Don't Look Back

I.

The psychologist and philosopher, Carl Jung, wrote about the concept of "Retrogressive Restoration of the Persona." It runs as follows: a person takes stock of their life and recognizes that changes need be made. Their beliefs or behaviors no longer serve them; they are no longer moving towards their goals, or perhaps they have no discernable to goals to move towards in the first place. In either event, they decide that changes need be made and commit to making them.

At first, things go well. There are growing pains and pitfalls, but they are moving away from the person they once were and towards the person they hope to become. Momentum is gaining and optimism growing. At some point, though, they encounter an obstacle or, God forbid, a series of obstacles that present a formidable challenge to the progress they have made. This is, of course, inevitable - there will always be another shoe to drop. They are uncomfortable for the inherent discomfort of challenge itself, and their discomfort seems all the more because they have not yet become so enveloped in their new habits and beliefs as to be able to always adequately employ them.

Caught between this proverbial rock and hard place, the tempting idea enters their head to give up and go back to their old ways. They do not want to do this because they think it a better way to live; the actively know that is not the case. Rather, they are so tempted because while counterproductive to their goals, doing so will nevertheless offer them something that in the present moment they lack: comfort.

But how can the unhealthy be comfortable? Answer: because for all of its harm it is still familiar. When they were moving forward they were obviously making progress, but perhaps it was lonely, or effortful, tiring, exhausting, scary (as moving into the unknown always is). By going back they can put all of that to an end, albeit at the cost of the progress they had been making. Ultimately, everyone in this position must choose: comfort and disappointment, or discomfort and satisfaction.

The perfect choice does not exist.

II.

In the philosopher Plato's allegory of the cave, he writes of a group of prisoners who have spent their entire lives chained to a wall in a cave and situated such that all that they can see of their surroundings is the cave wall before them. Behind and above the wall is a small fire, and from time to time their caretakers hold up figures in front of the fire in order to cast shadows on the wall before them. This is all these men know of the world - dim light and shadow.

One day a prisoner manages to get free and escapes the cave. At first, the light of the outside world is dazzling and blinding. Taking in the fullness of the world around him, our prisoner is bewildered and terrified. There is so much to take in that only moments before he did not know existed. However, as his eyes adjusted and his mind settled he came to fall in love with all the news sights, sounds, and scents in the wide world outside of the cave. He runs back to tell his former fellow prisoners about the world and offers to free them. His fellows, lacking the context for how much beauty and goodness exist outside of the cave, they think him the crazy one and choose to remain in captivity.

It can be very lonely when we pursue what is good and true.

III.

In the Book of Genesis, scripture tells us the story of Abraham helping his relative, Lot, escape from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. They are given one single commandment during their escape: don't look back. Their way to salvation is forward, and their destruction lays behind. Do not look back. Unfortunately, during their escape Lot's wife, overcome by curiosity and perhaps regret for the life or world they left behind, chose to look back and was immediately turned to a pillar of salt. What do we know about about? It tastes good, sure, but it is also antithetical to growth. One salts the earth when they want nothing to grow in that place. According to legend, when the Roman general Aemilianus sacked the city of Carthage, he salted the earth. Lot's wife turning to a pillar of salt, then, can be seen as a metaphor: looking back prohibits growth.

Looking back from the circumstances you have escaped will only keep you from moving forward.

IV.

The choice to move forward with your life is one of the hardest to make. When hardship or heartbreak befall us, our worlds stand still even while the world around us moves on. Life can feel like it is moving too fast for us to keep up, or perhaps we know that we could keep up but we just don't want to. We have been fighting for long enough and we are feeling overwhelmed and discouraged. We still value the goal(s) we have been moving towards, but they still seem so much further off than the circumstance from which we have come. We do not like those circumstances, but they are familiar. We know who we are and how to navigate the world from that position.

Your life is yours to live, and no one else's. Your choices are yours to make, and the consequences yours to live with. Just remember: you have escaped from destruction, you have exited the cave. Far better is it to take a pause in the light than to return to the dark.