Essays from West of 98: Despair Not
May is Mental Health Awareness Month and I’d be remiss if I didn’t write a few words on that topic before the month comes to an end. If you have read my essays for very long, you know the topic of mental health is very important to me, especially erasing the stigma of having conversations about mental illness and the challenges of mental health.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the mental burden that comes with feeling overwhelmed. There are many reasons why we can feel overwhelmed. Our personal lives can get stressful. Our professional life can be demanding. The world deluges us with badness, sadness, and negativity, even if we try to avoid watching the news. Whatever the root, feeling overwhelmed can be hard on a person’s mental health. We can start to experience feelings of despair at the state of things around us. Why even bother? Will I ever get ahead? What good will it do? Does anyone even care?
A few weeks ago, I felt overwhelmed myself. In a fantastic twist of timing, I ran across a moving essay at Front Porch Republic. FPR is a website dedicated to principles like localism and community. I derive much inspiration from FPR’s thoughtful writers. This essay was penned by Jeffrey Bilbro, one of FPR’s editors and an English professor at Grove City College. He had just finished teaching a course on the writings of Wendell Berry (making me wish I was an undergraduate at Grove City College). This essay was a conclusion of sorts, with his attempt to answer some hard questions proposed by his students. These thoughtful students struggled to reconcile Berry’s ideals—agrarianism, membership in community and the like—against a society that rejected those ideals decades ago. The students asked whether these ideals were just a path towards despair and disappointment with the world and in life.
These students’ questions should resonate with anyone who sets out to make a difference. None of us wants to intentionally engage in a futile effort. We want to improve our communities, but the larger world isn’t exactly helpful. Economics turned against rural communities years ago. At worst, politicians patronize rural voters and at best, they simply forget that we exist. In response to his students’ questions, Bilbro observed that “public, large scale visible transformation is the wrong standard for good work.” In fact, he observed that such transformation might easily turn into a false idol on which to base our hope. That was a powerful realization for me.
We work hard for our families, to improve our communities, and create jobs for others because it is good work. We don’t do it to go viral on the internet or get a pat on the back from a politician or media outlet someday (if we do, that’s the wrong reason). It is enough to pursue good goals because they are good and important. Bilbro wrote that even if our noble pursuits are never noticed in the world, “such fallen realities don’t change who we are or what our high calling is.” He concluded his essay with a sequence that I found deeply powerful in a way that helped me see past the feelings of overwhelmed:
“If we allow our own experiences of despair to sharpen our loves and longings for eternal goods—friendship, fellowship, flourishing—then we too can be redeemed even if our circumstances are not transformed. If our loves are rightly ordered, purified by despair of idolatrous temptations, then the possibility of good, redemptive work is at hand. Freed of the false god of efficacy, we can rightly tend the goods we are given to enjoy.”
Friends, I don’t know your stories or where you might be struggling, but if you are facing any level of despair about life or the world at large, I see you. I get it. If you feel on the edge, or if you need to talk to someone, please reach out to a professional or loved one. Do not let despair drive you out of this world. If you are struggling with whether it is “worth it” to make a difference, don’t despair at the difficulty of the task. If we never change the world, that is okay. Let’s free ourselves of that idol and its path that leads to frustration, burnout, and despair.
Instead, remember that we are called to do good work whether it impacts one person or 1 million people. Our despair can sharpen us and push us toward the things that truly matter. Purified by that, we will flourish.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to West of 98 wherever podcasts are found.