What does it take to generate joy? I say this is a question worthy of my attention, your attention, our attention.
Is there an experience that is more nourishing than joy? The joy of being alive- present to the gift of life? I say for me there is no experience that nourishes me more than joy. What about you?
How often do you experience joy? Are you present to joy every moment? No? How about every minute? No? How about every hour? No? How about once a day? No? How about once a week? No? How about once a month? No?
When was the last time you experienced joy? When was the last time you opened the doors of your being to allow joy enter your life? When? Can you even remember? And if you and I do not experience the joy in living then I ask this: what is the point of our living, of being alive? Why bother with it all?
As I grapple with this question what shows up for me? That my default way of being-in-this-world is to be on a journey. What goes with a journey? Planning. Preparing. Travelling. Hurdles-Obstacles-Surprise. Dealing with obstacles-hurdles-suprises. Breakdowns. Dealing with breakdowns. Busyness. Arrival at destination. Rest. Onwards to the next destination. And the cycle repeats.
If you and I are so busy on busyness of life and our focus in on achievement then the doors of our being are locked. What are they locked to? Being present to that which is present. Being present to the miracle that is our existence. Being present to the wonder of this world. Being present to joy – the joy of being here right now in this world.
I stopped the other day. I took over the left over bread. Slowly patiently I tore it up into little pieces. A smile was present on my face and in my being. Then I opened the door, went into the garden, and left these breadcrumbs in the right place – place where I see the birds hopping about. In that being/doing I was a little child once more. Joy was present. The joy of being connected with life. The joy of transcending selfishness and being of service.
On returning to the house it occurred to me that it really does not take much for joy to enter my house of being. All it takes is thinking of my fellow participants in this game of life and engaging in little acts of kindness. Making a cup of tea for wife or sons. Giving a hug. Receiving a hug. Telling a friend that she shows up as a source of inspiration for me. Cleaning the house so that it sparkles. Reading a book. Watching a movie. Writing. Going for a walk and allowing my face to be touched by sunshine.
Sometimes it doesn’t even take that. It just requires being present. Yesterday, driving daughter over to the gym, she asked me if she could turn on the radio. I said yes. Shortly, she was listening to one of her favourite songs, singing along beautifully and then the following came forth: “I just love music!” Wow! I found myself to be sharing in some of her joy.
It occurs to me that joy shows up when I chose to be joyous. It occurs to me that joy shows up when I wonder that I exist, the sun exists, the sky exists, laughter exists, hugs exist, movies exist, that I can drive…..It occurs to me that joy shows up when I put myself into action and contribute to the wellbeing of others. How about you?
What does it take to be a source of contribution? Does it take advising? Does it take fixing? Does it take doing?
It occurs to me that I can be a source of contribution by simply being present and listening to the other. What kind of listening? Non-judgemental listening. Listening without any fixing. Listening without any telling. Listening without bringing myself into it. Listening that keeps the light/attention on the person who is doing the speaking. Always on the person doing the speaking.
I just got off a call. It is not an everyday kind of call. It was an extraordinary call. A call that showed up as a contribution in lives. And it is left me humbled.
The first person I spoke with was in pain. Not as much pain as she was this morning. This morning she cried over the phone. This evening she did not cry, she shared. I listened. I listened to her story: of illness; of disappointments; of struggle; of her shame; and the actors that bring her this suffering and heap this shame.
All the time that I was being listening stuff showed up that needed to be dealt with. Whose stuff? What stuff? The stuff was thoughts, urges, fixed ways of being/doing. My thoughts, my urges, my fixed ways of being/doing. The temptation to advise was strong. The temptation to fix was strong. The temptation to minimise her suffering was strong. And I was in a clearing where I could see this stuff clearly, let it arise, grasp it not, and so let it fall away.
What showed up after this conversation? I noticed that I had allowed myself to get enrolled in her story. Specifically, I noticed that I had hostile feelings toward a number of actors who behaving badly were the cause of her suffering, her tears. The next conversation was with one of these actors.
I noticed that I entered into the next conversation reluctantly. Truthfully, I did not want to speak to him. He showed up for me as ‘bad’ and ‘wrong’ and thus ‘undeserving’ of my time, my listening, my love. And I simply asked “How are you?” – letting go of the passion to give him a telling off.
He told his story and in the telling of his story he shared his pain and suffering. He burst into tears. I found myself connected with him through his pain and suffering. I felt his pain, his suffering. Again, the urge to fix the situation arose and tried to hook me. It fell away, I refused to grasp it. I simply listened and in the listening got his pain, his suffering. I just listened. And kept encouraging him to talk. Why was this necessary?
He did not want to take up my time. He did not want me to worry for him. He did not want to cause me pain and suffering on his account. Ten or so minutes later, he was cried out. He was no longer carrying his pain and his suffering had lessened. He told me that he loves me. He told me that my existence matters to him. He told me that he wants to be near me – to get a hug. He told me that he never wants me to die.
A tear falls from my heart and my face. What is the cause of this tear? I did nothing. I just listened. I just let the other person tell his story and share his pain/suffering. I just said “I am sad to hear that you are in pain. I am sad that it hasn’t worked out the way you wanted it to work out. I wish I could fly over and give you big hug. I love you. And will it work for you if I ring you tomorrow and they day after?”
I am present to this: listening, pure listening, listening with compassion, shows up as huge source of contribution to the person who gets s/he has been listened to. And to me too.
Ordinary question generate ordinary living: an ordinary way of being and showing up in life.
Extraordinary questions stop us in our tracks, bring us out of our hypnotic state of everydayness, and provide a window to possibility and transformation. The access to possibility and transformation is always questions: questions that rock us, shake us, tremble us.
