"Both!"

My wife asked my daughter this morning "So, when you grow up are you going to be a great chef in a restaurant or a great cook for your family?" Trinity thought for a moment, smiled, and said "Both!"

I love her answer.

Too often I am the victim of what I call "either/or" thinking. Either/or thinking is when you feel like you can only have one thing or the other - not both. So you settle. For instance we sometimes feel like we have to choose:

-Your spouse's dreams OR your dreams.
-Financial security OR a job that I enjoy.
-The acceptance of others OR standing up for what you believe.
-An exciting sex life OR life long monogamy.
-Sacrificial servanthood OR ministry we enjoy.

Much of the time I believe we have too little vision, too little faith too see that surprisingly you can sometimes really have your cake and eat it too. It just takes creativity, perseverance, and the belief that maybe, just maybe you can have and accomplish two noble things that at first seem incompatible with each other. It's not always possible, but I believe that for most of us we often miss the possibilities simply because we don't believe they could exist. These kind of "can I have my cake and eat it too?" problems are great to help us test our creativity and practice finding solutions to things. And they reveal much about our personality.

Of course, many people con others by tapping into their desire to have naturally conflicting things ("get rich with no work" is one that comes to mind) so it is still necessary to be discerning and wise. But too often we go to the other extreme: intellectual closed to possibilities. I kind of think of it on a scale:

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Gullible ................................................. CREATIVE & ......................................Sceptical & Must
& Naive......................................... OPEN TO POSSIBILITY ............................... see to believe
(Too open) ...................................... (open but discerning) ............... (closed to most possibilities)

Where do you think you are on my little scale? This scale is a work in progress (feel free to suggest changes) but basically I want to be somewhere in the middle. Open, discerning, and challenged to find ways to make the seemingly impossible or incompatible work.