Holding back

Our attempts to hold back from the difficulty of our lives, paradoxically, bring us exactly what we are trying to avoid.Why? Because suffering, confusion, feeling lost - as well as joy, and fulfilment, and meaning - are an inevitable part of any life. How could it be otherwise? Life promises only that it will bring us change. And it does this, even when we wish it were not so, endlessly.Our attempts to deny our anxiety, fear and loss are attempts to control what cannot be controlled. They end up with us holding back life itself.And in this way, perhaps we could learn to see our difficulties as an invitation to step deeper into our lives, rather than turn away.I came across this, from Franz Kafka, recently, which says it beautifully:

"You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world. That is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature. But perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid."

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Living close by

We human beings have a unique ability to live in stories about ourselves and about life, rather than directly in life itself.

In this way we are unlike almost every other kind of entity we come across. Trees, stones, cats, and ants can each only be themselves. But we are always in the midst of a particular interpretation of life. We're rarely just ourselves in some straightforward and unmediated way.

It is this capacity to interpret and to invent our own identity that has allowed the astonishing diversity and creativity of human life. We are not bound to live in a particular way, as ants or trees are, fixed by our physiology. We invent tools, clothes, technology, roles, structures for living together, buildings, and the stories and interpretations to make sense of them. We can inhabit remote and hostile environments as hunter-gatherers and as astronauts. We can be musicians and engineers, soldiers and artists, CEOs and scientists. We can take up roles and forms handed to us by others - how to parent, or work, or run a government - and invent radically new ones, so that the forms of human life available to us today are substantially different from those available even a century ago.

Interpreting ourselves is right at the centre of our lives. We can hardly be human without it. And because of this we can choose interpretations which are more or less expressive of our essential qualities: and hence lives that are more or less us-like.

We can choose to live close in to our lives, allowing what seems truest about ourselves its expression in the world. And we can choose to live far, far away from ourselves - denying, distorting, or distancing ourselves from what seems most essentially, fully us.

And making this choice - what kind of life to really live - is our unique human capacity too.

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Not like you

When you're repeatedly irritated by someone - on your team, in your family - perhaps you could try to discover what you're really judging them for.It may not be quite what you think.On close inspection perhaps you'll see that you are irritated, not because they are irritating, but because they are not like you in the ways you wish them to be.

not as calm as younot as lively as younot as rational as younot as emotional as younot as logical as younot as prepared as younot as forceful as younot as gentle as younot as fast as younot as timely as younot as controlled as younot as realistic as younot as creative as you

Your irritation is a way you try to make them just the same as you are.It can't work out the way you're hoping it will.And so much becomes possible if you'll entertain the possibility that what they need to be is not like you at all... but just like themselves.

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The history of ordinary lives

The sweep of history is often remembered through the grand acts - the wars, the revolutions, the public acts of despots, geniuses, and heroes.But it is lived for the most part by so-called ordinary lives. The people who, perhaps like you and me, will be recalled only by a handful of people, and whose memory fades within a generation or two.It's easy to compare our lives with the famous ones, to imagine that a life well lived is one that will stand out across time, one that will be remembered. But what about the everyday dignity of caring for a home, loving people close by, bringing home a living, touching others with simplicity and genuineness?I can't think of a better book about this topic than John Williams' novel Stoner, first published in 1965. Stoner, a university professor, lives an undistinguished life, charted with exquisite precision and compassion by Williams. We know from the start that he will hardly be remembered - by his colleagues, his students - and yet we come to see the beauty in his humanity: in his doubts and confusions, his suffering, the gifts he brings to others, the deep currents of meaning that bubble below the surface, and in the sheer extraordinary everydayness of his life.Stoner is a fabulous reminder of the preciousness of even the most apparently mundane life, and the shining jewels that lie within. And it's a beautiful read.

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How it begins

For the past few days, to mark the first anniversary of this project, I have been republishing favourite posts from the first year of On Living and Working.To conclude this series, here the very first post, where it all began.--

This is the Olduvai hand axe. It sits in a far corner of the British Museum, nestled among artifacts from earliest human history. It's around 1.2 million years old. It's strikingly beautiful. And it marks the beginning of the distinctively human practices of tool-making and art that lead directly to what you'll find here.

Hand axes are among the first great inventions of humanity, and probably came into being at the dawn of the development of both language and culture. They made it possible for the first time for people to cut with skill and precision, and would have opened up the possibility of turning animal skins and wood into products that went far beyond the immediate need for food.They mark the moment when we extended ourselves from living in the world as it is to actively and consciously shaping it, when we first began to create the complex web of tools, words, work and culture that - a million or so years later - could bring about the society of today.Millions of hand axes have been discovered around the world, but what makes the Olduvai axe so striking is that it's much bigger than can be comfortably held in the hand. Its size renders it unusable for most purposes. In all other respects it's a perfect tool - beautifully balanced, sharp-edged, symmetrical - the result of many hours of skilled and careful labour. But it's also a work of art, with a purpose that is a much symbolic as practical, an expression of the artfulness of its maker. That it was made at all reflects the human concern for beauty, for creativity and ingenuity, and for expression. And it's deeply entwined with the practical world of making and doing, the work of providing for a life well lived.The industrial age of the 20th century taught us that efficiency and predictability were to be prized above all else. Big organisations, mass production, standardisation all became possible. But the rise in living standards this brought still left many people's experience of life flat, mundane. When we've tired of climbing the ladder or pursuing status, we find that living fully, fiercely, artfully and courageously are needed to lift us beyond the ordinary into the life and work from which we can make our fullest contribution. The Olduvai hand axe, from the dawn of our history, is a reminder of this - and the inspiration for everything that follows.

