TOO EASY
“Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded. . .but he had leprosy.” So begins the marvelous Old Testament story of Naaman--a man who almost did something really stupid: succumbing to “That’s too easy!’ thinking.
He’d asked the highly-revered Israelite prophet Elisha to come and heal him. After some diplomatic intrigue that involved a servant girl, a wife and the kings of two countries, Elisha came. But! He came with one absolutely unacceptable condition--at least to Naaman’s thinking. Elisha instructed Naaman, “Go, wash yourself in the Jordan seven times.” Apparently, Naaman had anticipated some big, splashy miracle by Elisha. So, the story goes on, “he turned and went off in a rage.” But his entourage of soldiers and servants begged him, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you to go to the Jordan River, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” Long story short: He went. He washed. He was healed.
Please read the rich and multi-meaning story (2 Kings 5:1-15) in its entirety to experience the oh-so-human character of Naaman as well as his healing which, it turns out, was much more than skin deep. Here and now, I’m going to focus on one simple but significant lesson in it: How and why not succumb to “That’s too easy!” thinking.
“Just let go.”
I know. You’ve heard it, if not said it, a million times. But all cliche aside, this saying holds great truth (which is why it became cliche in the first place, right?). Our lives become much less complicated and much more cathartic when we are willing to just let some things go. Some are just mole hills. But some of them are mountains. So, when we do so we often experience an immediate and sometimes lasting cumulative calm, depending upon the emotional “size” of what we’re letting go of.
Of course, letting go will mean something different to each of us depending on what we’re holding--or hanging--onto. But when we are willing to consider doing so, clarity comes. We begin to perceive how, in small or big ways, our feelings of happiness and wellbeing--along with our attitudes and our altruism toward the world--improve immensely. Truth is, no matter how long we live, we’ll never stop needing to just let go of some things. No matter what our circumstances, doing so will never stop having a positive effect on virtually every area of our lives. So let’s get good at it.
One of the things that can lighten our load considerably is ridding ourselves of “That’s too easy!” thinking. As with all the THINK ABOUT HOW YOU THINK ideas I share with you, letting go of this rather deeply ingrained pattern (in fact, so ingrained that we’re usually not even aware we’re doing it) takes practice. With Naaman, we have to “re-mind” ourselves--to THINK in fresh, healing ways. But it’s not hard. It’s actually easy--if we do so repeatedly until we come to this right-under-our-noses realization. What I’m suggesting is not hard by nature. If it’s difficult, it’s difficult because we’ve unwittingly (Read: unthinkingly) nurtured our own “This is hard!” thinking. Or worse, we think like Naaman, “This is too easy! It’s got to be hard to be worth doing!”
Am I crazy? Or is this one of the real reasons we procrastinate--which, incidentally, is one of the things we don’t want to get good at. (Are you still with me?)
TODAY.
DO YOURSELF & THE WORLD A FAVOR.
TAKE TIME TO THINK ABOUT HOW YOU THINK.
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