Hey, I’m Addison. You’re reading Bigger Than Me, a newsletter about mastering the skill of compassion. Sign up or scroll to the good stuff.

It comes on like clockwork.

I'll be sitting around in late August on a cloudy day, and find myself in a funk.

I have always thrived on sunny blue skies, so a persistent blur of grey hanging overhead will typically dim my day.

However, when Autumn rolls around, the melancholy these clouds bring feels extreme.

Nothing is exciting, the days drag on, and a steady drumbeat of monotony mixed with anxiousness creeps into my life.

The simplest tasks end up requiring a herculean effort to finish.

I used to sit in this low-hanging fog for most of the season with only the promise of upcoming holidays keeping any motivation alive.

Now, it typically takes a day or two before a lightbulb turns on in my head and I see the real trigger for my mood change…

Back-to-school season is here.

My education up until college was fun.

I had a natural aptitude for school, so I would last-minute everything and spend mostly carefree days with my friends and family.

It came easily.

However, during my first semester as a naive freshman, college punched me in the gut.

I never really got back up off the mat.

Not by aptitude, but purely by my lack of effort, which I'd argue is much worse.

I was acutely aware of this fact during my college years, and it had a way of compounding to create my higher education "loop":

I knew I could do better.

There was no one else to blame but myself.

However, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't force myself to just "do it".

So I turned to distraction.

Like most people, I just wanted to feel that my life had meaning.

I saw accomplishment as the ideal way to prove my life valuable and finally capture that elusive feeling of satisfaction.

However, in the face of acknowledging I was falling short of expectations, I was perfectly "happy" deriving pleasure in other forms to distract myself.

And I did that masterfully:

As I continually attempted to distract myself from the worsening state of my college career, the highs stopped peaking at the altitudes I was used to and the falls grew worse.

The cycle was amplified with each repetition.

Eventually, the value of my moment-to-moment existence became completely tied to whatever silver lining held within the growing thunderclouds overhead.

It didn't take long to start drowning in the rain those clouds brought.

Within that flood, it took me almost seven years to earn my four-year degree.

Once I was finished, I still had no idea where my meaning would come from.

All I knew was that something had to change.

Realizing how fortunate I was to have graduated at all, I decided to start a small business a year later and prove to others (and myself) that I wasn’t a failure.

I fancied a new start as one of those "school wasn't for me" types of entrepreneurs.

If my college years had been marked by the hopeless struggle of self-indulgence and depression, my years afterward would be highlighted by meaningful accomplishments, bootstrapped through my hard work.

Or so I thought.

I planned to work harder than ever to make up for all that lost time in college. To make something of myself.

Maybe then I'd be happy…

It ended with the same result.

The modicum of success I found as a business owner became another tool for climbing the ever-shrinking mountains, and the whole cycle started again.

Now the illusion was shattered: the peaks were unattainable no matter what I did.

I was the problem.

While struggling through depression and a general sense of nihilism, I realized something:

The issue was never about finding a silver bullet of pleasure that would last forever.

Pleasure will always be temporary, lasting a day, a minute, or maybe a season.

Pleasure had been the misshapen cardboard piece I was trying to cram into the jigsaw puzzle of my soul in joy's absence.

However, like a thousand-piece puzzle you'd find at Goodwill, I saw no hope of ever finding the missing shape.

That's when God stepped into my life.

When God changed my life post-college and saved me from that deep valley, He brought joy along with all the other changes.

It was a subtle thing, something I almost didn't recognize. If anything it seemed like a downgrade.

From my vantage point, joy's resting place was a small hill compared to the towering summits I had reached in my pleasure-seeking days.

I missed the exhilaration of standing at "the top of the world" and being perched precariously on the edge of disaster.

Even after this life altering moment, I'd often find myself answering the siren song of reckless mountain climbing once again. Chasing peaks I knew were mere mirages. I still couldn't reach them of course, and predictably I would fall right off again.

Eventually though, as God patiently showed me what He was doing in my life, the desperation to climb the mountain dissipated.

That's when I noticed valleys weren't giant pits anymore.

My life was now underpinned by joy.

My ground level had been raised and smoothed out.

I found that joy was not something I could earn, buy, or attain at all.

It was only found in submission to something bigger than me.

It is about the ultimate submission in love to something else, for the sake of others, that joy is manifest.

Within that understanding, the pleasure that comes into our lives isn't pursued but instead appreciated and accepted with open arms as life's gift. It is like a present from a good friend, whose thoughtfulness is a bonus on top of an already loving relationship.

In my life, I now stand in the light of a persistent joy my Father has given me, and accept with open arms any pleasure He brings me from life. Not as a balm for a hole in my inner being it used to represent, but finally the previous gift wrapped by His caring hands I get to open and enjoy.

Until next time,
Addison.