Actually asking

This week, to mark the first anniversary of this project, I am republishing favourite posts from each month of the first year of On Living and Working.This is from February 2014.--

If your requests to others aren't resulting in much in the way of action, you might like to look at whether you are actually asking anything at all.

"That office needs tidying"

"The rubbish is collected tomorrow"

"We're spending more on travel than we should be"

"This is really difficult"

"It's my birthday next Tuesday"

may sound to you like clear requests for help. But they quite possibly sound nothing of the sort to the people around you.Indirect requests are a manipulation, a demand that others show they love or respect you by being able to work out what you really want. But when you don't get what you were expecting the result is frustration and resentment. And confusion, for everyone else, when you've become annoyed, or angry, or withdrawn - and they don't understand why.Over time, such vague requests erode the foundation of your relationships even as you're trying to get people to come in closer.Please, if you want to enrol others in supporting you, ask them directly for what you want.It creates so much more possibility and dignity for all of us.

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How trust happens

This week, to mark the first anniversary of this project, I am republishing favourite posts from each month of the first year of On Living and Working.This is from January 2014.--

Trust, in the end, is not built by waiting until the conditions are right - "I'll be able to trust them when I feel confident and secure... when they've given me sufficient evidence that they are trustworthy"Instead, trust is always engendered most by our first extending our trust to others - which requires us to be open enough and vulnerable enough to let others in.And trust is deepened by exactly what we do when we experience breakdowns in trust. Closing down or backing off, declaring the relationship over or under threat, does nothing to build our capacity to trust others, nor they us, in the future.No, trust is built precisely by turning towards one another when it breaks down and talking about what is now possible and required. We invite trust precisely by how we respond when our capacity to trust seems most under threat.

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Shaped by others

This week, to mark the first anniversary of this project, I am republishing favourite posts from each month of the first year of On Living and Working.This is from December 2013.--

Just as places shape us, calling us into particular ways of acting and relating, people we're around do the same. Another way of saying this, using the language of my recent posts, is that people can be affordances too.

Stop and watch for a while and you'll probably see what I mean.Around some people we open up, bringing our troubles and difficulties and confusion into the light. And around others we close down. Nothing seems possible to say around them.Some people bring out our hopeful optimism. Others evoke more of a sense of darkness, despair or resignation. And around some people we get to see and think clearly, perhaps in a way that isn't possible for us when alone.Over time, who we are with significantly shapes us, our preferences, our language and our everyday responses to the world.Two consequences of this:Firstly, the way other people are around you might have a lot to do with you.Secondly, who you spend your time with matters, more than you might know.

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Exhausted

This week, to mark the first anniversary of this project, I am republishing favourite posts from each month of the first year of On Living and Working.This is from November 2013.--

Mostly the stories we're living are invisible to us. They're like the air we breathe, or the water we swim in.If you're someone who never rests, who keeps going even when you're exhausted - as so many of us do - do any of these stories shed light on the way you're living?Are you taking yourself to be

An orphan? Carrying a huge burden given to you by others that cannot be put down. There's nowhere to rest. Nobody who can really be relied on. Nowhere that's safe. All you can do is to keep on carrying, carrying, carrying, knowing that life is ultimately exhausting and nobody can help you.

A frantic hare? Always running to get to the finish line. The point of life is to hurry, hurry, hurry so that you can be there first. If you stop, even for a moment, you'll lose the race. Because everyone else is apparently running too.

The emperor in new clothes? Trying to look good or at least acceptable, but fearing that everyone else can secretly see that it's all a façade. So you have to work hard all the time to keep up an image, and not let any cracks show, in case you get found out.

Atlas? Holding up the world for everyone with unceasing, superhuman effort. If you don't do it, nobody else will, and then the sky will fall in and everything will come apart.

And if not one of these stories, is there another one you can find that will explain why you're so sure you can never stop, never take care of yourself?

Where did you get your story from? From your family? From the wider culture into which you were born?

And what happens if you let go of your story, just a little, and find out that it can't be completely true? Perhaps then you'll find out that you'll still be alive, and people will still be around, even if you lie down for a while.

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Aliveness

This week, to mark the first anniversary of this project, I am republishing favourite posts from each month of the first year of On Living and Working.This is from October 2013.--

It seems to me we could go a long way in work and in wider life we were to take aliveness more seriously.Many organisations I come across seem to be in the middle of a constriction that's going the other way. More processes, more rules, more plans, more meetings in which people wonder why they're present, more measures, more hours, more rushing, more emails, more unexpressed panic, more overwhelm, more spinning in tight spirals, more quiet fearfulness.Where does all this lead if we continue down this path?And yet, if you look closely and quietly for a while, you get to see that most of what's happening that's of value take place in spite of these, not because of them. The new idea sparked in a conversation in the lift, a moment of genuine connection between members of a team that allows for new understanding and trust, the discovery of some inner resourcefulness that allows someone to speak up in a new way, a fiery exchange in which what's important is expressed and heard: all are examples of this.When we forget that organisations are alive we miss a huge opportunity. At the moment I think most of us have our heads turned in the other direction.

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