Recently I watched a PBS documentary on how people are coping with the recession on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a well-to-do, conservative area of town. The film approached the question from the angle of a well-established hair salon whose owner is a long-time resident of the neighborhood. Interviews with several of her clients revealed how their lives were impacted by the financial crisis.
Many of the clients had to cut down on the frequency of their visits to the salon. One of them said she and her husband had to survive on one income instead of two. Another had to give up a life-long dream of starting a coffee house, get a job, and borrow money from her parents. A fitness trainer saw less wealthy customers in his classes. Another woman said she and her husband were in so much debt that she decided it was OK to run up her credit balance a bit more on certain small luxuries, like a morning latte, as a way to be good to herself.
A man in the financial sector decided to get a degree in theology. To do so, he took out an enormous amount in student loans. He said when he goes to the gym, most of the people he sees there are unemployed and don’t know what to do next. When asked about whether he’s worried about paying back that debt, he said he decided to “surrender everything to God and let him take over.”
That statement struck me and crystallized what bothered me about the whole piece. These people all had to change their way of life. But it seemed like their suffering was not due to the life conditions they had to adopt, but to the fact that they wanted to keep living like they used to. I’m not minimizing or denying that this causes real suffering. What bothers me is how little people recognize their power to help themselves, me included. And the idea that if I just “surrender to God” I can stop worrying, relinquish responsibility (like paying off debts) and let God “take over” where I’ve failed.
This brought to mind a talk I heard Elizabeth Gilbert (of Eat, Pray, Love fame) give about surrendering to a higher power in the creative process, in her case writing. She concluded that there is a creative spirit that an artist must surrender to and allow to work through him. But an essential ingredient in that process is showing up. Sitting at your computer, or whatever tools you use, working, sweating, being open, being there as a coworker with that higher being.
The Upper East Side people in this documentary have only their minds to conquer. Maybe that requires a form of surrender before people see their real options and their real power to change their circumstances.
When I look at the people in Haiti dealing with the aftermath of the unimaginable tragedy of the earthquake, I see a very different form of surrender. These people truly have no recourse within their earthly power. No family, let alone family to borrow from. No homes, let alone thoughts of work or career. No food or water for days. They raise their hands in the air and sing to God. They sing to raise each other’s spirits. And they dig with their bare hands.
It’s as if because they have nothing, they understand their real connection to that higher being, the real limits of their physical bodies and physical lives. That kind of surrender is not about the conditions of living. It’s about living or dying.
Maybe once we have the minimum conditions for living, after we’re so close to death, but we know we have been granted a chance to live, seemingly at random, that’s when we realize how much power we do have. Maybe that’s when we see where our personal power and responsibility end and a higher power begins. In that moment of awareness of the thin line between life and death, we grasp both our limits and our awesome potential for shaping and making the most of our lives.
