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Why are we discontent?  This is a question I've often asked myself.  Is it anxiety over the future?  Is it perhaps from past experiences that remain unresolved?  Some employ practices such as mindfulness, meditation, any prayer to overcome this feeling.  A conscious focus on the present moment rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.  A willingness to surrender to God that which we cannot control.  A breath of fresh air.  Trusting that God knows all and has a plan for us.  I find relief in these practices and beliefs, but I still question.  It is engrained in my nature.  

Like any good parent, God doesn't want His children to worry.  "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (John 14:27).  God wants peace for us because He loves us.  He also wants us to love.  "And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:37-40).  Peace and love...maybe the hippies were on to something.

According to 1 Corinthians 13:7, "love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."  In other words, love is trust.  In the dictionary, trust is defined as "assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something."  Therefore, if I love, I trust.  Then why do we still feel discontent and question things?  Is it a lack of faith or is it in our nature?  Consider it is the latter.  If it's in our nature, than there is a purpose for it.  Perhaps we question because we want a better life for ourselves.  "When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too" (The Alchemist).  If we're always striving to become better than we are, then we must question.  So, maybe being discontent is God's way of telling us we need to strive to become better.  If that is the case, than we cannot simply accept the status quo.  Action is required.

At the Emmet Fox Retreat this past weekend, we were asked if we'd take the red pill or the blue pill. "The red pill and blue pill represent a choice between the willingness to learn a potentially unsettling or life-changing truth by taking the red pill or remaining in the contented experience of ordinary reality with the blue pill."  If the red pill represents the truth, then in some way, the blue pill represents lies, or at least the omission of the truth.  If we choose the blue pill, we no longer strive to become better.  Therefore, we no longer love. 

Knowing this, what would cause someone to choose the blue pill?  Fear comes to mind.  A fear of the unknown.  A fear that the truth might hurt too much or cause us to suffer.  But life inevitably involves suffering.  So do we willfully suffer, or live in a lie?  “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity" (The Alchemist).  

Taking the red pill means we do not accept the status quo.  It means we want to lift the blinders from our eyes and see the truth, whether it hurts us or not.  Obviously, we don't want to suffer or hurt, so we do the best we can to prepare for the unknown.  As Jordan Peterson explains in his book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, order represents the known, while chaos represents the unknown.  Consider the Yin Yang.  One half is black and the other white.  One is chaos and one is order.  The two dots on either side represent the potential for transformation.  Peterson states that one cannot live in just order or just chaos.  Peterson states that "order is not enough. You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned. Nonetheless, chaos can be too much. You can’t long tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope while you are learning what you still need to know. Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering. Then you have positioned yourself where the terror of existence is under control and you are secure, but where you are also alert and engaged. That is where there is something new to master and some way that you can be improved. That is where meaning is to be found."  Essentially, one can consider the blue pill as order and the red pill as chaos.  The red pill (chaos) is the unknown that causes fear of suffering.  The blue pill (order) is that which is already known.  According to Peterson, we need both order and chaos in our lives if we are to grow and improve.  As such, it is our duty, in my reasoning, to select the red pill, since we cannot simply remain in ignorance if we are striving to improve our lives.  He goes on to state that "You are by no means only what you already know. You are also all that which you could know, if you only would. Thus, you should never sacrifice what you could be for what you are. You should never give up the better that resides within for the security you already have—and certainly not when you have already caught a glimpse, an undeniable glimpse, of something beyond.” 

God is mysterious.  He talks to us in various ways.  When we feel God's presence and He sends us a message, it often requires us to have faith and trust that what He is telling us is the right path.  This communication from God is the undeniable glimpse of something beyond.  Therefore, for those of us who have faith that God is guiding us on the right path, we can never sacrifice our greater potential for our current state of being.  

"Always place your becoming above your current being" (Jordan Peterson).  

We must not settle.  I was taught in the Marine Corps that when building a defense against your enemy, "position improvement is continuous."  This standard can be applied to life.  Our self-improvement must be continuous.  But, we cannot improve unless we take risks.  Taking risks is scary because the outcome may be detrimental.  This is why we must be well established on the side of Order before we can venture into Chaos.  That means mastering what we already know.  It means we use our experience and knowledge to approach a new and unfamiliar challenge. 

Perhaps when we feel discontent it is because we yearn for meaning and purpose.  But if we love, then we strive for improvement in our lives, which in turn improves everything around us, including the lives of others.  This requires us to have faith, to trust, and to willingly place one foot into chaos where we can face new challenges and experience life without fear.  Trust in God.  Face the chaos with open arms.  Take the red pill.