Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “It is a disease of the mind, which does not wholly rise to the heights where it is lifted by the truth, because it is weighed down by habit.” In other words, it doesn’t matter how much we believe the truth if we don’t get the truth into our bodies through our daily habits. We shouldn’t be surprised we feel crazy when we simply allow ourselves to go along with the current of the crazy world we live in. We don’t have to resign or rage; we can resist.

As you begin to bear more responsibility in life, you realize how deficient human nature is to thrive in our cultural machine of hustle, distraction, isolation, and self-defined identities. Before I had kids, I didn’t see anything wrong with how my life was structured and the digital age that shapes our day-to-day lives. I wasn’t conscious of my daily habits and how they were forming me because they didn’t seem consequential.

Staying on my phone in bed instead of sleeping?
Waking up minutes before the start of my soonest responsibility?
Watching more Netflix than reading?
Scrolling social media with no prayer life?
Posting every highlight of every day on Instagram?

None of this seemed like it had any material impact on my life because, by and large, I had very little weight to carry. And having no weight to carry required little in terms of character. Every day was relatively low stakes compared to the life, health, and future of another human resting almost entirely on who I am as a person. Small responsibilities led to a small vision of life, which led to little attention to who I was becoming day by day through the little things I did.

But once there was real weight to carry—once every move I made was monitored by another person who would see me as his example of what it means to exist in our world as a healthy adult—everything that was previously invisible to me became as glaringly bright as the noon sun on a Texas summer day. It was like being in middle school all over again when you suddenly become self-aware of all of the things that make you different from everyone else and how everyone perceives you. It felt like a magnifying glass was placed over all of my faults and flaws and the ways that my son would see me be distracted or angry, impatient or selfish, aloof or insecure. These flaws couldn’t simply be written off as aberrations of my “true self” who obviously isn’t any of those things. Our character is the sum total of our actions over time, not who we imagine ourselves to be in our finest moments. If I never faced my flaws—my sin—and dealt honestly with them before God, then I would be the kind of father, the kind of person, who is those things.

In hindsight, it’s obvious that contrary to what my former deconstructed self would have admitted, “The World” is conspiring against us.

What else do you call it when the dominant narrative of the good life is to leave behind your obligations and constraints so you can define yourself however you like while advising us that we should cut off anyone who doesn’t make us feel good about ourselves, distracting us with the most insane and outrageous takes on an infinitely scrolling feed that we carry in our pockets and sleep with by our beds, and promising us that working harder is the key to unlock all of our dreams and if we don’t have what we want, it’s because we’re not hustling as hard as we should?

The world has lost its mind, and it’s all too easy to lose yours with it.

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