On bad hair days and knowing thyself

It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.  (Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince).

Just a few nights ago, a friend and I chatted about how we’ve both come to this point in our lives when we’re comfortable in our own skin. We realized that we are not stirred anymore by petty concerns such as the irresistible urge to always display the pulled-together look whenever we step out of the house and into the world. In the middle of the day, I, for instance, can put my hair up and not worry if there are tendrils refusing to be tamed. It’s OK. I’m OK. There’s no camera poised to capture my bad hair moments.

Yet what I am learning extends beyond the physical. As we age, we discover more about who we are. Sooner or later, we’d have to ask: Am I comfortable with who I have become inside? For isn’t it true that when our hearts are made tender—by our own introspection or by circumstances, the ghost of our past can arrive unbidden, reminding us of where we have been, giving clues to why we react the way we do, and challenging us to face the mirror that painfully tells us that we are less attractive than we think?

“What if I don’t like who I am becoming? What will I do about the parts of me I hate, those parts that I wish God would just dissolve so I can finally taste the satisfaction of having arrived? And what about life? Why is life sometimes not fair?”

Such questions will keep on coming as long as the return address on my letter reads “Earth.” I will never be able to figure out how life works. Will never understand why things happened—or did not happen. Yet what’s great about  facing life’s  uncertainty and the relentless pursuit of self-mastery is this: It’s not up to me. I am not in control. I do not have to run the world. God hasn’t left His throne. Not yet, not in the future, not ever.

Some days I understand myself; many days I’m confused. Many days life is sweet; some days it’s bitter. But my good hair days still outnumber the bad hair ones. And I can quit racking my brain trying to psycho-analyze myself and solve all my problems. Instead, like the psalmist David, I  can surrender to Him whose intimate knowledge of me predates my birth:

O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

(Psalm 139:1,7,13-14,23-24)