the religion of Ought.

The child whose mother discovered him stealing candy from the store. The Varsity-captain teenage girl who got pregnant with her current boyfriend and cannot bear to tell her parents. The young man who panicked on the battlefield and gunned down an innocent civilian. The HIV-positive woman who digs through layers of street trash and filth in order to find a half-eaten sandwich because her community doesn’t want her to be around. The ex-Marine veteran who has been convicted of at least 5 counts of rape and aggravated assault who now faces his sentence. The devout husband whose wife of 30 years recently discovered his pornography collection. The wife whose husband just learned of her affair with another married man. The young woman in college who wakes up in someone else’s apartment in cold realization that she was date-raped. The young man sitting in the judicial affairs office because he accidentally killed his best friend while driving drunk last night.

“I shouldn’t have stolen. I ought not to have stolen.” ”I shouldn’t have slept with him. I should’ve waited.” ”I shouldn’t have harmed an innocent civilian.” ”I shouldn’t have committed those crimes. I ought to have obeyed the law.” ”I shouldn’t lie to my wife. I should have been honest with her.” ”I should’ve communicated with my husband. I shouldn’t have sought another man.” ”I  shouldn’t have hooked up with him. I ought to have gone home.” ”I shouldn’t have been driving. Now… he’s dead.”

The Religion of Ought:
Adherents: 6,709,993,152 (as of July 2008)
…in other words, everyone is a member.

You are a member if you keep secrets. You are a member if you ever utter the words “I should have…” or “I shouldn’t have…” You are a member if you ever think you OUGHT to have done or not done something. You are a member if guilt, regret, and shame resonates with decisions you have made in the past and are making right now. HERE’S THE CATCH: the members who are most involved in the religion of Ought don’t even realize that they are adherents. They are the ones who blatantly ignore the voices of should-have and shouldn’t-have. If that’s you, you are the religion of Ought’s biggest proponents!

Each time we make a choice, we have the opportunity to affirm or disengage our membership in the religion of Ought–or rather, the “should-have” mentality. But… as indicated above, everyone is haunted by shame in some way. Granted, our scenarios are uniquely ours; we all feel shame differently. The truth is, shame is ugly. Every time it rears its ugly head, we are reminded of our countless mistakes – decisions we wish we could take back, words we wish we never said. Shame is the entree on a plate of Failure. It is there to remind us that in some way, shape, or form, we have failed… if not someone else, we have failed ourselves.

I attended a research symposium gala over the summer in which the keynote speaker for the evening shared his experience as a medical missionary and public health educator in Uganda. Aged and seasoned with wisdom and experience, he recounted the social difficulties he encountered as a child growing up in the Boston slums: he and his brothers tied cardboard to their feet because their family did not have enough money for shoes. The speaker continued to tell us about his journey from adolescence to young adulthood, a time in his life where he abandoned all hope, aspiration, and faith — he was lost. During this moratorium, he felt the weight of failure pressing into him on all sides. It was useless, he’d think, to keep going… to keep living. Life was too harsh, too brutal; he had realized that everything and everyone would eventually disappoint.

It was deafeningly silent in the banquet hall at this point in the speaker’s address. Personally, I think it was because everyone could unilaterally agree with feelings of desperation, despondency, hopelessness, and defeat. We could all identify with the sound of failure; it is a well-known chorus to which everyone on Earth can sing.

Nevertheless, our venerated speaker continued. He spoke of a fork in the road–one path leading to death and the other, an upwards climb towards freedom. He rediscovered hope, and, after some time, he received his M.D. from Harvard University and married the love of his life. He used four words to encapsulate his decision to keep living. When spoken, these words reverberated all around the grand banquet hall:

“Let us fail forward.”

Failing forward. These two beautiful words sum up his entire address to the conference guests. All of those conference guests, including myself, are part of the religion of Ought. But by adhering to the mentality of “fail-forward,” we are taking one step away from the religion of Ought and one step closer to the religion of Grace.

Falling forward. A failure that encompasses a forwards direction leaves us with no options but to leave the religion of Ought and the “should-have” mentality. We are now accountable for our own destinies, our own paths… moreover, forward failing is almost always an uphill climb. Have you ever tripped UP the stairs? It’s more common to fall DOWN the stairs, but for those of you who have experienced the weirdness of tripping UP the stairs, you know what I mean. Even though you fell, you are still heading up the stairs.

I am so sick of the religion of Ought and its entrees of shame. The stairs I am trying to climb are sharp, jagged, long and endurance-trying. I am continuously bruised from the times I fall. But every time  I remember that I am falling and failing forwards, I have hope. Each step up is another step away from the bottom stair of shame.

Good riddance.