Living As-If Lives

Seasonal affective disorder is a real thing. So, the other day when the sun was shining and the temperatures felt more like April than January, I took advantage of a break in my schedule and went outside for a walk. “Make hay while the sun shines,” says the old adage, and it seems there’s some wisdom in it.

But there are times when the gloomy days seem to roll on without end. My wife first encountered this when I moved our family to Columbus, Ohio, for my first stint as a college professor. Although locals will tell you, with authority, that the “snow line” is still sixty miles north of the city, the October-to-April gray skies were too much for a southern girl. Halfway through our second winter there, she begged me to find a job closer to the place she grew up.

There are seasons of life that feel like those Ohio skies. The change in our circumstances we’ve been hoping for often doesn’t come as quickly as our hearts desire. An improvement in your health, the email about a job offer, better days in your marriage, a loving attitude from an estranged child, or an upturn in your own mood can elude you for far too long. How do you go on when the “sunshine” of a positive turn in your life seems like it will never appear?

I’ve found it helps to live “as-if” the better day is coming. Although it sounds like a simple mind trick or one of those syrupy lines in a self-help video, living as-if isn’t just repeatedly telling yourself, “The better day will come.” It’s the practice of living the life you will have when the better day has arrived.

One reason to live as though the new day has already arrived is that positive actions can and do change the way we experience our circumstances. It’s a principal psychologists discovered years ago—emotions often follow actions. Most people assume the relationship between feelings and behavior is one-way: emotions shape behavior. You love someone, so you smile at them, hug them, or kiss them. You hate someone, so you speak harshly or even strike them. But this isn’t the case; in fact, it’s often backwards. Much of the time, behavior actually shapes emotion.

Research by clinical psychologists has found that the fastest way to change your emotions is to change your behaviors. In the 1970s, they came to understand that depression was indirectly a result of inactivity. People who had experienced disappointment or failure withdrew from the world in an attempt to protect themselves from similar feelings. In the short run, they were rewarded by eliminating the “causes” of their discomfort, but in the long run, these actions worsened their mood and prevented them from experiencing positive things.

The correct reaction to life’s disappointments and our personal failures is not to give up and shut ourselves away, but to introduce and practice life skills that bring positive experiences into our lives. Behavioral treatment for depression often involves changing behaviors in order to experience a change in mood, something therapists call behavioral activation. In other words, if you want to change your mood, do positive things.

But there’s another reason to live as-if the better day has come, and that’s because it’s already been promised. I first discovered this in some confusing language in my Bible. The authors would sometimes use words that sounded as though a turning point had already occurred and reality had changed, yet we are still waiting for it to fully arrive. This is sometimes referred to as “living in the already, but not yet.”

My walk the other day offered a practical example of “living in the already, but not yet.” While out, I passed a neighbor who had the same idea. “We never had sunny days like these in January when I lived in Chicago,” she exclaimed. Like a typical Knoxvillian, I responded, “Just wait fifteen minutes, it will change.” Spring is certain to come but, for now, we were enjoying the pleasures of a spring-like day in mid-winter.

The principle of “already, but not yet” is based on the biblical idea that God keeps his promises; therefore, anything he promises is certain to occur—either in this life or the one to come. That gives us an opportunity to live as-if lives. If we know what God has promised, then we can live as-if it’s already come true.

This isn’t just airy-fairy thinking. Some dear friends of mine lost a child last fall. Although their grief was (and is) excruciating, they are buoyed by the biblical promise that they will be reunited with their son, who is already whole and happy. In the meantime, they live in an “already, but not yet” reality, waiting for the promise to come completely true.

Years ago, when I was battling a depression of my own, I discovered that passively waiting for a change only made my life worse. Taking action steps and living as if my circumstances had already changed was a key to my return to health, but I could only do that if I had some certainty that a better day would come. What are the certainties that you use to live as-if?