When we rely on events to change things in our organisations - an executive residential, a training day on relationships, a session on 'difficult conversations' - we're treating ourselves as if we're machines. A new part, some oil in the right place, installing a patch to the operating system - that'll do it.When we imagine ourselves this way, we set ourselves up for such disappointment. We pour our hearts and our good intentions into the event, thinking that this time it will do the trick, this time the upgrade will work. And we wonder why things the next day seem pretty much the way they were before.We'd be so much more effective, and so much kinder to ourselves, if we understood that we are living processes, shaped all the time by the practices we take up and by the relationships that surround us. We'd know then that events can help us, for sure, but that it's not the events themselves that bring about the change we seek as much as our relationship to them. We'd see that unless we're prepared to use events as an invitation to practice - with all of the uncertainty, all the learning that's involved, all the letting go that practice entails, and all of the times that our practice goes awry and we have to commit to begin again once more - we can rightly expect our events to do very little at all.And this point - that practice goes awry - is probably the most important. We know, intuitively, that a two-day event exploring the piano doesn't make any of us a competent pianist. We'd expect to have many subsequent days of struggle and difficulty, with steps forward and setbacks, before we'd feel proficient. Before real music would be possible we'd expect days when our practice sounded disjointed or discordant, and to play many wrong notes from which we'd gradually learn the right ones. We'd expect to need help, and time to reflect on what's happening. And we'd expect to experiment and practice again and again for many weeks.It's the same for the work of building trust between colleagues, for learning how to get out of our endless busyness and rushing so we can think, and for finding how to work together effectively, and skilfully, and joyfully.If we understood this, I think we'd expect a lot less of events and see a lot more possibility in ourselves and in each other. And we'd know that our very difficulties are the path, not a reason to be discouraged, not proof that we're getting it wrong, and certainly not a reason nor an excuse to avoid the difficult, life giving and essential work of practicing together what we say we most want to bring about.
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Between June 2011 and the following July I had three close encounters with death. Three life punctuating events brought about by sudden and unexpected changes within my body, each shocking and frightening, each a reminder of how fragile and unpredictable life can be.As I recovered from each episode I expected - hoped - that I would in some way be profoundly different. I wanted so much to find myself more grateful, more accepting, more joyful of life's many small blessings, less judgmental, less afraid, less irritated by small things, more kind, and more dedicated to being present and welcoming and loving with the people who matter to me.But it didn't work out so simply. I emerged from each experience blinking and shaken and grateful, and soon settled back into many of my familiar patterns.Over time I've found myself thinking about this differently. What happens if I allow these experiences to inform the way I live rather than expecting them to change me? How can I, having encountered the possibility of death so closely, use my experience to commit fully and wisely and generously to life?In taking on this question I'm finding out that the change I seek is a question of practice rather than of events. And that I am an ongoing process much more than I am a thing with enduring properties, an object that is a particular way. I live myself into being, day after day. I am always living myself into being by the very ways in which I live.How I move, how much I take care of myself, how I express curiosity and interest in the world, how I speak and listen, how I sleep, how I sing and laugh, how I play and create, how I bind myself up in community, how I practice compassion and stillness, how I love, how I work - all these shape the life I am living and who I become, far more than the punctuating events themselves.And this tells me so much about the mistaken ways in which I look for change in myself and in my relationships with others. When I mistake life for a thing I imagine an event of sufficient power will do it. An affecting conversation, a kiss, a show of force, a book with a revelatory idea in it, an illness, a windfall, a conference, an argument, the right gift, or a brush with death will fix things, in the same way that I might fix a dented metal bowl by attempting to knock it into shape. But when I know myself as a living, unfolding process, events take up their proper place as teachers rather than fixers, educating me about the ongoing practices by which I can take care of this one precious life.The more I imagine events alone will do it, the more I set myself up for the despair and frustration that comes from relying on something that cannot help.And the more I commit to the ongoing, long-term, diligent and patient practice of living in a way that brings life, the more genuine reason I have to hope.
"My manager (or partner, child, colleague, best friend, client, customer) should know what to do. She should. And because of this, I’m not going to ask. I’m not going to tell her what I need, what I want, or what I see. I’m going to stay quiet. Why should I say anything? Because she should just know."Where does this get you - even if it’s true?Can you think of any move more sure to rob you of your power, distance you, and deny you the very thing you want or need most - except, perhaps, your wish to remain frustrated, bitter, resentful and endlessly disappointed?
We have a difficult time with choice (or, at least, with choosing) because we have a difficult time with death.Choosing always involves the death of what is not chosen. The death of a possibility. The death of a particular future that will, now, not be.And because choosing requires us to face death, many of us would rather not choose at all.And then we can only live a life that is never quite our own, because in the absence of our own choice everything is effectively being chosen for us. There’s no less death here – we’ve simply turned our face away from it.But there is much less dignity, and much less responsibility.Stepping into our lives means, inevitably, that we step also into the death of things.
A very dedicated and successful swimmer once told me that the way to extend your reach in strokes such as the crawl is first to over-reach. To add 5cm, practice extending by 10cm for a while. The over-stretch, she told me, teaches the body to settle into a new configuration so that, on relaxing again, your established stroke lands somewhere between where you started and what you reached for.Over the coming days I want to see if I can point out some ways in which we've over-reached with the project that 
Over the past few weeks I have been reading, and very much enjoying, Rene Descartes' 
When it seems like the world is against me and everyone is judging me, when no matter where I turn I can't find a place that I feel welcomed or loved, when every glance, or look, or email is a reminder that I'm falling short, I've found it helpful to remember that what unites all of these experiences, and all of these judgements, is me.And that what looks, so obviously, to be a way the world is, is quite likely to be a way my relationship with the world is. Or, said another way, the way the world shows up for me is profoundly shaped by the kind of relationship I have with it.And this is good to remember when I'm looking to the world to change, or convinced of my own inadequacy. Because while the whole world cannot easily be called into question, the nature of a relationship can indeed be questioned and shifted over time. It's possible to take up new practices - gratitude and forgiveness among them - that radically shift a relationship with the world and in turn shift the world itself.And while I forget, frequently, and mistake the world for my relationship with it, perhaps writing this today will be a small act of remembering. And one that might help you, if you've forgotten, to remember too.