Been there, done that. Then been there several more times, because apparently I never learn.
I ran across this little piece of painful truth in a meme a week or so ago. It’s pretty funny because I bet we can all identify to some extent.
I’ve been there and done that, and then returned for seconds.
What is it in our nature, I wonder, that makes us want to get muddy in the same hole twice?
I have a friend who, before he finally got around to getting married, went through multiple girlfriends. The last half-dozen relationships had the same trajectory. Meet, get consumed, get serious, crash and burn.
When his future bride came along, his comment was, “She’s just not like my other exes.”
And I thought, “That’s probably why they were exes.”
What said friend came to realize that he was repeating the same formula over and over with what he came to see were predictable results. With women, he’d been there, done that, and it never went well.
Think about putting the breaks on a bad habit. You know what to do to rid yourself of it, you work passionately to dump it, and you end up just as you were.
Weight loss, for instance. Most of us who have fought the battle of the bulge have tried multiple ways to shed pounds. We chased after the latest and greatest no-fail method. And we found out that diets just don’t work. Been there, done that.
Fact is, no one ever ate anything accidentally. Actions are alway preceded by a choice.
You can come up with your own list of lessons unlearned.
The most grievous unlearned lessons are the ones from our souls. We know what to do. We absolutely know what has to happen to change our life trajectory.
And we don’t do it.
The apostle Paul understood this and riffed on it at some length. Here are his struggles as found in Romans 7:14-25:
14 Certainly we know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not keep doing what I want. Instead, I do what I hate. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 But now it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me. 18 Indeed, I know that good does not live in me, that is, in my sinful flesh. The desire to do good is present with me, but I am not able to carry it out. 19 So I fail to do the good I want to do. Instead, the evil I do not want to do, that is what I keep doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who am doing it, but it is sin living in me.
21 So I find this law[c] at work: When I want to do good, evil is present with me. 22 I certainly delight in God’s law according to my inner self, 23 but I see a different law at work in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin, which is present in my members. 24 What a miserable wretch I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 I thank God[d] through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my sinful flesh I serve the law of sin.
Yeah, that Paul. He got it. He understood “been there, done that.” Sounds to me he knew exactly what to do and kept going back to the same old pattern of living.
Often, when I’m dealing with some sort of internal struggle – which, on a bad day, can lead to some real self-loathing (NOT healthy), I look back on the times I made good choices. I think about when I was able to prevail against unwholesome patterns and corrected my behavior.
It’s a fallacy to say “you never learn.” You do learn. We just don’t let that knowledge of failure become wisdom.
I know when I’ve screwed up. No one has to point that out.
So, here’s a little exercise. If you’re really ambitious, you could do this in your journal. That’s best, of course, but even just quietly thinking this through could be helpful.
- What’s the one been there, done that issue in your life that you tend to repeat over and over? You may come up with a list. Just pick one.
- Why is this such a thing? Do you enjoy feeling the way you do about it? Is this something like a favorite sin? (Don’t get so high and mighty and say “I don’t have a favorite.” I bet you do. It just jumped full-blown into your head right then.)
- What have you done in the past to move past that thing and bury it once and for all?
- Why didn’t any of your attempts work?
- Worse, did you even try?
- Now that you’ve isolated that one thing – the one been there, done that thing you repeat over and over – what do you plan to do about it?
- Re that previous point – there is something you haven’t tried, or else you’d be over it. So I’ll ask again – what is your plan?
You’ve probably realized that this isn’t easy. Perhaps you prefer whatever it is that’s dogging you to giving it up.
That’s a spiritual issue. If you know something is wrong and to continue doing it – well, it’ll take divine intervention to banish it. Seeking God to heal and deliver, in other words.
You have to really want that. That’s step one.
Step two is to do what you need to do. That’s as simple as it can be to understand, but extraordinarily hard to act on. You just have to move. Act now.
When Mike Singletary was asked, “How do you account for your success playing college and professional football?” he answered:
“I determined what I had to do to be successful, and I did it.”
There’s a pretty good lesson there for the “been there, done that” league.
Candidly, we all know what we need to do to break the cycle of repeating the same mistakes over and over.
Let God do the heavy lifting. Just be obedient without question.