If you are up for living a transformed life here are the questions to be with – totally and wholeheartedly:
1. Who am I?
2. Who am I for myself?
3. Who would I be if I lost my memory and had no past?
4. If I had no memory, who would I chose to be?
5. What calls to me when I am silent and courageous?
6. Who would I chose to be if I knew with absolute certainty that I am whole-complete-perfect?
I am the being of a father. I choose to be the being of a father. As such concerns show up when it comes to all of the children. And I notice, in particular as regards daughter, Clea. Why?
She is at that age, 12 years old, where there is the change in biology occurring. And at the same time she is acted upon by strong social forces. The kind of social forces that make, bend, break us.
So it was with delight that I read the following piece. A piece written by daughter where she asks a powerful question – perhaps the most powerful question of all.
Reflections
A chair small. I guess it’s how others interpret it cause in the reflection of the chair it’s tall and big. A bit like humans.
Humans. There is what we are. And there is our reflection, how other people see us.
But let me ask you this, which one is more important? In our days everyone cares about their reflection: how other people see them.
But is it useful just having/being a reflection? I mean is it useful having a reflection of a chair? I think it is more useful just having the chair, the real chair.
Humans, it is more useful to have/be the real you than your reflection because your reflection is worth nothing to you.
So today ask yourself this question “To be me or to be my reflection?”
After watching the film The Impossible I found myself to have been affected rather profoundly. Put differently, I found myself to be ‘all shaken up’.
What shook me was the humanity that showed up in that devastation, that suffering. What showed up for me was how little of a contribution that I am making in the world. What shook me up was the level of pain that is in the world and what little I do to help my fellow wo/man in being with / dealing with pain/suffering. In short, I showed up for myself as a failure. Perhaps, even a hypocrite.
So I found myself with tears running down my face. Being with what was so I found myself tired/exhausted. And, I feel asleep in the lounge whilst getting hugs from daughter and one of the sons.
Some hours later I woke up and looked at the coffee table that was next to me. What did I find? I found a box of tissues and this note:
This note cheered me up. I was touched by the love of daughter for me. Then as I got up off the sofa that I was lying on and made my way to the mantlepiece I found my glasses and the following:
By now I was deeply touched. It occurred to me that perhaps I have not failed to be/make the kind of contribution that I say I am committed to making. Perhaps, just perhaps, I may be a decent human being doing. This cheered me up.
As I looked around the room and specifically the dining table I found some stuff. I wondered why that stuff was there. Who had put it there and why? Then I moved closer to the table and found this waiting for me:
At this point I found myself laughing out loud. Why? I was totally present to the love that exists between daughter and myself. It occurred to me that real love exists between daughter and me. In that space I got that I matter, I make a difference. And as long as my living makes a difference to even one being then my life is not wasted. Nor am I failure. It occurred to me that the future is wide open to being invented and lived for as long as I have this gift of a life – including the love that I am blessed with.
As I made my way around the rest of the house – the kitchen, the stairs, the bathroom, I found more notes from daughter saying the same “I love you! from Clea”. And in that moment, I got that this is real love. I got how blessed I am and in getting that I found my being transformed: I straightened up, I was taller, a positive outlook gripped me, smiles and joy were present….
I can become crazy annoyed with one of my sons. What in particular presses my buttons and has me hopping mad? He is talking about something, sharing something, asking for something, complaining about something. Listening, I say something like “Enough. I don’t want to hear any more. Stop. This is not the time. No more!” What does he do? He continues on interrupted.
What do I take that to mean? I give it many interpretations, many stories. And it goes something like this: he does not respect me; he is selfish; he lacks social skills; he is stupid! What does that give rise to? Either I leave the room or I put him down through labelling or I shout at him. Whilst I regret this later and apologise it is true that in the moment I feel justified, even righteous.
A funny thing happened today. Son asked me to take him to buy a torch. We enter the store, I ask one of the clerks and we get to the section where the torches are hanging. We pick a torch and head out to the cash tills to pay. It is late, towards closing time. With the torch in his hand son starts moving towards and checking each of the closed tills. I tell him they are closed. He continues. I go over take the torch from him head to the only staffed desk (Customer Services), pay and head for the car.
My son is already at the car. I open it and we both enter. And I say “Son it occurs to me that you lack common sense..” He stops me and say “I don’t want to hear it.” What do I do? I carry on uninterrupted. What does he say? He says “I told you I don’t want to hear it.” What do I do? I continue saying what I was saying without missing a word! What does he do? He puts his hands over his ears. What do I do? I continue speaking!
We get home. What hits me? It hits me for the very first time that I am a hypocrite. I have just done to my son that which I detest when he does it to me. Worse still, it hits me that this is not the first time I have done this. Then this question hits me hard: “Am I the cause of his behaviour? Did he learn it from me?”
The answer? Yes, it is highly likely that I am the cause in the matter of how my children show up: what they say, what they do, how they say it, how they do it….
What is present for me? A certain humility. A recognition that I am cause in the matter of my life. And that I am reaping that which I have sown – at least when it comes to the behaviour of wife, sons, and daughter. Sitting with that I am clear that there is no space for complaining to show up. Nor any space for me to play victim.
How about you? Where in your life are you the cause of that which shows up in your life and of which you get righteous and complain?
The other day the four of us went to watch a movie: The Impossible. The film makers say it the true story of a family of five that were caught up in the 2004 tsunami that hit Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and 12 other countries. And killed some 230,000 people.
I was gripped by the move from start to finish. What gripped me in particular was the being of the mother Maria:
– Her absolute love for her son Lucas. And her willingness to do whatever it took to ensure his survival.
– Her humanity in the most dire of circumstances that save a young life, that of Daniel and which ultimately ended with Daniel being reunited with his father; and
– How she inspired her son Lucas to let go of his fear and call forth his humanity – to save Daniel, to help others in need, to be useful when so many were in pain.
