What's in a word? An exercise in context

Lately, I've been pretty big on the whole concept of contextualization, the reason why we do whatever it is we end up doing.  Generally speaking, I find the question of "why?" to be a very important one.  While a lot of us will correlate the question perhaps with smart-alecky kids who simply have nothing to do but pester you with "why?" at every single thing you ever say, the inherent reasoning behind our actions is what ultimately compels us to take such action, thus this singular word, why, becomes of the utmost importance, because without it we would do nothing.  That's not to say that every answer to the question is a good one, and that we always have a good reason to do what we do, the reason could be a horrible one but good enough to spur us into doing what we do.  I write this in the wake of Amy Chua's semi-controversial Wall Street Journal article regarding the superiority of the Chinese parenting methodology (not linking to it because it's in my previous post, so in efforts to shamelessly plug my material, I'm making you go read it).  In a brief and concise synopsis of my response to the article my point was simply that successful parenting cannot be measured by what you allow your child to do and the subsequent accomplishments of said child, but rather that a context for what you allow or disallow, why you push to do certain things and discourage him/her from others, is necessary to gauge what makes you a good parent.

Certainly it is true that anything you do well you enjoy it more, and certainly it is also true that it takes work to do anything well.  I'll go as far as to say that it's probably true that kids generally don't want to sit down and put in the work it takes to learn to do something well, I'll go even further and say that most people won't.  Why is that?  Well, simply put, we don't think it's worth it.  In ours (and our children's) mindset, there simply isn't a compelling enough reason or benefit to put in the extra work and effort to get good at something.  So ultimately, the question boils down to, what good is getting good at something?  or succinctly, "why?"  While with some things, we sometimes need to be okay with the answer "just because" or in the case of our parents or even spiritual guidance "because I (a parent, leader, or God) say so".  However, other times, we really need to sit down and ponder exactly the reasoning behind our action or inaction, and contemplate how "valid" (for lack of a better word) our reasoning is.  This holds true for any decision we make, be it for ourselves or for others.

While having purpose behind your actions is something worthwhile (I know, I've set myself up to be asked "why" on every statement), the exercise in context is primarily to help broaden the view to continually keep the end-goal in mind.  Maybe the two are the same thing to you, but to me there is a small and subtle difference between the two.  I'll explain it this way; just because you have a reason to do something doesn't make it a good reason.  Though the same may be said of an end goal, I like to draw a distinction between the two.  A reason is what drives the action, an end goal is what you get out of it in the end.  I would posit that the latter should be the former.  I know it seems like I'm leading you in circles here, but perhaps an example would clarify exactly where I'm trying to get to.  When you practice a scale on a piano, you can say you do it for a variety of reasons; to increase manual dexterity, to familiarize yourself with the keyboard, to help better understand where the black keys are, etc... however the ultimate goal is really to become a better pianist.  Once we've established that, the question then is "why become a better pianist?"  That there is the end goal.  Certainly each reason we give is a component of said goal, but it all builds to that one question, which typically will be answered in some form of "just because".

Going back to Amy Chua's article and the subsequent fallout on the internet of responses, mine included, we understand that Ms. Chua does the things she does so that her children can eventually receive (hopefully) a prestigious university education.  This is going to sound redundant, but this begs the question, "why go to college?"  While most of you might scoff at me at how obvious the answers are, I don't know that the obvious answers are necessarily very good ones.  Let's sit down and think about this for a second. For twelve (plus) years of your life, you ultimately are grooming yourself for at least another four years which supposedly define the rest of your existence?  Unless you go to grad school.  Seriously though, we are groomed from elementary through secondary school to eventually go to an institution, where we pay tens of thousands of dollars for a bunch of administrators telling us we need to know calculus in order to take the class from some guy that will tell us, in a purely academic setting, the conceptual skills necessary to succeed in the "real world".  Maybe I'm being a little dramatic with this, but I think it's definitely something consider, because, really?  Is this all there is?  Ms. Chua spending exorbitant amounts of time and money to get her children to a place where they are given anywhere between 3-6 years to figure out what they want to do for the rest of their lives?  College is overwhelming, yes, it's a big transition for most kids, but I would argue that a large part of the reason why college is overwhelming is because we make it so.  Not to say that kids shouldn't put in the effort to get into a good school, but if that is the reason for everything they do, then generally, I think they will be ill-equipped to attend any sort of collegiate level institution. 

Before I go onto this massive tangent regarding how I think children ought to be raised, my point is this, while we need to have individually measurable and achievable goals (such as, did I get into one of my top 3 college choices?), we also need to continually have the broad overarching picture in mind; to borrow from renown author Chuck Colson: "How Now Shall We Live?"  Each of our lives is comprised of a collection of individual moments, and while we live in each moment, our lives as a whole are more than each moment.  The context of what we do (in other words why we do what we do) is what defines us.  I would urge that we all consider carefully our own contexts.