Living Your Own Life

                                            (John Robert Howell)



        One of the great sci-fi movie classics is the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  Many of you may remember the scene in which the human "blanks" which have emerged from the pods are discovered in the greenhouse.

        These generic bodies, without facial features or fingerprints, are ready to assume the individuality of the person whose body they will "snatch".  This chilling story symbolizes, at least in part, the growing pressures on us by society to conform, to give up our indivduality.  This "invasion" is still occurring, and we need to be sedulously vigilant to recognize and avoid succumbing to the many blandishments of contemporary life and society.

        One of the ways our true self and individuality can be taken from us is through forms of vicarous living.  Without realizing it we can find we are so busy living or minding the lives of others that we lose control of our own lives.  This abandonment of our real, God-give selfhood and individuality may have even been done with the best of intentions.  We may have become so concerned with the life and welfare of a child, spouse, parent, or even celebrity that we have begun living that life at the expense of our own.  Even the slightest neglect of our own well-being can leave us vulnerable to illness, accident, disappointment, and turmoil.

        Daily prayer for ourselves enables us to comprehend our selfhood.  In his epistle James likens this to a man regarding his own face in a mirror and then living, expressing, the man he sees.  James continues by writing:  "whoso looketh unto the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word, this man shall be blessed in his deed."  (James 1:23-25)  We can't allow what we know as true of ourselves to be lost.

        We also cannot afford to let another's life, growth, job, or family, even our child's, to become a substitute for our own progress and welfare.  Living via others can become a form of self-denigration, even when intended as self-sacrifice.  This doesn't mean we shouldn't love and support our children, spouses, or parents.  To the contrary.  But we should not allow our lives to become submerged by or absorbed into theirs.  We love others best and help them as we understand more clearly and express better the individual God made us.

        Perhaps the reason this vicarious living occurs at all is that we don't really realize who we are.  Just who do you think you are?  Your answer should be that you are a unique son or daughter of God with a role to fill unlike anyone else's.  As Voltaire would say, when you're tending another's garden you're neglecting your own.  Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "...Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:  love God and keep His commandments:  for this is the whole of man in His image and likeness."  (S & H 340:9-12)

        As we gain a surer understanding of who we really are, we are able to contribute substantively, unintrusively, and unselfishly to the lives of others.  Rather than seeking satisfaction and fulfillment through the lives of others, we will be blessing their lives through the abundance, health, peace, and completeness of our own.  Our lives will have become an expression of God's man, not a doomed human searching for fulfillment through others.

        As we rely more and more on God and Christian Science for help and healing we will naturally be interested in the experiences of others.  We draw inspiration and encouragement from others' healings, but should not be tempted to live them as if they were our own.  We cannot reexperience others' healings or growth, but should derive reassurance from them.  If we try to use another's  healing as a formula or paradign we may become discouraged or disillusioned if our results are not the same.  God will lead each of us, through prayer, to the unique truths, enlightenment, and growth we need to meet any problem or difficulty.  That is what others' healings should clarify and reinforce in our thinking and living.

        Nothing can deny each of us his God-given heritage of individuality, health, happiness, and peace.  Once this is grasped we will no longer have the desire or need to live vicariously.