I was also touched by the humanity of many others. People who in the most desperate circumstances put their humanity in action: shared what they had to share, put themselves out to save lives.
If you have not seen it then I encourage you to go and see The Impossible. If you do choose to go and see it then please think carefully before you take any non-adults to see this movie. It is not for the faint-hearted. And it is one of the very best movies I have seen.
Ultimately, it is movie of possibility, of transformation and of leadership.
There is no escaping loss, given time it finds us – each and every one of us. Some lose their favourite toys. Some lose pets. Some lose hopes and dreams. Some lose lovers. Some lose siblings. Some lose parents. Some lose friends. Some lose jobs. Some lose homes. Some lose all of their wealth. Some lose their reputation and status. Some lose their limbs. And then there are those of us who lose their ‘world’.
Recently, pregnant sister-in-law lost her baby. A miscarriage after three months. Complete surprise. Covered in blood. Dream shattered. Pain. Tears. Brother’s delight turns to sorrow. How to be with his sorrow and be there for his wife? It is hard – never faced this loss before.
How to be with this loss when it shows up?
When loss shows up in our house of being it is easier to bear if our family and friends are there for us: there by our sides, providing a listening for our sorrow, and sharing our grief. Thankfully, family and friends showed up for sister-in-law.
When loss shows up in our house of being you/I are confronted with choice. What choice? The choice about story: the story you/I make about the loss. This is a choice that matters. The story that you/I make determines our being: how you/I show up in the world.
Sister-in-law chooses a story that sets her free
Sister-in-law made a wise choice. She chose a story that allows her to make sense of her loss, be with her loss, and be free of her loss. Put differently, she choose a story that leaves her being powerful in life and not showing up as a ‘victim’. What story did she make? The story goes like this.
a) The human body, my body, is wise. If it chose to ‘miscarry’ then this was the right course of action for the baby and for me. Most likely there was something wrong with the baby and its development. And if the baby had been born then there would have been suffering for the baby. And for me. And her father.
b) I am blessed in that I already have a young daughter. She is healthy. She is beautiful. She is growing up nicely. We have a great relationship.
c) If I can make one baby successfully then I can make another. So I look into the future and I live into the possibility that there will be another healthy baby – sooner or later. When the time is right the baby will show up. Now let’s be with life just as it is and just as it is not. Let me count my blessings.
I find myself inspired by the wisdom of sister-in-law. I find myself inspired by the wisdom of brother who has adopted the same story. And this story can be a source of inspiration to me when I am faced with loss.
Right now I am confronted with choice and the choice concerns work. It is not an easy choice. Why? I am confronted with what is so: to live is always to live at risk. And the machinery that goes with being human goes all out to eliminate risk. It wants to live forever, safely.
Getting past that, I find another challenge confronts me. To go forward as a single person – as opposed to a team – I must focus. What is it that I can do well by myself which creates value for my fellow human beings and will enable me to earn a living? That means giving stuff up. And what I notice is that the human machinery that runs me does not like that one little bit. It wants to be able to do this and that as it enjoys doing lots of things. Put differently, it does not want to sacrifice: it wants to keep all options open, to have its fingers in all the pies.
Yet, as a strategist I know that I must focus. And to focus, I must choose. And to choose is to choose one possibility and thus simultaneously given up the other possibilities that are on the table.
In the course of my struggle, I came across this quote wish has given me a helping hand. And I wish to share it with you.
“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.”
The folks at the weather station predicted snow. And then it snowed. And there was snow.
Upon seeing the snow the youngest two members of the family ran to the windows. They became smiles and excitement. They lived into a future that gave them joyous being: schools would be shut, no school, stay home, play with friends in the snow!
Upon being alerted to the snow, I reluctantly put on my shoes, headed outside and drove my car off the drive and towards the top of the hill. I lived into a future of risk/struggle/fear. The risk associated with getting my car off the drive. Last time it snowed heavily and did that I couldn’t. And when I persisted the car skid into a wall and required costly repairs. Struggle because every time it snows heavily it is a struggle to get anywhere without considerable effort. Why fear? Because twice in the past my car skidded in the snow/ice, I lost control, felt helpless, felt fear, and the car hit something.
Upon being alerted to the snow, my wife said and did nothing. She just got on with what she was getting on with or needed to get on with.
The next day, we had to go out. My wife drove and I was happy for her to drive. Later we are told that the schools have closed and have to go and pick our son up. There is a lot of snow on the ground. And it is snowing hard. We are not at home. There are long queues of cars. The sat-nav does not work, I am fretting. My wife, she is calm. It takes us over an hour to do a fifteen minute journey. I am uneasy, I am cursing the snow, I am fretting about not being able to get through to my son – he is not answering his mobile phone. My wife? She is calm, she is patient, she drives, she finds her way.
We get home. The children in the street are playing in the snow. They are laughing, they are clearly making it a great time for themselves, playing in the snow. Someone is rolling in the snow. It is our daughter, the youngest member of the family. Her face is red. Her clothes are soaking wet. And she is experiencing pure joy – out rolling in the snow. I look at her in astonishment and head inside where I can be warm.
What shows up for me? I am present to several distinctions, that I first came across in Landmark Education, that are in operation in each of us:
Event/Story: The event is simply that there is some 15m of snow. And then each of us, me, wife, son, daughter, made a different story of the snow.
It is the future that you are living into that gives you your being-in-the-world right now. My children were living into a future of no school, playing with friends, snowball fights. And their being was joyous. My wife was living into a future of ‘no big deal and it snow can be pretty. So her being was undisturbed, she got on with what she needed to get on with. Me, I was living into a future of fear/risk/struggle – of losing control of the car. And so my being-in-the-present was annoyance with the snow.
What am I present to? All that happened was that it snowed. All there was was snow, ice, slush, more snow. Yet, none of us left it at that. All of us made it mean something. And our being-in-the-world was a function of the meaning that our human machinery gave to the snow.
