Dave Barry once wrote that, during his childhood, he was taught the importance of changing your car’s oil. Then one day his car wouldn’t start, so he immediately changed the oil. The car still wouldn’t start, so he changed the oil again, then a few more times just in case. I loved that bit. He’s one of my favorite writers.

 

By David Jones

When I was a little kid I rarely got spanked, but I remember requesting it once because of something I did.

I don’t remember what it was anymore, but I do remember asking for the spanking because I misunderstood how spanking worked.

I was told that the reason you got spanked was so that you wouldn’t do that thing again. But I don’t always think along expected lines, so what it meant to me was that spanking cured bad behavior. In my little brain I assumed the spanking itself prevented you from doing that thing again. So naturally, when I did something wrong, I wanted to get that mistake spanked right out of me so I wouldn’t do it again.

Sometimes I wonder if other folks ever think that way, because I keep running into instances where someone embraces a thing like they think it’ll just fix undesirable life stuff for them. They believe the thing will drive out unwanted thoughts, behavior, or desires like some kind of self-improvement exorcism.

I recently watched a video from a zen teacher who had received questions from folks about their meditation practice not working.

Even after years of meditating they were still suffering. “The whole point of meditation is to end suffering!” One person said they were meditating to purge their depression, yet after years of meditating they were still depressed: proof positive that meditation doesn’t work!

I see the same dynamic in religion. “Prayer clearly doesn’t work because I prayed for this thing and it never happened. What’s the point in praying if you don’t get what you pray for? The Bible says if I pray and believe then Jesus will do what I ask. Yet I prayed for something to go away and it’s still here! Prayer is so fake!”

But just like I didn’t properly understand the relationship between spanking and me not doing bad things, I think a lot of people have a mis-developed understanding of such things—seeing them as direct cause-and-effect without grasping the mechanics of it.

Dave Barry once wrote that, during his childhood, he was taught the importance of changing your car’s oil.

Then one day his car wouldn’t start, so he immediately changed the oil. The car still wouldn’t start, so he changed the oil again, then a few more times just in case. I loved that bit. He’s one of my favorite writers.

This mis-developed thinking is behind such things as conversion therapy to correct homosexuality, or using prayer to “pray the gay away.” It’s behind people of faith believing God will cool the flames of sexual desire if they just ask fervently enough.

It’s why some become priests or monks or nuns in an effort to get God to heal them of their desires for men, or women, or children, or whatever it is building within themselves. Then when they become a priest and still find the desires growing, they double down on the belief that God will just surgically remove that broken and defective piece of them if they just try harder to prove absolutely devoted to him.

“If I can just prove to God how sincere my love is for him, how complete my devotion is, then I know he’ll finally rid me of these desires and feelings.” Maybe they pray more and more. Perhaps they start hurting themselves for feeling or thinking a certain way, maybe to prove to God that they’re “really serious.” And then it still doesn’t happen!

Eventually disillusionment and resentment build alongside the undesired “weakness” within them. They begin to blame God for not fulfilling his end of the bargain and for being so unfaithful to them when they were so faithful to him, never for a moment considering that this isn’t how God works in the first place.

“If I stick to my meditation, I won’t suffer from emotional pain or anxiety, right? Buddha looked for the cure for suffering and found it through meditation. I just know that if I meditate another half hour each day then I’ll reach the point where I no longer suffer from anger and I won’t beat my kids or spouse anymore. If I meditate or pray enough it’ll cure my uncontrollable need for ________.”

Yet all of this builds upon a foundation of misunderstanding how things work.

Expecting someone or something to fix us is a powerful illusion. A cheap drug that promises to make everything all better but almost inevitably leads to deeper pain and suffering—not because the thing or person is bad but because it’s our views and expectations that really need the work, and we just don’t see it.

One day I understood that spanking didn’t just magically fix anything. God, Jesus, Buddha, scripture, science, meditation, my wife and kids, friends and prayer are all vital to me, but I don’t expect any of ‘em to just fix things in my life that I don’t like. I sure wish they could, though.

I’m starting to suspect that my car’s problem isn’t the oil.

 

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Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall

 

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