Photo by Angie Davis.
Lauren Denton
For seven years now, we’ve been able to mostly avoid cable TV shows for our kids. The big upside for this is that they rarely see commercials. When they do see them, however, I always know it because I hear this coming from the den: “Oooh, I want that. Mama, can I have that? Look at this toy, Mama — I want it.”
Their eyes get wider and wider as they take in all the flashy toys they didn’t even know existed because we usually get to skip the commercials. And I reaffirm my preference for commercial-free Netflix and PBS over cable.
One day, Kate saw a particular ad for some toy that lit up and generally promised to make her happy forever. After listening to her go on and on about it for a while, I told her there would always be toys she couldn’t have and other kids who had more toys than she had. There was no follow-up — no “But we’ll get you as many as we can” or “But you have so many toys already.” I left it at that because it’s a good (hard) lesson: someone will always have more.
TV, movies and social media make it so easy to see how other people live, and as a result, we’re rarely satisfied. We always see more we wish we had and frankly, even as an adult, jealousy is a beast that still comes out of hiding now and then.
We think we have that particular emotion under control, but then something happens — we visit a friend’s brand-new house, someone buys a fancy new car that’s free of crumbs and melted crayons, or we spend a bit too much time on Pinterest perusing a news feed that’s so perfectly curated with exactly what we wish our life looked like. Bam! We’re back in that familiar place of dissatisfaction where the things in our life feel bland and wrong up against the “perfection” that we imagine everyone else to have.
Just after talking to Kate about all this, I ran across this verse in Hebrews: “… and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us…” This section as a whole talks about enduring hardship as we grow and mature in our faith, but the part about running the race marked out for us really stuck with me. I can want other things, work hard to be able to have those things, but if I’m always trying to achieve someone else’s life or working towards gaining the “prizes” other people have, it’ll feel like an uphill battle that never ends.
I keep this verse in my head now as I read about other authors’ successes: best-seller lists, national book clubs, movie deals. I can work hard for that kind of success, but my path may or may not take me there. My daughters will continue to see bigger and better things that other kids have — because someone always has more. I will continue to see other houses that appear to have every feature I’d love to have.
Whether child or adult, our particular paths have been marked out for us. It’s kind of like a race where each person has his or her own lane and if we’re constantly trying to scoot into someone else’s lane, it makes the race that much harder.
I’ll keep reminding my kids of this and maybe it’ll sink into my heart as well: Satisfaction comes with accepting that we each have our own path, and we’re not alone in it. Have perseverance then. Put on blinders if necessary, but run your own race, even if it is full of mistakes, crumbs and melted crayons.
You can reach me by email me at Lauren@LaurenKDenton.com, visit my website, LaurenKDenton.com, or find me on Instagram @LaurenKDentonBooks, Twitter @LaurenKDenton, or on Facebook. My debut novel, “The Hideaway,” is available wherever books are sold. My next book, “Hurricane Season,” will be released spring 2018.