Which means that my being-in-the-world, your being-in-the-world, is a function of the story that runs me, runs you. And our freedom lies in our ability/freedom to create better stories – stories that move-touch-inspire us. Our ability to change reality – whether it snows or not – can be limited. Our ability invent stories, invent possibilities, is unlimited. So, ultimately, our freedom lies in the domain of possibility and of story.
What gets in the way of relatedness and relationship?
Judgement is an automatic way of being in the world. When we judge we carve up ‘that which is’, into ready-made buckets given to us by language, cultural practices, and our particular stand/situation. And when we do this we are no longer face to face with ‘that which is’.
Actually, you/I are NEVER face to face with reality – that which is just as it is. Why? Because the carving up of reality takes place without us being present to doing the carving up! So you/I are firmly planted in the conviction that what is before us is that which is – reality pure and naked.
Given that is our already always taken for granted stand in the world it is easy to see how relatedness and relationship suffers. I make you wrong when you do not see. You make me wrong when I do not see what you see. And from that place we withdraw from one another creating distance. Or we attack one another, bent on being right and proving the other wrong. If that cannot be done through word then we resort to fighting.
The way out of this trap: ‘look out of the other’s window’
I say the access to relatedness and relationship is to get that life/reality cannot ever be grasped accurately. At the very best you/I are travelling through the ‘woods of life’ and how life, how the world, shows up depends on where you/I are in those woods and in which direction we are looking.
Or as Irvin Yalom says ‘Look out the other’s window.’ What does he mean? Here is what he says in his book The Gift of Therapy:
“Decades ago I saw a patient with breast cancer ….. been locked in a long, bitter struggle with her naysaying father. Yearning for some form of reconciliation …. she looked forward to her father’s driving her to college – a time when she would be alone with him for several hours.
But the long-anticipated trip proved to be a disaster: her father behaved true to form by grousing at length about the ugly, garbage littered creek by the side of the road. She, on the other hand, saw no litter whatsoever in the beautiful, rustic, unspoilt stream. She could find no way to respond and eventually, lapsing into silence, they spent the remainder of the trip looking away from each other.
Later, she made the same trip alone and was astounded to note that there were two streams – one on each side of the road. ‘This time I was the driver’, she said sadly, ‘and the stream I saw through my window on the driver’s side was just as ugly and polluted as my father had described it’.
But by the time she learned to look out of her father’s window, it was too late – her father was dead and buried.’
Last words
Please get that we NEVER have access to that which is. That kind of access is NOT available to us. What shows up for us is determined by our biology. What shows up for us is shaped by our the assumptions and categories build into our language. What shows up for us is determined by our culture – the cultural practices. What shows up for us is a function of where we are standing at a particular point in our journey of life.
If you/I are present to this then we have access to WOW. What am I pointing out? WOW, how extraordinary that the world, that which is, shows up differently and uniquely to each and every human being. Let’s find out how the world shows up for my mother, father, husband, wife, son, daughter, friend, colleagues, boss…… Let me see what you see through your window. How extraordinary! When you/I stand in that place we stand in the place of wonder, relatedness and relationship.
Be humble. How you see it is NOT ‘the way it is’! You NEVER see it ‘the way that it is’! Be humble, listen to the other, respect the other: strive to look through the other’s window. Do that and you will never be alone, never walk alone.
One of my sons recently returned from Christmas in France. During Christmas he saw a beggar, he was touched by the plight of the beggar, stooped down and gave him money. His friends told him not to do that. They told him that the beggar was merely lazy and should get a job. This is not how the situation showed up for my son. How did it show up for him? Life can be hard sometimes. Nobody chooses to be dirty, out in the cold, homeless and begging. And the obligation of one human being to another is for the standing up to help the one that is on the floor.
Reflecting on this it occurred to him that whilst he likes the subjects he is studying for his A levels they do not call to him. What calls to him? To help the homeless: to provide them with a home, to clothe them, to feed them, to provide education and training, to rebuild their self-esteem and confidence, to provide the foundation with which to rebuild their lives. Listening to his speaking I was touched-moved-inspired and in large part that was because I got that this really called to him, the he himself is touched-moved-inspired.
Then my son shared his worry. What is the worry? Money. “How am I going to do this? Where am I going to get the money from to help the homeless? Where am I going to get the money to look after myself?”
Is this how we become wage slaves?
I got how it is that so many of us become wage slaves. It occurs to me that when you and I were young we had dreams like my son has right now. Some of us wanted to invent, others wanted to explore/adventure, others wanted to create/make stuff, others wanted to be of service to help others….. Confronted with the money question we put away these dreams and got busy with the practicalities of life. And little by little, one sacrifice at a team, we became wage slaves. Trapped: lifestyle, mortgage, school fees…..
What is a wage slave for me? For me a wage slave is a person who has no affinity for the work that he does. Importantly, he notices that the work is ‘killing him/her’ in some significant way and yet continues because of the money/rewards that go along with the job/work. Put differently, the work that the wage slave does and/or the environment in which he does that work does not nourish. On the contrary it is slow poison that kills that which is most human – the capacity to imagine possibilities, to pursue possibilities, to be a creator, an author of one’s life!
Is the point of living merely living?
Is our project here on here on Earth simply do feed oneself, clothe oneself, shelter oneself? And when these needs have been secured to entertain oneself and/or drown our sorrows with the drug of our choice? If that is the case then the meaning/purpose I give to myself is merely to survive, to exist.
And if that is the case then a question presents itself “What for?” Put differently, why toil away as wage slaves merely to survive? To feed, clothe, shelter and encourage our children to be wage slaves? So that they can do they same for their children and so on? Isn’t this madness? It occurs as madness to me.
