From Overwhelmed to Content

For 3 weeks, in my spare time, I have started writing a book on managing the self, nurturing growth, and growing one's character and relationships. My thoughts on this topic began on a four-hour drive from Charlotte to Burgaw, NC, to visit my mother.

Leo Tolstoy

It is, without question, a work in progress. The title for this might be: "From Overwhelmed to Content."

With each passing year I am more and more convinced of the absolute necessity of self-awareness—the capacity to have a deep, penetrating reflection of one’s self and circumstances that transcends surface impressions and boldly challenges one’s embedded beliefs and theology.

For me, the poster child for such reflection is the novelist, Leo Tolstoy. Despite his wealth, success, and literary acclaim, he grappled with existential emptiness.

In Anna Karenina, he offers profound insights into the complexities of inner turmoil. Anna herself embodies the tragedy of how superficial pursuits lead to inner despair. Tolstoy writes, "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." This famous opening line is a reminder that personal insight often involves acknowledging our own unique struggles.

At the height of his success, Tolstoy began to realize that what he once thought to be meaningful and important was in fact hollow. In A Confession, he uses this powerful imagery to describe his personal existential crisis:

"If a fairy had come and offered to fulfill my desires, I should not have known what to ask... If I had been asked what I wanted, I could not have replied."

Tolstoy began to believe that his life, up to that point, was nothing more than “chasing shadows.” This drove him to question the very foundations of his identity and purpose, eventually bringing him to an intense inner reckoning of his self.

Tolstoy’s journey underscores a critical lesson: true self-awareness requires courage to confront the unsettling truths about our internal world. The beliefs we often inherit uncritically can cloud our self-perception and limit our growth if left unexamined. He experienced this firsthand, recognizing that the beliefs and successes he once cherished no longer provided genuine fulfillment. Yet, with the courage to embrace introspective clarity, Tolstoy uncovered a more valuable truth: meaning isn't found in achievements or status but in humility, human connection, and ethical integrity.

Furthermore, once inner balance is discovered, the outer world can be better appraised. Although written before his awakening, War and Peace proves that Tolstoy’s crisis was not impulsive; it evolved over an extended period. In this work, he challenges the reader to rethink how we interpret our own world. He highlights how superficial understandings, such as attributing significant societal changes solely to political leaders, neglect the deeper human narratives and collective movements that genuinely drive change.

“The movement of nations is caused not by power, nor by intellectual activity, nor even by a combination of the two as historians have supposed, but by the activity of all the people who participate in the events.”

Application: We must engage in brutal self-reflection because focusing merely on surface-level impressions or societal markers prevents us from uncovering the deeper impulses, motivations, and values that shape our choices, our world, and ultimately our lives.

In The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy examines the consequences of living an unexamined life. Ivan Ilyich's realization comes tragically late, as he acknowledges:

It is as if I had been going downhill while I imagined I was going up."

So, in the early stages of writing From Overwhelmed to Content, I am hoping to be able to chart a path for achieving inner balance. "Godliness with contentment" is the desired goal, but it only comes from a self-awareness that emerges not from comfort and conformity but discomfort and questioning. Doesn’t everyone want the skills to navigate the challenges and complexities of life with contentment?

Tolstoy found peace only after a rigorous, sometimes painful journey inward, and we too must be willing to challenge ourselves and move beyond surface-level understandings to find contentment and balance.