We live in a time of head-spinning transformation–so much, in fact, that pundits have taken to quipping, “We aren’t living in an age of change. We’re living in a change of ages.”
Life moves fast. We’re expected to adapt ceaselessly to new technologies, upgrade our gadgets, keep up with evolving forms of social media and now incorporate AI into our lives. In our hypermobile age, many of us move too frequently to develop meaningful relationships. Instead, we settle for superficial connections.
Given the cultural currents, must we acquiesce and live in a constant state of flux? Or at our core, can we pursue radical stability?
Stability is what the word implies: a stabilizing force, an ability to stand firm, a desire to be an unshakeable presence wherever we go. Stability is the counterpoint to chaos, disruption, lies, unreliability and confusion.
Stability itself has become a countercultural idea. The mantra of today is to move fast, smash things and keep going under the guise of change as growth. While it’s true that innovation and technology can enrich our lives, is change always “progress”?
In the 21st century, is the cultivation of stability naive?
It’s what we’ve done in the past, but we’re beginning to forget how.
Rather than racing through an erratic and aimless life, author Nathan Oates suggests an alternative: become stable by making a long-term commitment to a people and a place for a purpose. In other words, slow down. Stay.
Oates, a pastor in Lincoln, Calif., was inspired by time spent with Benedictine monks, a Catholic order that has existed since the sixth century. Throughout their 1,500-year history, Benedictines have made a vow of stability in which they join a monastic community for a lifetime. Convinced that the monks have an important message for the world, Oates wrote a book, Stability: How an Ancient Monastic Practice Can Restore Our Relationships, Churches, and Communities.
Unlike the monks, most of us will not remain rooted in one place for our whole lives. Nor is everyone called to a settled life. But we can learn from the Benedictines’ pursuit of permanence, Oates says. They seek spiritual continuity and community with a place and people to whom they’re committed. They know that they can’t run from their problems and conflicts, so they persevere.
And because they have chosen to live set apart from the larger culture, they can more clearly see what our society lacks, Oates says.
Nowadays, so few of us are committed to stability that our social bonds have broken, leaving behind an untethered society. If enough of us are continually on the move, we can’t form stable social circles.
Our resulting loneliness hides in plain sight. At the grocery store, a young woman holding only a couple of items avoids self-checkout to wait in a long line for a cashier. Why? “I need the human interaction,” she tells someone. A disabled woman who is shut into her home orders a pizza every two to three days to have contact with the delivery worker. Yes, these are true stories.
How did we become restless, isolated people? One of the culprits is our consumer mindset, Oates believes. Influenced by decades of marketing, legions of us have been persuaded to seek happiness by constantly searching for something better: a new product, a flashier car, a more impressive house. This consumerism extends even to people. If we don’t like our girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse or family, we can leave them and find a new one. Having a disposable mindset makes people unwilling to stay and work on hard things. Oates calls it a “repeating cycle of leaving and looking.”
But consumerism fuels chronic dissatisfaction. It puts us front and center and trains us to think about what we like and prefer, Oates says, but not what we need to become better humans. It doesn’t help us to be less self-centered, more content with what we have, and able to sacrifice for the good of others. Instead, we chase after the next gleaming object only to find that it doesn’t satisfy, either.
As a society, we don’t cherish stability as a core value the way Benedictine monks do, but intuitively, we understand its worth. Throughout time, for example, cultures have prized reliable mothers and fathers. As Lebanese American poet Khalil Gibran wrote in his 1923 poem, “On Children,”
“You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.”
As young people launch during the first half of life, stability may sound boring and stagnant. It’s true: the young must change to establish themselves as they build a life. They need to try on new identities, go away to school, learn important skills, find a partner and explore the world.
But young people who become stable adults are guided by a sense of purpose, aiming for what they love and who they ultimately want to become. Without a budding stability, the young risk derailing their lives: casting off relationships at the first sign of boredom or trouble, flitting haphazardly from job to job, lacking purpose and failing to commit to anything of lasting value. Never committing oneself to a purpose, to people, and to a place can eventually lead to a lack of meaning, even despair or nihilism.
The point is not to pursue stability for stability’s sake, Oates says. He isn’t advocating that anyone stay in abusive relationships or harmful job and living situations. Rather, stability becomes fruitful when we make important, thoughtful commitments and endure the inevitable hardships, confident that we ourselves will be made better in time and so will the situation. The goal is a stability of the heart, Oates says.
People recognize the benefits of stability, but few are willing to pursue it, he says. He sees couples in their thirties looking to trade up to a house in a more affluent neighborhood every few years, rather than staying put and forming a community around themselves. He encourages them to consider breaking the cycle. “You can grow when you stop running and plant yourself in a place where roots take hold,” he says. “Stay before you go so that when you do go, you have something to give. Stay as a way to change the world.”
For young people, it can take years to become stable. Their elders can’t slow the dizzying pace of change in the world. However, elders who are rooted and generative can become unwavering presences for their children and grandchildren in a time of rampant anxiety, uncertainty and instability.
Elders with deep roots are no longer wrapped up in their own lives and desires. They don’t look to outside forces for stability. They’ve cultivated it from within. They are committed to people, place and purpose.
In the first half of life, stability serves us as we single-mindedly pursue our goals. We strive to become the dazzling melody or the soaring tower. But in the second half of life, our stability serves others. We become the steady drumbeat that keeps time for the band or the sturdy foundation upon which our descendants can build their stories.