Elbow Room

Elbow Room

Do you have any mental “elbow room?”  This week’s thought arises from my reading of James McPherson’s compelling collection of African-American short stories, Elbow Room.  In the title essay of this anthology, the protagonist, Billy Renfrow, fights doggedly against the encroachment of other people’s thinking.  He refuses to allow them to define him.  Also, he will not let them tell him what he should think and how he should feel.  In fact, Billy Renfrow takes the racial pejorative, “Nigger,” and turns it on its head.  He says, “People always calling me a “nigger.”  But, they need to know that I am a bad “nigger.”  They don’t know that I have elbow room in mind.”

Mental “elbow room” is that space within our minds that we hold sacred.  We do not permit our spouses, family, friends and colleagues to impose their thinking upon us.  Should they try, which we know they constantly do, we use our mental elbows to back off their feelings and opinions.  Otherwise, we will never mature to the point of knowing what makes us individually unique.  Sadly, many forego the development of this necessary mental and emotional stamina.  As a consequence, they live as the personification of other people’s desires for them.  They summarily dismiss their own dreams and goals.  Yet, if they cultivate mental elbow room, they can discover the wonderful and singular life that their Creator meant for them to live.

Sigmund Freud posited that life is made up of two major poles: love and work.  Lacking elbow room, many people married persons whom their families and friends chose and others work jobs that someone else told them would be good for them.  Choosing whom we covenant to live together in love for life is a decision that only an individual should make since that person has to live with it.  Similarly, given the reality that work consumes a disproportionate amount of our time, we should only be in jobs that fulfill us beyond providing a paycheck.  However, the failure to foster the strength of mental elbow room imprisons someone into his or her parents’ dream job.  Unfortunately, many parents attempt to achieve their dreams through their children.  Even though they did not graduate from law, medical or business school, it is all right because their son or daughter will.  Perhaps, they fell short of “making it big.”  Then, they can impart the dream to junior.  Nonetheless, such a child’s only protection against such pressure and well-intentioned mental violence is elbow room.

Resisting the forces of advertisers and the dominant culture is equally important.  If you listen to the “wizards of Madison Avenue,” then you may never know the depth of your gifts, talents, character and beauty.  Uncritically accepting media images (magazines, television, newspapers, and the internet), many persons think they are not attractive and have nothing to offer.  They uselessly embark upon these expensive lifestyle expeditions of self-improvement.  From diets to dyeing hair to face lifts to wardrobe overhauls to skin lightening creams, they believe that they are ugly and must radically change themselves.  Just as beauty lies within the soul, determining one’s worth is an internal process of mind, heart, psyche and spirit.  It begins with expanding one’s elbow room enough to resist the erroneous messages of society.

Elbow room is additionally important as it relates to other major personal and political decisions.  Recently, two former jurors testified at a probation and parole hearing in our county.  They voted to sentence a man to death although they both had reservations about whether the punishment appropriately fit the crime.  They were asked, “Why did you vote for something that you thought was wrong?”  Neither juror could explain the inconsistency between their thoughts and values and their actions.  Had they possessed elbow room, then they would have trusted themselves enough to go against the majority.  Norman Vincent Peale taught that you should never agree to something that your common sense tells you is wrong.  Furthermore, elbow room empowers you to decide for yourself and stand firm in your decision despite what others may think or say about you.

The joy of life partially depends upon knowing who you are.  Shakespeare said, “To thine own self be true.”  Without mental elbow room, one can never fully attain the peace that derives from living in a manner consistent with one’s heartfelt principles and the bliss of realizing one’s dreams and goals.  Accordingly, I conclude with my opening question, “Do you have mental elbow room?”