My message to my son and all who are young or young at heart
So what did I say to my son? I encouraged him to pursue this possibility the one that calls to him. I told him that to be human – uniquely human – is to step into, live from and pursue that which calls to us. I told him that he is fortunate that he is present to that which calls to him. I told him that this is gift, a gift that provides access to walking the path that gives meaning to one’s life. Yes, there will be difficulties. Yes, there will be pain. Yes, it involves sacrifice. And what kind of life do you want to live, one that is difficult yet meaningful or one that leaves you showing up as a wage slave?
I reminded him of the film that we had watched some time ago. Which film? Into the Wild. And I posed the question, “What is better for you, a long life of drudgery, of being a wage slave or the kind of life that Christopher McCandless (the subject of Into the Wild) lived?”
What if money was no object?
Finally, I asked the question that Alan Watts asks: “What if money was no object?” I encourage you, especially if you are young, to listen to the words/wisdom of Alan Watts. I encourage you not only to listen but to let this conversation be you. Here is the YouTube video:
And if you prefer reading then here is the transcript:
“What do you desire? What makes you itch? What sort of a situation would you like?
Let’s suppose, I do this often in vocational guidance of students, they come to me and say, well, we’re getting out of college and we have the faintest idea what we want to do. So I always ask the question, what would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?
Well, it’s so amazing as a result of our kind of educational system, crowds of students say well, we’d like to be painters, we’d like to be poets, we’d like to be writers, but as everybody knows you can’t earn any money that way. Or another person says well, I’d like to live an out-of-doors life and ride horses. I said you want to teach in a riding school? Let’s go through with it. What do you want to do?
When we finally got down to something, which the individual says he really wants to do, I will say to him, you do that and forget the money, because, if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing, which is stupid. Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.
And after all, if you do really like what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter what it is, you can eventually turn it – you could eventually become a master of it. It’s the only way to become a master of something, to be really with it. And then you’ll be able to get a good fee for whatever it is. So don’t worry too much. That’s everybody is – somebody is interested in everything, anything you can be interested in, you will find others will. But it’s absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don’t like, in order to go on spending things you don’t like, doing things you don’t like and to teach our children to follow in the same track.
See what we are doing, is we’re bringing up children and educating to live the same sort of lives we are living. In order that they may justify themselves and find satisfaction in life by bringing up their children to bring up their children to do the same thing, so it’s all retch, and no vomit it never gets there. And so, therefore, it’s so important to consider this question, What do I desire?”
Listen to the mystics and it is being ‘not awake’ – not awake to the reality of existence. Listen to Martin Heidegger and it is ‘fallenness’ – fallenness into they ‘they’, the ‘anyone’, the crowd. Listen to psychology and it is habit.
I say our normal way of being in the world is to be on automatic pilot. A great illustration is driving a car. How many times have you driven from A to B and when you get there you cannot remember the journey?
I say our normal way of being in the world is to go about life as one (anyone) goes about life. That is to say we have fallen into/with the crowd. Which crowd? Our society. Our social class. Our tribe. So you/I go about life as one goes about life: you/I dress like one dresses; you/I eat like one eats; you/I walk like one walks; you/I hang out where one hangs out; you/I talk the way that one talks; you/I work they way one works; you/I entertain ourselves the way that one entertains himself; you/I form the relationships that one forms….
Put differently, our normal way of being is for our habits to have us, to be us. And where do these habits come from? From our society, tribe, social class. So in our normal way of being you/I are simply being/showing up as our society-tribe-social class. At one level this works great. It allows us to fit in with the rest, smooths social relationships, and allows us all to work together and accomplish more than we could accomplish on our own.
And there is price. The price is at two levels. At the society-tribe-social class level we are blind to that which we are blind. Put differently, we have no access to what we don’t know that we don’t know. At a personal level we do not own our lives. And by not owning our lives we do not get the sense of aliveness, of joy, of meaning/fulfilment that comes with being creators of our lives – being, pursuing, creating, bringing about that which matters to us. We settle instead for a life of drudgery.
So we are asleep. Habit owns us. We are the crowd – they anyone, the ‘average’. Which begs the question, for those of us interested in waking up, what is the access to waking up and owning our lives, to living as creators?
Breakdowns are a great access to waking up and making breakthroughs in our living
Breakdowns are those events and moments in our lives when our ordinary way of being in life – not awake, fallenness, habit having us – breaks down even if that is for a minute or two. In our ordinary way of being – being comfortable with habit, being on automatic pilot – you/I do not welcome breakdowns. No, we get upset, frustrated, annoyed, angry and even violent. My son and I experienced a mild breakdown when in the midst of watching a movie the electricity was cut-off. Another example of a breakdown could be the loss of our jobs, or a relationship with a loved one.
If you/I are up for playing BIG, living ‘extraordinary’ lives then we need to welcome and make the best use of breakdowns. Why? Because breakdowns provide an access to breakthroughs. When breakdowns occur we are given sight – without our wishes – to our state of being, our habits, our fallenness. And if we generate the courage and make the time to get present to the sight that shows up for us then we enable ourselves to make breakthroughs in our living. Put differently, breakdowns if embraced in the right manner enable us to transform our lives.
Want an example of what I am talking about? Let me share with you the story that has made many tears flow from my eyes and still bleeds my heart. Which story? India and the horrific gang rape by six men of a 23 year old physiotherapy student in Delhi. From what I read it occurs to me that this is not the only young woman that has been raped. It occurs to me that many women are raped. Just yesterday I was reading of a young woman, mother of two, who threw herself of a train to escape rape and is critically injured. Put differently, to be a woman in India is to be ‘one who is subjected to oppression, abuse and even rape’. That is and has been the default state of existence for a long time. And this default state has been in the background, invisible, not talked about.
