The moment I finished writing the last post, I knew there was a word that I needed to explore more.  It felt like a tiny pin prick as I typed it into the list of antonyms for strong. Just the slightest nudge that there was something waiting to be fleshed out of that word.

For most of us, we have known this word personally.  A question often alerts us to its potential.  One that is asked when we face, or someone else does, difficult circumstances. The question begs, “Why is this happening?  Why are they (us) staying in that situation?”

Oftentimes, you will find answers like:  “It is not that bad.” “He doesn’t mean it.” “She probably didn’t even realize what she is doing.”  “I’ve learned how to deal with this and I am okay with it.”  “They can’t be without me!”  “I know the job and despite it’s problems, it is better than no job or an even worse one.”  All seemingly valid until the struggle returns to illuminate the soul, who deep down, is afraid to seek out change.

And really, we are no different than those we happen to see in such a situation.  How many times in our lives are we hampered by a fear, or fears, that keep us right where we are? We, too, employ the same excuses and justifications, hoping that no one goes deeper or asks harder questions.  If we can present “peace” and “acceptance” of where we are, then there is nothing more to explain, right?  But should we go deeper, all too often, those answers ring untrue…untrue to not only ourselves but those watching on the outside.

This is when it becomes important to meet fear’s sergeant in arms (I mean, good “friend”):  complacency.  It is the warm, fuzzy, safe friend of fear that carries enough gentle force to keep us relegated to our situation.  The justification that lulls the mind into endorsing and believing that change is a much worse option than the untruth that this difficult situation is best, or all, there will ever be. Complacency has this happy, contented appearance that things are peaceful–“It’s not that bad.  I am truly okay with it!”–despite the fact that there is something wrong with the picture.

Complacency is defined as “a feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger, defect or the like.”  http://www.dictionary.com/complacency (emphasis mine).  It is the soothing voice that draws you to look towards something other than the danger itself.  It cloaks itself in quiet pleasure or security, even though something harmful is moving closer. It is not an alarm system to prevent injury, but an antidote that makes things feel better even when they are not. It thrives on pleasure, despite the real and likely potential that pain will result. A pain that could be avoided, if only addressed.

You might wonder how complacency can cause us to become blind to the danger and defects that will hurt us.  Ah, its second definition:  “self-satisfaction or smug satisfaction with an existing situation, condition, etc…”  Change is hard, more times than not.  As a result, we intuitively gravitate towards what we think is the easiest route.  If we can convince ourselves that we are satisfied in these situations, then it becomes our job to be agreeable and pleasing to prove our satisfaction. Interestingly, satisfy means to “fulfill the desires, expectations, needs or demands of [another or ourselves]…to give assurance to or convince.” Id. Satisfaction causes us to focus on proving that there is no defect, no danger. It becomes our job to convince ourselves, and others, that we are more than satisfied with the status quo.

Smugness, smug satisfaction, enters the fray when maybe the situation is more difficult than we want to admit. Those difficulties may propel us towards a more rigorous defense. So we move towards believing we are specially and confidently equipped for this role. Worse yet, we may fool ourselves into believing that we have it better than most. This, again, prevents us from addressing the harm in our relationships and is how we become complacent. There is no reason for change when you believe you’ve got it all under control.  Life is as good as it gets when we describe it as a bed of roses, full of happiness, good times, and warmth, even when we know it is not true. When we pretend that it is all full of cheer, we have no need to worry about might be lurking in the shadows of life.

The interesting thing about complacency’s synonyms is how they evolve as you go through the list. It goes from cheer, satisfaction, smugness, contentment to creature comforts, enjoyment, gratification, peacefulness, restfulness to arrogance, egotism, narcissism, pride, self-importance, self-conceit, self-love, self-regard to snottiness, stuffiness, vanity, ease to anarchy, animalism, boldness, disorder, excess, forwardness, gluttony, immoderate, laxity, looseness to presumptuousness, self-indulgence, slackness and wantonness. That’s just to name a few.

Note there might be moments in life where being complacent actually results in peace, but in a situation where it is used to aid in not dealing with what is feared, it will not lead to greater peace. Remember it causes you to focus on the good parts of pleasure rather than the danger or defect that is also there. Moreover, as the need for diversion grows, complacency will lead to more gratification to prove you are happy, more pride to keep you from feeling less than, more boldness to get you what you need, more disorder to hide what isn’t allowed to be seen, more excess to bury the defects, more presumption to validate your motives, and even worse, more self-indulgence so the pleasurable life you are feigning holds some truth to merit staying put with what you fear.

What may start out rather innocent to avoid having to see something none of us like to see (danger or defect) can turn into a self-imposed blindness. If we can’t see it, there is no need to address the defect or danger that complacency helps to hide. Interestingly, going through the words associated with complacency–complaisant, complacent, compliant, and comply–a theme started to develop. They appear to revolve around the idea of pleasure and the fact that we should be pleasing and agreeable. It makes sense when you stop to think about it. If we focus on being agreeable or pleasing, much of the time that appeases the disagreeable and tucks the negative out of sight. Difficult situations and defects fade when we pretend there is nothing unpleasant occurring.

Going further, if you are disagreeable or unpleasing–or if someone is being that way to you–you are less likely to be “happy” or “satisfied” with the situation. Now being complacent isn’t so easy anymore. The more dissatisfied we are with something, the more likely we will want to move away from it, to change our circumstances. And that’s where complacency works well with fear. It allows us to buy in by proclaiming we are self-satisfied, even smug if necessary, so that we can avoid addressing our fears.  Rather, complacency allows us to draw them even closer in.

Further, do not the synonyms advance in such a way to show us how we can easily go from describing life inaccurately as “being a bed of roses”, to hide its deficiencies, to taking a more defensive stance of arrogance and snottiness that aids us in deflecting away the painful truth we want to hide? My friends, if we go back to the definition of complacency and deconstruct it, we will realize that it generally leads to a false sense of peace, an untruthful description of happiness, and is only convenient because it is hiding something more difficult to see.

Remember, complacency holds in its hands a distortion of reality because it lulls the person into ignoring a danger or defect. It does so by couching them to “accept” their situation as satisfying, to be gracious towards what is wrong by pretending it didn’t occur, and to act in accordance with the wrongdoer’s wishes, requests, demands, and requirements for that is what is best to keep disagreements at bay.  A temporary patch to a long term, continual, and likely-to-be repeated wrongness that has somehow become a part of our lives.

Complacency is built on hiding things that can harm us.  Thus it cannot be friends with truth because of what it hides. Truth does not hide pain and insecurity from our view. Truth, instead, strengthens our foundations so that we can endure what life brings rather than building for us a false reality that will crumble from hidden defects and dangers. Fears need complacency and pleasure, not the painful truth that their validity in our lives is of little worth.

As such, complacency just might be the arms by which we cling to our worthless fears…

The question then becomes where are we complacent in our lives, and how might that be holding us back from a truly better life that we are meant to be living?

“Because you have raged against Me and your complacency has come into My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came.”  2 Kings 19:28