I want to talk about something I discovered about myself a while back. After several months of mounting frustration and heartache over faltering projects and withering plans (this has been a rather difficult year in many ways), I was just about at my wits end when I realized something. I think God probably nudged me in the right direction, but my conclusion was very simple and very common sense. I needed to chill.

Chilling is hard for me. I’m not the kind of guy that just goes and hangs out to yak it up, have a few laughs, have a good time, do the work, get paid, go home. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly know how to enjoy myself, but my normal tendency is to be always living in tomorrow, planning, pondering, thinking about the future, wondering if I’m actually accomplishing anything I’ve set out to do. Some people worry, worry, worry about everything that could go wrong. Not me — I worry about not doing anything at all. Nothing stresses me out more than inaction on the things I care about.

Mark Batterson talks about sins of “omission” — the right things that we fail to do, as opposed to sins of “commission” which are the wrong things that we do. Sins of omission frighten me. There’s a riveting scene in The Two Towers where Aragorn asks Eowyn: “what do you fear, my lady?” Her reply: “A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.”

My grandfather on my mom’s side died before I was born, so I never got to know him. One thing I know about him, however, is that he never finished anything. He married multiple times, he made and lost several fortunes, and then he died. His legacy? Nothing, expect for the fact that he did love my mom, his daughter, and was a much better authority figure for her than her dysfunctional mother. Aside from that, though, it was largely a waste of effort all those years. Every time he “conquered” a mountain, he moved on to the next one. He never learned how to occupy the territory he had taken.

In my quest to chase after my dreams, nothing scares me more than to imagine myself at the end of my life looking upon an empty legacy. But there’s a subtle lie that creeps in when you are driven by this kind of fear-based motivation. The lie is that you are defined by what you accomplish. In the past, my identity always lay in my artistry, which meant that I was unfulfilled and unsuccessful unless I was making art and being recognized for my talent.

But as I’ve come to understand more about who God says I am and how he values me and defines me, I’ve come to realize that my identity lies in my relationship with God. I may be an artist, but first and foremost I am a child of God. And therefore, as long as I am loving on Daddy and listening to His voice, I am successful, and I am fulfilled.

Which brings me back to my original topic. I need to chill. I need to stop striving so hard, always looking towards the “next big thing” that I need to accomplish. I need to learn how to be content just…being. Being at one with God and my fellow man. What I do is a by-product of who I am, which actually means the less I try doing the right thing and the more I try being the right me, the more likely it is that the right things will get done.

There are times for fighting and times for looking ahead, but sometimes, it’s time to stop fighting and just, well, chill. And believe me, whenever I am able to get into that zone and chill out, it’s the best way to live. So, dude? Chill.