Life is a school

Cultivating a growth mindset is a key to thriving

During this Lenten season I am adding intentional reading to my regular spiritual routines. At the moment I’m reading John Michael Talbot’s Blessings of St. Benedict, an introduction to the Rule of St. Benedict, a work of spiritual guidance for well over 1500 years. The Rule forms the basis for the work of the Benedictines, an order in the Roman Catholic faith tradition. Among other distinctive, the Benedictines are known for making hospitality a priority (“All guests are to be welcomed as Christ,” chapter 54), as well as their motto: “Ora et Labora” (“Pray and Work”).¹

Early in the Rule, St. Benedict reminds those seeking to enhance their spiritual lives that life is a school. While a monastery’s members work diligently and pray faithfully, learning adds joy to the life by opening opportunities for growth.

I can still remember the day Claudia came home from work to tell me all about a “growth mindset.” She had picked up the phrase in a leadership gathering of some sort, and it remained a regular part of her vocabulary until her death. I recall querying her as to the opposite of a “growth mindset,” which I learned was a “fixed mindset.” A fixed mindset views one’s life and the broader world as essentially static, fixed, unchangeable. Things are what they are in this view, with little need to even consider change, because authentic transformation is not possible. A fixed mindset is akin to the words of nineteenth century pessimist philosopher Albert Schopenhauer who is alleged to have said: “Life is a dirty trick”; we live, we die.

A growth mindset, on the other hand, sees the world as filled with possibility, and is achieved by intentional learning and appropriate risk-taking action. It is being open and welcoming to new ways of thinking and living. Cultivating this attitude became foundational for Claudia’s thinking and leadership. It was a growth mindset that kept Claudia’s passion for life burning bright until the minute she lost consciousness as her brain began to collapse. She was, literally, in the midst of texting others to encourage and mentor when her “brain event” occurred. I learned later that those she was texting that day wondered what happened because their texts remained unanswered, something Claudia would never have allowed had she been fully aware.

Over the past year I have found that a growth mindset is what has pushed me forward, day after day. Choosing to believe, even in the midst of the hardest days of my life, that Love opens possibilities to those who seek growth has literally saved my life. If I had nursed the bitterness that comes with a fixed mindset, my soul would be wizened and nearly dead by now, the victim of its own stubborn refusal to grow through life’s most devastating events. I am grateful for Claudia’s legacy in my life, which will not let me succumb to overwhelming sadness and the abyss of loneliness. Most days I can hear her pushing me forward, confident that even now — especially now — I have much to learn in the school of life.

The lack of clarity in life — its regular, mysterious murkiness — holds perhaps its greatest allure to stretch forward. I am learning that this is what faith actually is: stepping into the uncertain fog, awaiting moments of light, but trusting that in the darkness Love has much to teach me, if I am open to it.

This morning marks one more day to learn as I continue to cultivate a growth mindset. Somewhere, in the depths of my awareness, I can still hear Claudia’s determined voice pulling me forward, urging me to embrace this journey of life, a school for my seeking soul.

It seems that she is asking me, “What is your next big thing?”

And while I’m not sure what exactly that is, I do know how to discover it. So I will continue to embrace life, open to possibilities, eager to learn more about this life I have been handed. It’s not the life I expected or wanted, but it’s the one I am learning to receive, full of possibilities yet unknown.

1. I have the good fortune to live within an hour’s drive of St. John’s Abbey, a Benedictine monastery adjoining St. John’s University, a campus gradually embracing more fully the exquisite natural setting upon which it is built. Its location hums with both spiritual and educational vibrancy, and anytime I visit I am reminded of the beauties of the Benedictine way of life.