For whatever reason the horrific rape of the 23 year old young woman, Jyoti, and her subsequent death has brought about a breakdown – at least for now – in the taken for granted way of ‘the way the world is in India’. This breakdown has allowed people in India and outside India sight of the ‘darker side of modern India’ – that side which is not at all modern nor civilised (in the western sense of the word). And for some, this has brought both shame and disgust. So that is the breakdown that has occurred in India, at least Delhi.
I am saddened at the rape and death of Jyoti. I am saddened with learning that a young mother of two is critically injured because she threw herself of the train to escape rape. And yet I see possibility/transformation amidst this sadness. What am I talking about? This breakdown in India – a suspension of the ordinary way of being and going about in the world – represents an opportunity to make a breakthrough. What breakthrough? A breakthrough in the lives of ordinary women in India – young or old. I can see a world where Indian women are not oppressed, not abused, not raped. Put differently, I see a world where it is not ok for one to oppress, abuse, rape.
What will it take for people in India to use this breakdown to create a breakthrough and thus transform the lives of the women in India? For enough people to be / show up / operate from the possibility that the women folk are free, are respected, are not abused, not oppressed, not raped. Put differently, for enough people to climb out of their state of falseness and own/live the possibility of ‘freedom, safety and respect for the women of India’.
To sum up: yes breakdowns are painful, few of us welcome them, and yet if embraced breakdowns offer us the ladder via which we can climb out of our state of fallenness and make breakthroughs in our lives and transform the experience of our living. Isn’t that true leadership – leading our own lives, owning our lives, being a stand for that which matters to us, being a source of contribution to our fellow human beings and life itself?
What is the access to transformation? Specifically, what is the access – for you and me – to transform the quality of our living? Put simply, it is shifting our being-in-the-world, and thus our showing up in the world, from impotent to potent. What do I mean? Let’s take a look at the definitions:
impotent
Adjective: unable to take effective action; helpless or powerless
Adjective: having a great power, influence or effect.
Synonyms: powerful – strong – forceful – intense
Let’s assume that you and I are up for transformation, up for shifting our being-in-the-world from impotent (the default) to potent. What is the access to making this shift? Willpower? No, this rarely works as many New Years resolutions show. Is it setting goals? No, this rarely works because goals tend to rely on the exercise of willpower. And willpower tends to fade. So what is a suitable access?
The access to making the shift is inventing and living from one or more possibilities that move-touch-inspire us. Which begs the question “What is a possibility?” A possibility is not a wish. Nor is it an intention. A possibility is not a goal, an outcome, an achievement. Nor is possibility a belief in that which is possible for a human being.
A possibility is like a context from which one shows up and gives life to one’s life. A possibility is like a stand that one takes upon oneself. A possibility is like a path that one chooses to walk of one’s own accord and thus gives up the multitude of other paths that are open to oneself. A possibility is like a declaration one makes on what constitutes one’s life. A possibility is always a choice one voluntarily takes upon oneself that gives shapes to one’s life and how one shows up in life.
Still looking for a pointer as to what constitutes a ‘possibility’? Then let me share this quote from Nikos Kazantzakis (author of Zorba The Greek):
“By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The non-existent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.” Nikos Kazantzakis
And when he speaks of believing he is talking about the following kind of believing:
“A belief is not merely an idea that is thought, it is an idea in which one believes. And believing is not an operation of the intellectual mechanism, but a function of the living being as such, the function of guiding his conduct, his performance of his task.” Jose Ortega Y Gasset
A possibility gives meaning to one’s life and power to one’s being-in-the-world. As such it does more than provide one with a reason to get up in the morning. It provides one the access to transcend one’s psychology and push the limits of one’s biology as and when this is necessary. It calls forth one to be unreasonable when unreasonable is what it takes. In short, it the access to living a life that shows up as fulfilling. A life worth living.
Why do I write this blog as opposed to put my feet up, watch a move, hang out in a bar? Because I invented a possibility. What possibility? The possibility of playing BIG, living an ‘extraordinary’ life, of being a source of contribution to a ‘world that works, none excluded’. How about you? What possibility leaves you moved-touched-inspired to be and create that which does not exist today? What possibility are you up for inventing/living this year?
Please note, that all acts of leadership start with inventing a possibility that leaves one moved-touched-inspired to disclose and create that which does not exist today.
What is this phenomenon called love? Investigate this phenomenon and you will find that it is not just one experience (phenomenon). No, it is manifold, many different experiences (phenomena) hidden under one label – love.
What are these manifold experiences housed and mingled together under this umbrella called love? There is the experience of desire which is more accurately labelled lust. And as lust is not acceptable, given our cultural practices, it is called love. There is plain sex and that is called ‘love’ or ‘making love’. There is ownership – in the sense of I have exclusive rights to you, your body, your sexuality, your resources, your time – and that is also called love …. and there is love as in care and caring.
It occurs to me that we would help love to flourish if we reserved love only for authentic care for another. What kind of care? Care for their wellbeing – in the physical, emotional and spiritual domains of life and living. Whilst I can talk about this it is better to get there more concretely. Allow me to give you an example.
In the morning as I was headed out to spend a few days away from home I was got a surprise. What kind of surprise? On one of the doors leading to the outside, a door I have to go through, I found a note for me. What kind of note? This note:
My wellbeing requires me to start the day by taking the Levothyroxine tablet. And to end the day by taking a statin tablet. That is just so. And more than once I have left my tablets at home. So my son, late at night, after I had gone to bed had written this reminder for me and left it where he knew I would see it. Why did he do that? Because he cares for me – he loves me.
Now, here is the thing to get. It is quite possible that my son felt strong feelings of love for me that night. And those feelings would not have shown up in my living nor made any difference. Why? Because I do not have access to his feelings. I do have access to his actions: I got present to the depth of his love when I saw this post it note and it moved me to tears of gratitude and joy!
