the fine print.

When’s the last time you read the fine print for something? Be it a contract, the bottom of a coupon or haphazardly scrolling through the T’s and C’s for the new device or app you just downloaded to click ‘Agree’ — there’s always fine print.

Around this time last year, my mom and I were deep in the throes of contract negotiations to open our own brick + mortar space for a business we started. And while we didn’t end up signing the lease (a story for another time), we learned a LOT about the fine print.

What seemed somewhat simple on the surface — [find space —> check availability —> negotiate rent —> sign lease —> open store] turned into hours of reading, researching, and googling terminology as we went line by line of 60+ pages full of fine print. At times it felt like our dream was on the other side of the words “pursuant”, “liable” and “shall“. But we knew that reading and understanding the fine print would be essential to our success and glossing over it could be detrimental.

I think a lot of things are like that. What we see and hope to achieve on the surface is really backed by a thousand micro-contingencies below the surface that makes the process anything but linear. And while sometimes unfavorable, it’s my belief that fine print is really in the business of protecting.

Today, more than ever, it’s easy to see others get the things they want (new house, new job, new whatever) or achieve their goals and feel that deep, unsettling pang of lack in our own life. I’m admittedly someone who can be a passenger on that train if I’m not careful. We all have dreams, goals and expectations for our lives — some we are actively working towards, and some that seem lofty and unlikely. And when we can know what 500+ of our friends and e-friends are up to and achieving at any given moment, it’s easy to get caught up in the futile game of comparison. If we’re not mindful, that comparison can quickly morph into envy, jealousy, imitation, or resentment.

Now, comparison isn’t new. We see stories of comparison and envy throughout scripture and even Theodore Roosevelt warned against it in 1898 when he said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

I think the hard part about comparison and identifying the fine print is that it’s easy to gloss over when you’re looking at someone else’s life, but it’s so easy to spot when we look at our own.

We see the outcome, but we don’t as easily see the details.
We see the new baby, but we don’t see the miscarriages.
We see the published book, but we don’t see the months of writing and re-writing.
We see the new house, but we don’t see the years of work and discipline in saving money for the down payment.
We see the end game, but we don’t see the journey.
We see the dream fulfilled, but we scroll right past the fine print.

It’s almost as if the fine print gives legs to the dream. It peels back the curtain. It shines fluorescent light on everything that went into achieving that outcome. It’s easy to say we want what someone else has… but do we really? What if we took a step back and looked with clear eyes at the fine print that goes along with the narrative? What if we openly and honestly considered the good AND the bad, the beauty AND the ashes, the light AND the darkness, the blessings AND the hardships that come with them?

Take moving to a new city as an example:
On the surface, that sounds great. Your friend moved to a new town a couple years ago, and from what you can tell, she is now #livingherbestlife. You decide you need a fresh start, too. You peruse Zillow for weeks on end. You pray about it. You pull the trigger, put in your two weeks, pack up your car and drive across the country. This is the change you need. This move will help you finally become the person you want to be.

The first few months are great. You discovered new coffee shops, bought a new pass for the fitness center down the street, your job is going well, you met a few new friends and finished decorating your house so it really feels like home. And then suddenly… the novelty wears off and the reality sets in. You’re alone in a new city. You have no one. Your house is in a great location, but it also has noisy neighbors, a leaky faucet and a creepy stray cat who won’t leave your patio.

When you made the decision to move, you didn’t necessarily think about what the day-to-day would look like once you got settled. You went off of a mixture of the highlight reel you saw when someone else moved combined with your own idea of how perfect it’d be — so much so, that you maybe even glossed over the parts where others told you how hard it might be. But now, the fine print is exposed and with it, feelings of fear, doubt, comparison, loneliness and worry are knocking on your door with no housewarming gift.

You feel vulnerable and sad more than you feel empowered and happy. You’re on the floor assembling IKEA furniture alone saying, “Hey! I didn’t think it’d be this way! I thought this was supposed to be my time to shine! Where is everyone? It looked so easy when ____ did this. When will this fall into place for me? When will I finally feel like I’m where I should be?!!”

So many things are like this. The newness wears off and it isn’t at all like we imagined in our head. Sometimes what we thought we wanted turned out to be the knock-off version. Other times, we take 50 steps in the right direction and realize there’s still so much journey to endure before we “arrive”.

That’s why I love the fine print. Sure, it’s hard to digest sometimes, but it’s what keeps us grounded and moving in the right direction. It exposes what the lies of comparison want to hide: We can’t just covet the outcome. We have to love the journey and everything that comes with it – the silver linings AND the sometimes unfavorable obstacles that might be hidden below the surface.

So - should knowing there’s fine print stop us from moving to a new town, working towards something meaningful or starting something new? Absolutely not.

The challenge here is to acknowledge that the journey will be just as valuable as the end game. It’s remembering that no two paths (even with the same outcome) are ever the same. It’s remembering that having dreams for our lives is great, but that working through the fine print (especially when the initial zeal wears off) is what’s going to help us gain grit, keep our eyes on the horizon and press on. The fine print is always there -- whether we choose to embrace and build on it or let it be a limitation is up to us.

In the moments where the feelings of comparison try to push us off our path and rob us of our joy, I think it’s helpful to ask ourselves questions that expose the fine print a bit easier — “Do I want to put in the same amount of work/investment they did to get to where they are? Would I want to endure the hardships that came with what they have? Do I really even want X, Y or Z? Or am I just feeling a pang of absence in my own life?”

For me, the answer to those questions usually gets me back on track because I realize I’d much rather continue on my own path, not a version of someone else’s.

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If nothing else from this post sinks in, here’s what I hope you to hold onto today, especially if you don’t know it as truth already:

We don’t have to navigate the fine print on our own. When we walk with God, we essentially enter into our own agreement with Him. We say, “Yes. By following you, I acknowledge your plans for me are for my good and your glory, I know you knit me together, you know the desires of my heart, you see what I don’t. I trust you, your timing and your plans for my life.”

Exemplifying that trust means working to remember that God is assuredly drafting the blessings and happenings in our life with fine print and timing that works best for us and our good, and that He works in others’ lives with the same protection of what’s best for them and their narrative, too.

Life with God doesn’t require negotiating. It doesn’t require us to cut corners or manipulate the timing of outcomes. Yes, it requires faith, determination, and at times, a vulnerable surrender of our timeline and our comfort. But, God doesn’t want us to be spectators to the journeys of other people. He wants us to be active participants in our own. He gives us blessed assurance that our path is never accidental and that we can walk in step with Him because He is the same God who began a good work in us and He WILL see it through to completion (Philippians 1:6).

Friends, don’t let comparison or the fine print keep you from doing the things that you want to do, the things that you feel called to do. When comparison enters the chat, remember that focusing on someone else’s narrative pauses the progress you’re making on your own. Remember the fine print - because like signing a contract, understanding it is essential to our successes – big and small. It helps us more easily and assuredly say, “Where do I sign?” when opportunity knocks, and helps us do the next right thing on our way there.

So here’s to the fine print -- may we see it, may we understand it, may we grow from it.