The King

Recently, I was reading the book of Esther, and I was struck by how much we have to learn about ourselves - how much I have to learn about myself - from the characters in this short book that has had such a dramatic impact on the story of God's people. 

And as good a place to start as any is with the king himself, Xerxes. 

We know that the king was arrogant; that much goes without saying. We see how domineering he was, how he wanted his way and only his way and always his way. We also see that he could be extremely temperamental - just look at the experiences that women had with him. 

Queen Vashti refused to come entertain him while he was drunk, and he threw her completely out of his presence. Esther was afraid to go into his presence without being invited because he was known to throw those persons out, too. It was dangerous to get on the wrong side of Xerxes. 

But what's unclear is whether or not he knew this about himself. 

All evidence says that he didn't. All evidence supports the notion that perhaps he was an extreme narcissist and had absolutely no understanding of his own potential failures and weaknesses. Maybe he had heard rumors about others who were afraid to approach him; maybe he liked it that way. Maybe he liked his power. But it seems he didn't understand how temperamental he was. 

Because every time we see him doing anything, he signs it with his signet ring. 

He makes it un-revokable. 

He makes it permanent. 

He was drunk and upset with his wife, so he banished her and signed it with his official signature and made it permanent. When he sobered up, he realized how much he missed her, but there was nothing he could do about it; he couldn't even revoke his own order. 

Then, Haman comes to him and says, "Hey, I have an idea," and Xerxes is like, "Cool. You know what you should do? Seal it with my ring, and then it will last forever." He didn't bother to check out the possible impact or consequences or even truth behind Haman's idea; he just went with it and made it permanent. 

Then, Mordecai comes to the king and tells him how horrible this plan of Haman's is and how it's going to devastate everything, including the king, whose favored wife has been permitted to be slaughtered, so Xerxes gives him the ring and tells him to do whatever he sees fit and make that permanent, too. 

At any point, you would think that Xerxes would notice a pattern that perhaps his finalization of every whim he has is not working out so well. At some point, you would think he would see that doing things hastily without thinking them through and sealing them with his ring so that they can never be changed is actually a very bad idea. 

But he never does. 

Do we? 

We live with a self-confirmation bias. That is, we do things because we think they are right and we are convinced that we are informed enough to make the decision, so it's tempting for us to want to make all of our plans permanent. This is obviously the thing to do. This is obviously right. This should be what we do forever. 

But are we aware of how often we are wrong? Do we realize how our emotions or other factors in our lives get in our way? Have we been able to learn from our mistakes? Or do we just keep pulling out our ring and sealing our fate in a fleeting moment, making decisions we can never go back on and not realizing until it's too late that maybe we should have waited?