"...describes a Type A individual as ambitious, aggressive, business-like, controlling, highly competitive, impatient, preoccupied with his or her status, time-conscious, and tightly-wound. People with Type A personalities are often high-achieving "workaholics" who multi-task, push themselves with deadlines, and hate both delays and ambivalence. In his 1996 book, Type A Behavior: Its Diagnosis and Treatment, Friedman suggests that Type A behavior is expressed in three major symptoms: free-floating hostility, which can be triggered by even minor incidents; time urgency and impatience, which causes irritation and exasperation; and a competitive drive, which causes stress and an achievement-driven mentality."
While I know I'm not quite as severe as all that, I know I have the above listed tendancies. I like to be organized. I like things in order. I quite often write myself lists and take great pride in getting them all done. Time efficiency is a fun game for me. Kind of like a puzzle - how many things can I get done [and done well] in the shortest amount of time possible. I like to feel like I have achieved many things in my day.
Having 2 small children can be quite hard on a Type A personality. I was thinking about this as I was getting myself and kids packed up to go out this morning. I found myself getting irritated as I stepped over all the toys in the hallway. I was quite exasperated trying to encourage my 3 year old to get her socks on, and her shoes, and her water cup quickly. I don't think 3 year olds understand that word [or never when we need them to, anyway]. So, as I cleaned up breakfast dishes, and packed the diaper bag, and tried to make my hair presentable, all to the lovely background crying from the baby, I began to wonder if this is what life will be like for the next 5-10 years? Will I always be picking up the same toys two or three times a day? Will I always have to fight them to do what I've asked without whining, and quickly? Will my house always be a mess? Will my lists always be unfinished? Will I always feel like a failure, as my Type A brain sees all the jobs half done, and frustrated, knowing that the jobs will just need to be done again tomorrow anyway?
As I got the kids in the van and headed down the road, reliving what I thought was a gong show of a morning, I heard the Lord whispering to my heart. Just bringing reminders, asking me questions. The kinds of questions that make me re-evaluate whatever it was I just said or thought. What is the most important thing? Does a completed list bring life? Does a clean house represent fulfillment? It's great if Lucy can get her shoes on quickly, but in the process, am I forgetting she's a person and not a "job" to finish? Those toys in the hallway that I stepped over numerous times this morning represented my children playing together. Those toys were a symbol of the laughter I heard while I was getting dressed and doing my hair. I can't miss that.
I found my self praying "Oh, Lord, change me. Change my heart to see the people around me, and not just a list. Change me so that a messy house doesn't exasperate me to the point of crying." The description of the Type A personality that I quoted above doesn't sound great at all. I know there are benefits of being a driven and ambitious person, but the negative aspects I can do without. If I allow the Presence of the Lord to fill me, I can be driven and ambitious without being controlled by "time urgency, impatience and exasperation".
As I was writing this, the scripture about the fruit of the Spirit came to mind. I want the by-products of the Lord's presence, rather than the symptoms of a Type A personality.
Galations 5:16-23 [MSG]:
My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?
It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.
But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
Oh God. Let love be my motivation. I don't want to get stuck in the all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied desire to have my "list" complete. Help me see people, not chores. Let me do things out of compassion, not duty. I don't want the live by a small-minded definition of what success is. You and Your Presence and Your holiness is my goal. Let it permeate everything I do. Even if it means those toys never leave the hallway.
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