I say that contrary to what the songs say love is not a feeling. No, love is verb – it is doing. Doing what? Doing that which contributes to the wellbeing of those we claim to love. And not doing that which gets in the way of the wellbeing of those we claim to love.
So you and I are confronted with choice: to live from the default context where love is a hodge podge of phenomena or to create and live from an ‘extraordinary’ context where we use the label love to mean love – love as in compassionate caring for the wellbeing of those we claim to love.
What choice will I make? What choice will you make? In making our choices we should be mindful that love – as in caring for the wellbeing of another – is the access to transformation: of my live, your life, our lives, of life as a whole.
My son and I had plans for yesterday. At the end of his day we were going to cook together, watch a movie, play some music and dance. In the midst of the evening and our plans the electricity died. Darkness. Our plans come to a halt!
In the process this thought struck me: what a privilege electricity is! Walk with me down imagination lane. And imagine what our lives would be like without electricity. Can you imagine our modern, taken for granted, existence without electricity?
Then another thought, a profound thought, struck me. Does not electricity give me existence? And one day, any moment / any day, that electricity will die. I will be no longer. There will not be any darkness as I will not be there to witness it. And so I came face to face with existence: it occurs to me that my life, my existence, is not a right, it is a privilege!
You and I are confronted with a choice. What is this choice? To continue living from the default context – ‘life is a right’ – and all that goes with it: sense of entitlement for life to provide us with our needs and wants; a lack of joy in our living; a tendency to fritter away our time, our life, on that which does not matter, that which does not give us joy, that which does not make a contribution, in short the banal.
Or you and I can choose to create and operate from the context ‘wow life is a privilege!’. Operating from such a context we are present to the gift of our existence and as such we are mindful of and make the most of each moment. Gratitude is present. Aliveness to the experience of being alive is present. Joy/delight is present. A sense of adventure is present. Living, truly living, is present!
Looking ahead and moving into 2013, what choice will I make? What choice will you make? Living from the context ‘life is my right’ or ‘my life is a privilege!’?
I dedicate this post to my wife, Aldine. For me, my wife is the embodiment of that which I want to share with you in this post.
Christmas can be just a ritual we go through or it can be a time to get present. Present to what? Present to being of service and making difference. Who to? How about starting with the people who you/I are spending Christmas with. And then allowing ourselves to ripple out from there to touch all the people whose lives touch our lives, however briefly and lightly.
What does it take to make a difference?
What does it take to make a difference in our lives, in the lives of our fellow human beings, in the world within which we dwell? It takes courage. What kind of courage? Let’s listen to a master of the human condition:
“All it takes to make a difference is the courage to stop proving I was right in being unable to make a difference… to stop assigning cause for my inability to the circumstances outside of myself …… and to see that the fear of being a failure is a lot less important than the unique opportunity I have to make a difference.”Werner Erhard
What does it take to make a difference to the people whose lives we touch?
Our ordinary, default, way of showing up in the world does not lend itself to generating great relationships and making a difference. Why? Because, if you are like me then you are great with people when they are being great. And not at all great with people when they are not being great. Put differently and simply, if you are like me then you struggle to put up with people’s garbage – even at Christmas. What am I pointing at? I am pointing at the kind of stuff that people say and/or do that drives me up the wall.
Is there another way of showing up in the world that does allow us to be great with people, to generate great relationships, to make a difference. There is. Here is how Werner Erhard puts it:
“My notion about service is that service is actually that kind of relationship in which you have a commitment to the person. What I mean, in fact, is that for me what service is about is being committed to the other being. To who the other person is.
To the degree that you are, in fact, committed to the other person, you are only as valuable as you can deal with the other person’s stuff, their evidence, their manifestation, and that’s what’s service is about. Service is about knowing who the other person is and being able to tolerate giving space to their garbage. What most people do is to give space to people’s quality and deal with their garbage. Actually, you should do it the other way around. Deal with who they are and give space to their garbage.
Keep interacting with them as if they were God. And every time you get garbage from them, give space to garbage and go back and interact with them as if they were God.”
It occurs to me that over the last 20 years I have given my wife plenty of my garbage to deal with. And the only reason that we are still together is that she has a commitment to me (as a ‘soul whose intentions are good’), to our marriage, and to our family. Out of this commitment she gives space to my garbage and keeps reminding me of who I am. And for that I am truly grateful!
And finally
I wish each and every one of you a great Christmas and the very best for the New Year. And I am clear that my wishes make no difference at all! Who makes the difference? You do!
How do you make the difference? By getting present to being the authors of your lives. By getting present to the fact that you matter in how you show up in the world. By generating the courage to stop proving that you are small and unable to make a difference. By being of service – the kind of service that Werner Erhard is pointing at.
Leadership always starts with leading oneself from the place of ‘victim’ to ‘author of one’s life’. From showing up as unable to make a difference to being committed to making a difference. From playing small to playing BIG!
It is so easy to notice what is missing in our lives especially when we swim in a culture where there is an agreement, an obsession, on what is missing. If you are wondering what I am talking about then think about what is wrong – with you, with your colleagues, with your friends, with your family, with your loved ones, with your work, with the economy, with government, with your society, with the world. You might be wondering what has ‘what is wrong’ to do with what is missing? Wrong signifies that something is missing – specifically, the state of perfection is missing.
Being fixated with that which is wrong/missing is the default way of being that goes with the ordinary way of being-in-the-world especially if you/I live in the most prosperous countries. This fixation leaves us feeling dissatisfied at best. At worst it can and does leave us frustrated, annoyed, angry and even bitter. That does not occur to me as being great places to be in.
I say that even in these difficult times you/I have so much to be grateful for! I say that even in these difficult times our lives are easy. I say that even in these difficult times we should take the time, especially as it is Christmas, to get present to how great it is and give thanks for existence just as it is and as it is not.
