A Virtual Life

FIVE MINUTES TO A NEW LIFE…

I am currently working with kids in a different sort of job for a while.  In this job I’ve noticed kids like to play video games on various kinds of game players, iPads  smart phones, computers and so forth.  I even hear there are adults who spend plenty of time playing those kind of games, too.  (You mean they actually make paper card things to play Hearts with?  Or people can actually roll a ball at white pins at the end of a long set of boards, like, as if in real life???)  

ANYWAY…..I’ve noticed that in a lot of these games, many of which include lots of guns, bombs, zombies and bloodshed, the player of the game risks getting destroyed in one fashion or another.  When you are, there is always something that then sets up the next round, usually a reset button, a time of waiting, or an opportunity for you to spend money to “get a new life.”  Sometimes right away, sometimes for a price, sometimes after a period of waiting, but the game is NEVER completely over, or if it is, there is always the next round.

Do you believe in a circular or a linear view of history.  That is, do you believe there was a starting point and things (including your own life) is moving to some conclusion in the future.  Some religions teach that it is all a big circle, with individuals coming back time and again in different forms, different lives and different eras.  

Biblical teaching, however, clearly disagrees.  The Bible states that however everything started, it was God who was in the beginning getting things going.  As well as it will be God who, at the end of time, will bring an end to everything we now know and experience in the final judgment and start of final eternity.  The video games fits well into the circular scenario, but to apply that over to the world in which we actually live, seems to me, at the very least, to be very misleading.

I was walking my wife's "little-so called" dogs today.  On the route we took, they were very interested when we crossed a rise and they discovered a fresh road kill…an armadillo was in the road, hit by a car and now dead.  Further on we ran across another specimen, this time a squirrel, probably hit last night, it appeared.  Neither animal moved.  The squirrel’s eyes were vacant, the life force drained onto the roadway.  Nowhere around did I notice a reset button, nor do I expect that if I had hung around it would have eventually gotten a new life and run away.  The early life of that squirrel was over (whether it is now living in squirrel heaven would be the topic of another blog). 

Children, especially the very young, are often confused with death.  Often surprised and shocked to learn that a person is not coming back after a tragic death - a shooting or a traffic accident - learning quickly that death is final.  The older child may understand death but doesn't understand the impact of the finality of death upon their own lives or the lives of others.  

We have one life to live.  I will never be a teenager again (and I’m actually very okay with that!).  I will never launch my first career again.  I will never have my first child again.  Among other things, divorce cannot be undone.  Couples can and do reconcile and get married to one another again, but doing so does not change the fact that, at least for a while, they were divorced.

Sometimes in life we do get second chances at things.  I feel very blessed in the second chance at marriage I have had, which has given me the opportunity to enjoy what I feel is a really good marriage.  However, having a second chance is not the same as being able to change our past. 

More often than not, though, we get one chance to make our choices in any given situation.  Often knowing the best or right choice is not always as clear as we would like it to be.  Some of our choices entail negative consequences we never intended nor desired.   Some choices lead us to greater things than we had ever imagined.  Even though there are many books, fantasies and movies about the possibility of time travel and changing history, in real life, that isn’t an option we have.  We make our choices now, and then handle the consequences.  

Whether divorce, marriage, career, education, starting a family…whatever the life issue about which you are required to make choices these days, I invite you to consider the values and bases out of which you make the choices of your life.  The scriptures offer guidance to enable you to be wise and godly choices that will stand strong not just in this world, but also into eternity.  They even offer guidance about how God would have you handle the mistakes of your life that he can use them for something good.  And if you aren’t sure, then Proverbs 1:7 is a pretty good place to start.

Research says... Divorce AND Marriage are a Big Deal!

HEDGE FUND DIVORCES?

 Marriage Hurts a Hedge Fund Manager More Than Divorce

The caption below the picture is a link to an interesting article about a research project from some economists at the University of Florida.   These economists decided to research, of all things, how getting a divorce affected productivity of individuals who work as hedge fund managers.   They then compared it to how much their productivity was affected when a hedge fund manager got married.  

Somehow, that is a question  I have never even thought to ask.

Have you ever wondered what in the world causes people to decide to research something as peculiar as that?  It probably has to do with government grants, or the need to fill space in a publication. 

However, it is actually interesting that somebody asked whether the divorce or the marriage had more impact on the lives of individuals.  

The long and short of it, in my summary of it, is that marriage generally causes greater impact, but that is primarily true of middle aged individuals.  For younger individuals, divorce created more upheaval.   

Kind of interesting, huh?  Is that what you would have expected?  It raises some interesting questions.  The biggest thing it raises is the notion that there are a lot more questions to be asked to fully understand what is happening.  

Bear with me for a moment as I offer some reflections of my own, totally unverified and unresearched, just thoughts that have come to me as I read it.

First, the fact that marriage has less of a disruptive impact on younger traders than does divorce makes one wonder why.  For instance, is it because when they got married, they assumed it wouldn't change anything in their lives, and so keep on working dawn to dusk, and keep their marriage tied into a tiny little time segment of their lives and dedicate only limited energy to it?  Or could it be just the opposite, that now that they are married, they especially feel the responsibility to bring in a good income and so pour themselves into their work?  And maybe when those younger people experience divorce, it hits them harder because with a divorce they are losing a lifetime of dreams, facing the fact that they have invested way too much of themselves and their time in their work and not nearly enough in the most important relationship of their lives?

For those who are older, the marriage has more disruption than a divorce.  What would you speculate about that?  I kind of wonder if it has to do with the fact that when somebody gets to be an old codger like me, you realize that making a commitment to a marriage is a major undertaking and is going to require real arranging of priorities and schedules to make the marriage what it ought to be.  Maybe divorce does not have as much impact on job performance at that older age because after being around for a few decades, one experiences enough struggles and heartaches in life to develop some skills in knowing how to face them effectively.  

Or…..maybe it is just that when you reach a certain age, productivity has already dropped because you are slowing down, and so the divorce isn’t going to have the same impact because you are already moving more slowly anyway!  Trust me, I feel some of that every day!

Okay, regardless of what the economists from the University of Florida pointed out in the whole matter (if there is one), I think there is an important point to be observed in the discussion.  Marriage is a major life change event that will also require significant lifestyle changes away from the worldview of singleness into a world in which there is one earthly relationship that is more important than any other earthly involvement.  That commitment must be honored, protected and nurtured if the marriage is going to be successful. 

At the same time, many people realize how much their life changed after they married, but fail to realize that divorce has a similarly powerful impact on every area of one’s life.  Viewing the change in the context of comparison to the life change of marriage is probably not a bad context to use---it IS a big deal.  

I remember a time when I was so discouraged because I felt like I was progressing through the emotions and recovery of divorce way too slowly.  In that time, a wise friend said to me: “Maybe you just need to give yourself permission to NOT get over it quickly, to recognize that it really is a big deal and that it is going to take time to recover from it.”  

Turned out she uttered some pretty wise words that day.