grip.

For many years, I thought living fully meant using my abilities as effectively as possible. Now I am beginning to think that living fully may also mean giving life enough empty space to reveal something I could never have planned.

A walk may awaken an unexpected thought.

A quiet meal with an old friend may reveal something about ourselves that years of professional achievement could not.

A period of solitude may not give us an answer at all. It may simply make our heart a little quieter.

None of these experiences are productive in the usual sense.

Yet they may be deeply formative.

Perhaps this is part of what it means to live as ourselves.

When we are constantly achieving, we can gradually become the person our responsibilities require us to be. We perform our roles well, meet expectations, and continue moving forward.

But underneath all those roles, there is still a person.

That person may need time when nothing is required.

No title.

No performance.

No explanation.

No measurable result.

Just being.

I do not think this means abandoning discipline.

Perhaps it means expanding our understanding of discipline.

There is a discipline of pushing forward.

And there is a discipline of leaving space.

There is a discipline of holding on.

And there is a discipline of opening our hands.

There is a discipline of making things happen.

And there is a discipline of allowing something unexpected to arrive.

Maybe the second half of life requires more of this kind of strength.

Not becoming passive.

Not losing purpose.

But becoming spacious enough that purpose no longer has to be forced.

Perhaps the sequence becomes simpler:

Make room. Listen. Discover. Integrate. Contribute.

And sometimes, before asking what we should accomplish next, we might ask a gentler question:

What might enter my life if I stopped filling every available space?

There are moments in life when we slowly find ourselves backed into a corner.

Not because we made one dramatic mistake.

Not because one person suddenly changed everything.

But because, little by little, the room becomes smaller.

Perhaps it is a workplace where you no longer feel trusted.

Perhaps it is a relationship where you are no longer understood.

Perhaps it is a role that once gave you life but now quietly drains it.

At first, we try harder.

We explain ourselves.

We work more.

We hope that if we prove ourselves once again, the room will become what it used to be.

For a long time, I believed that was the only faithful response.

Then one day I realized something unexpected.

The problem was not that I had been pushed into the corner.

The problem was that I thought the room was my entire world.

When we believe there is no life beyond the room, every disagreement becomes a threat.

Every criticism becomes a verdict.

Every loss of influence feels like losing ourselves.

But what if the room is not the destination?

What if it is only a place we were meant to pass through?

That thought changed everything for me.

The place that had once felt like a prison slowly became a bridge.

The bridge still had an important purpose.

I still needed to walk across it.

I still had responsibilities.

I still had people to serve.

But I no longer expected it to become my permanent home.

Something else also changed.

For many years, I measured a good finish by the size of the stage.

How much influence did I have?

How important was the work?

How many people noticed?

Then I remembered something endurance sports had quietly taught me.

After a long race, I rarely feel fulfilled because of the finish time alone.

The deepest satisfaction comes when I know I prepared well, stayed faithful to my plan, and gave everything I honestly had.

The clock matters.

But it is not what gives me peace.

Perhaps life works the same way.

Perhaps a good career is not measured by how large the stage remained until the end.

Perhaps it is measured by whether we remained faithful while the stage became smaller.

A smaller stage does not require smaller faithfulness.

It simply asks us to remember why we began in the first place.

Soon after discovering this perspective, life tested it.

Nothing around me changed.

The people were the same.

The system was the same.

The misunderstandings remained.

No one applauded.

No one suddenly recognized what I had learned.

The only thing I could control was the quality of the work in front of me.

That was the moment when the phrase “clean finish” stopped being an idea.

It became a way of living.

Not because everything became fair.

Not because every relationship was repaired.

But because I finally understood that my integrity did not depend on the room.

The bridge taught me something I had never seen before.

You do not have to wait until you reach the other side before you begin living differently.

The bridge itself is where freedom begins.

And perhaps the question is not:

“How do I get out of this room?”

Perhaps the better question is:

“What if this room is no longer my destination?”

Because the moment you discover the bridge, you stop fighting to stay where you have already outgrown.

And with every faithful step, you begin walking toward a life that is larger than the room ever allowed you to imagine.

For most of my life, I believed that the best way to achieve something meaningful was to concentrate all available resources on one goal.

Choose the target.

Eliminate distraction.