If your life shows up as difficult then what I say may occur as ‘happy talk’ at best. At worst, it may show up as a lack of sympathy for your suffering. I get that. So, I wish to share with you one of the most moving stories I have read during the course of 2012.
I say that if you make the time to read and be with this story you will be left moved-touched-grateful for the life that is yours. Here is a small abstract:
“As he hears me, he looks up and puts his hands on my cheeks. I pray that God would see this man and see his sufferings and that he would have mercy upon him. When I finish praying I kiss both his hands which are now wet from my tears, stand up, grab my bags and walk away.
When I get to the end of the street I look back to see that he has not moved. His face is in the dust again and I can see his back rise in small convulsions. He is sobbing.”
I invite you to read the full story here. I assure you that this story will touch your humanity, possibly move you tears, and leave you with a profound sense of gratitude for your life as it is and as it is not. How can I be so sure? This is what showed up for me; if you are reading this blog then I am confident that your humanity and my humanity overlap.
I dedicate this post to my wife who is the source of this insight, this conversation.
The default: one party is good/right, the other party is bad/wrong
When conversations, actions, events and relationships don’t work out as we want or expect them to work out what happens? Look carefully and you will find that the default is that we look to figure out who is wrong. And from there we go and label some person/group as bad/wrong and another person/group as good/right. If we are one of the parties to the upset/conflict then we end up declaring ourselves as good/right and the other person as bad/wrong.
Even as an observer, if you listen to one of the parties to the conflict sharing his story, his take on the situation, the temptation and the default way of being is to want to work out who is right and who is wrong, who is good and who is bad. Even as an observer we get drawn into and cannot resist taking sides. And in taking sides we validate one person and invalidate the other – usually without even hearing the others side of the story.
How does this default way of being/showing up in the world tend to work out? My experience is that it does not tend to work out. Taking sides – labelling one person ‘good’ / ‘right’ and the other ‘bad’ / ‘wrong’ just perpetuates the myth: some people are ‘good’ and some people are ‘bad’. And it keeps us stuck in the existing context which says that ‘bad’ results are the result of ‘bad ‘people.
Creating an ‘extraordinary’ context for dealing with that which shows up and which does not please us
Leaving aside evil people and I am clear there are evil people – they tend to be labelled psychopaths – is there value in operating from a context of whole-complete-perfect? What do I mean? What would become available if we acted as if each person is whole-complete-perfect? Put differently, what would become available if you/I operated from a context that each person is doing what shows up for him/her as reasonable, as good, as right?
What my wife and I have noticed is that if we operate from this context then we have a powerful way to deal with the upsets and conflicts that show up in our lives as we go about in the world. How exactly?
Operating from a context of each person is being rational/reasonable given how the world show up for him/her we can ask the question that is almost never asked: how is it that two (or more) reasonable people ended up creating this undesirable situation/outcome? Put differently, we focus on the question of what went wrong and not who is wrong.
What we have found is that when we relate to people as whole-complete-perfect and focus on what went wrong we get powerful insights that enable us to:
deal effectively with what went wrong;
figure out how exactly (step by step) it ended up working out the way that it worked out;
generate insight and affinity with the people who are involved in the events unfolding as they have unfolded; and
prevent the reoccurrence of that which occurred and left all parties unhappy, resentful, frustrated, angry and even violent.
Summing up
If you want to be powerful in the way that you show up in the world for yourself and for the people with/around you then:
shift the context from ‘good’ people and ‘bad’ people to everyone is ‘whole-complete-perfect’; AND
shift the conversation from who is wrong to what went wrong – how is it that events turned out this way given the good intentions of all parties.
Have you ever tried to find and connect with your deeper self, your ‘authentic’ self? Have you ever wondered what kind of values that you should embody? Have you ever wondered what really matters to you? Have you ever wondered what kind of life you should lead, what kind of ‘projects’ you should engage in and pursue?
I have. And in the process I read a lot of self-help books with all the exercises including reflecting and finding experiences where I felt most alive, happy, joyous…. Yet, none of that really worked for me. Are you in the same boat?
If you want to bypass that and connect with your deeper self and get access to what really matters to you then I have a useful shortcut for you. Answer these two easy questions:
a) which people – real or fictional – are your heroes?
b) what is it, specifically, about each of these persons that makes them heroes for you?
My heroes include the teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School
Up to this week my heroes included: Gandhi, Jinnah, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Maria Montessori, Joan of Arc, Albert Schweitzer, Oscar Schindler, The Prophet ‘Mohammed’, George Adamson, Tony Fitzjohn, and Monty Roberts.
This week, I have been deeply touched by the following people, who show up as heroes for me:
– Victoria Soto;
– Dawn Hochsprung;
– Mary Sherlach;
– Maryrose Kristopik;
– Kaitlin Roig;
– Abbey Clements;
– Yvonne Cech; and
– The Sandy Hook school janitor.
In a tragedy these people make me feel proud to be a member of the human race! These fellow human beings disclose for me the best of what we, human beings, have to offer as a species. What is that? They disclose that human being is not simply being-for-onself: the default view pushed by capitalism and modern society. No, they disclose that what is truly noble about human being is being-for-others: the willingness to put one’s life at risk for fellow human beings.
Out of this tragedy these men and women have disclosed the possibility of love, selflessness, courage and heroism. These values speak to me – they bring tears to my cheeks.
How to end this? I acknowledge the courage of each and everyone of the teachers and staff at the Sandy Hook school. I offer my condolences to each and every person who has lost a loved one. My heart and my eyes flow with tears – tears or sorrow for all those who have lost loved ones. And tears of gratitude for all those who put their lives at risk and saved lives.
I am proud to be a member of the human race. And with people such as Victoria Soto, Dawn Hochsprung and Mary Sherlach the human race if worth believing in and standing for.
Existential Conversations For Playing Big 