You’re in a Relationship with Life, Whether You Believe or Not

I’m fascinated by our relationships, and not just with each other. With our tools, with our toys. For example, you have a relationship with your cell phone, and your toaster oven, and your car. They may be amicable, they may be turbulent, they may be true love, these relationships.

Netflix, iTunes, TiVo, Wii… they are our friends, are they not?

I’m saying that when we have a position on something, and even subtle feelings toward something, and an attitude in thinking about or discussing it, this is a relationship. You don’t like the second washing machine in your building’s laundry room? Boom. Relationship.

"Not having" a relationship is also a way of being in relationship. Like that annoying co-worker that you avoid engaging and try to ignore, hoping they’ll just disappear as co-workers sometimes do? Or your father, who abandoned your mother when you were a baby, who’s “dead” to you? Boom. Relationships.

We also have relationships with abstract concepts – intangibles, memories, circumstances.

What does/did your father do for a living? You have (or had) a relationship with his livelihood, separate from your relationship with him. Were you allowed to have an opinion about his job? How did it affect you?

Where did you grow up? What was your relationship with that place? That home? Were you allowed to have an opinion? Do you have an opinion now about it?

What was your most embarrassing high school moment, and how do you feel about remembering it? How do you feel about Christmas? Disneyland? NASCAR?

It’s all relationships. There’s no escape. We’re “relational beings,” as the social scientists say.

As such, “Do you believe in God?” is, I believe, a terribly irrelevant question.

Because whether you do or don’t believe, you have a relationship with the creative force that is responsible for your existence. Whether you conceive it as concrete or abstract, as having volition or as just a long string of coincidental circumstances, it exists, and you have a relationship with it.

Saying you don’t believe in it, is a relationship. Saying you only believe in one particular form of it, is a relationship. Refusing to say, to yourself or anyone else, or otherwise pretending the issue doesn’t exist, is a relationship.

(I have a relationship with the question of whether or not to capitalize the word “god,” but that’s another column.)(Oo, should I have capitalized it there? Suddenly I'm in an Eddie Izzard routine...)

I say all this not to raise your ire or give you reason to be smug. I say this because it is practical.

Many psychological issues can be effectively discussed and addressed in the context of your relationship with the creative force, however you conceive or don't conceive it. I'll call it Life. What is your relationship with Life?

This, my friends, is a relevant question.

What is your relationship with Life? Do you wish it were different? Do you feel powerless to direct its course? Do you resent the demands of keeping your body fed, watered and walked? Are there not enough hours in the day? Is it unfair that you have to make big choices, like staying single or committing to this one imperfect person, earning a paycheck or pursuing your real passion, having children or wandering the planet with a backpack?

Fear about these kinds of questions creates anxiety.

Anger about these kinds of questions creates depression.

And a vast majority of psychological issues have their roots in one or the other.

If this doesn't apply to you, if you are 100% anxiety- and depression-free and have a deep, loving connection with Life and all its idiosyncrasies, congratulations. You're not normal.

For the rest of us, there's room for improvement and I recommend some work on healing your relationship with Life. Therapists live for this particular task, but we aren’t the only answer. There’s reading, meditating, walking in nature, music, poetry, art, skiing, dancing, playing with animals… There’s no right or wrong, only what works. Do what works for you, as often as possible, and I'd bet money you and Life will be better friends.

Besides, it's way more fun than dry, abstract debates about divine existence.