One Thing

I'm re-reading the book The Holy Longing which looks at the question "What is Spirituality?", a question I think many Christians would disagree on the answer. The first chapter talks about Soren Kierkegaard's definition of being a saint as someone who can will the one thing. It looks at Janis Joplin's life - a woman who had this amazing energy, but she willed many things, which eventually led to excess, tiredness and death.The author then contrasts it with Mother Teresa, a woman who had the same kind of amazing energy, but channeled it into God and the poor.

The book goes onto talking about one of my biggest struggles - the result of having a completely overextended "one thing":

Most of us are quite like Mother Teresa in that we want to will God and the poor. We do will them. The problem is we will everything else as well. Thus, we want to be a saint, but we also want to feel every sensation experienced by sinners; we want to be innocent and pure, but we also want to be experienced and taste all of life; we want to serve the poor and have a simple lifestyle, but we also want all the comforts of the rich; we want to have the depth afforded by solitude, but we also do not want to miss anything; we want to pray, but we also want to watch television, read, talk to friends, and go out. Small wonder life is often a trying enterprise and we are often tired and pathologically overextended.