Use all of my time, energy, attention, and discipline to move toward it.

I believed that having multiple goals was inefficient. If energy was divided, progress would slow. If several interests competed for attention, none of them would reach their full potential.

This way of thinking served me well.

It helped me complete demanding surgical training, develop technical skill, establish a research laboratory. It also shaped the way I approached endurance sports.

I do not think this approach was wrong.

It was probably necessary during the expansion phase of my life.

But I have gradually realized that a life supported by only one major pillar also has a hidden weakness.

When that pillar shakes, the entire structure shakes with it.

For many years, surgery was not simply one part of my life. It was the central pillar around which almost everything else was organized. Even my sense of contribution was closely connected to my identity as a surgeon.

When my clinical role became uncertain, I initially felt that my whole life had become uncertain.

The problem was that too much of my identity had been placed on one pillar.

Recently, my thinking has begun to change.

Perhaps the next phase of life should not be built around one dominant role.

Perhaps it should be supported by several pillars.

At first, I worried that this would simply scatter my energy. But I am beginning to see that these are not unrelated goals competing against one another.

They may be different expressions of the same inner calling.

A morning run creates space for reflection. A reflection becomes an essay. An essay opens a conversation. A conversation helps another person recognize something within themselves. That experience may deepen how I mentor, lead, research, or care for a patient.

This is not necessarily fragmentation.

It may be integration.

In the first half of life, I gathered my energy to climb one mountain.

In the second half, I may need to cultivate a wider landscape.

This does not mean abandoning discipline or ambition. It means changing the question.

Instead of asking:

What is the one goal I must achieve?

I am beginning to ask:

What combination of activities allows the fullest and most faithful expression of the person I have become?

One pillar may become smaller.

Another may begin to grow.

Some may carry more weight during one season and less during another.

But the whole life no longer needs to stand or fall with a single role.

Perhaps multiple pillars are not a sign that focus has been lost.

Perhaps they are evidence that life has become large enough to hold more than one gift.

Aging is often described mainly through loss.

The body becomes slower.

Memory becomes less reliable.

Opportunities become fewer.

The future becomes shorter.

These changes are real.

But recently, I have begun to see another side of aging.

Aging can create an enormous treasury of grace.

The longer we live, the more moments we carry.

A conversation with a child.

A sunrise seen on the way home.

A family member’s kindness.

A difficult season survived.

An unexpected opportunity.

A prayer answered quietly.

A moment when God provided exactly what was needed.

Over decades, these moments accumulate.

But there is an important question:

What do we choose to remember?

Aging does not automatically make life richer.

It gives us more material.

The heart can repeatedly return to disappointment, unfairness, criticism, regret, and failure. If we rehearse those memories again and again, the passing years may make life increasingly heavy.

But the heart can also return to grace.

God’s faithfulness.

A loved one’s smile.

A child’s trust.

A peaceful morning.

A clean finish after a difficult moment.

The people who appeared at the right time.

The same life may contain both wounds and blessings.

The direction of remembering matters.

For many years, my mind naturally returned to what had gone wrong.

What I should have done better.

What others failed to recognize.

What was unfair.

What I had not yet achieved.

This was partly because my mind was always in expansion mode.

Always moving toward the next task.

Always measuring what was still missing.

There was little space to stop and receive what had already been given.

Now I am learning that remembering is another form of receiving.

A blessing may happen once in time, but the heart can receive it many times.

When I return to a good memory quietly, gratitude deepens.

The event has not changed.

But I have.

A calmer heart can often receive more from an old memory than a hurried heart received when the moment first occurred.

This may be one of the greatest advantages of aging.

A younger person has many possibilities ahead.

An older person may have a vast inner treasury behind.

Years of love.

Years of provision.

Years of protection.

Years of small gifts that were barely noticed at the time.

The challenge is learning which memories deserve to become the home of the heart.

Remembering grace does not mean denying pain.

It means refusing to let pain become the only story repeatedly told inside.

The older I become, the richer life can become—not only because new blessings continue, but because remembered grace accumulates.

Aging does not have to make the heart heavier.

If I learn to remember God’s faithfulness more often than my wounds, the passing years can become a growing treasury of gratitude.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of aging is not simply having more memories.

It is finally learning how to receive the right ones.