Between the moment one person asks and the other responds comes a necessary but often neglected step - a conversation between both of you to determine what's actually being asked for.I know it sounds obvious when said this way but how often do you take the time to talk and listen before you say 'yes' (which most of us are conditioned to do) or 'no'?Without this conversation for clarification, it's so easy to launch into a project that's:
- not wanted (those three pressured and frantic days writing a financial report when all that was needed was a single paragraph summary)
- not yours to do (the hours you spent trying to understand the figures when there's someone else who could do it in a half hour)
- not something you were ever really prepared to do (and now you have to find a way to wriggle out of it, or delay, or pretend you're busy, or make excuses)
Hierarchical relationships at work make this more difficult, of course. Perhaps you avoid the conversation because you don't want to look like you don't know, or like you're unsure, or like you're anything less than fully committed. And then there's navigating feelings of uncertainty, or fear, or shame.But how can a yes be a yes, or a no be a no, unless you understand what it is you're saying yes or no to? And how much precious effort and time gets wasted on the 'yes' that was yes to the wrong thing or never really meant at all?
Photo Credit: Pulpolux !!! via Compfight cc
I start my 47th year of life today. Around 160 years ago (less than four of my current life spans laid end-to-end) a full third of my contemporaries would already have reached the end of their lives, and less than half of us could have expected to live beyond our late 50s (see source [1] below).Today, at least in the UK, two-thirds of us will live into our late seventies and many into our eighties. What a blessing, if we'll choose to appreciate it while we can. And what possibilities, if we'll find a way to use our chances of vastly extended life in service of those around us and those yet to come.Readers of my work here will know of my interest in ongoing adult development, which takes place through marked increases in our capacity to make sense of the world, to inhabit longer time horizons (knowing ourselves as inheritors of a deep past and contributors towards a long future), to be less 'had' by impulsivity and narcissism, to understand the world of others, to exercise more autonomy, and to take action in systems and contexts which are bigger than our own immediate concerns [2].Such development is very natural, if the opportunities come our way and if we're courageous enough and have enough support to take them. But it is quite different from the rote-learning, keeping up appearances, and getting ahead that so many of us are taught at school and in our workplaces. It typically requires facing into difficulty rather than turning away, welcoming back the parts of ourselves that we've disowned, failing and falling and getting back up again. It's not served by looking good, or knowing the facts, or keeping it all together, or learning just what's comfortable and familiar, or comparing ourselves with others.And it's probably the most important work we can do with the gift of these extra decades, if we're lucky enough to have them. Because the world faces challenges of a complexity our ordinary way of speaking, thinking, acting and relating to one another are often ill-equipped to face. And perhaps we have been given these decades - through the long slow evolution of human beings as a species - precisely so that we can work on the problems our shorter-lived ancestors never got the chance to tackle.References:[1] Modal Age at Death: Mortality Trends in England and Wales 1841-2010, 
As we come to know quite how brief and how fragile our lives are, the less sense it makes to hold anything back.Will we miss this precious chance to bring ourselves; our lives; the fullness of our pounding hearts? Will we withhold from life what is ours to bring? Will we mute our aliveness by repetition, by staying safe, by what's expected, by going to sleep?We can be sure of this: each of us is a unique intersection, a horizon between what is and what can be that will never be repeated.But if only it were as easy as saying 'don't hold back'. If only there was not so much we must undo so that life can shine through. The habits of our bodies: halting; rigid; curling in; puffing up; tensing; defending us from whatever we've decided we must not feel. The emotions that catch us in their grip: anger; shame; fear. And our habits of mind: all the ways we pity ourselves, and all the ways we're sure that life's unfairness is only happening 'to me'.But undo we must, and undo we can, if we'll dedicate ourselves, if we'll find support, if we'll put in the effort, if we'll let ourselves feel our heartbreak, if we'll welcome what we've pushed away, if we'll be patient, if we'll allow ourselves to let go.And as we undo, as what we held so tightly slowly breaks apart and as life starts to flow through us, we find that it's true what they say: it really is the cracks that let the light in.
I wrote this, for my friend and colleague Christy, two and half years ago. But it's perfect also for my friend and colleague Pamela, who I'm remembering today.
Behind all our attempts to manipulate and control the world so it's just as we'd like it (and behind the pain, frustration, sorrow and disappointment that our inevitable failure brings), we're just trying to find a way to feel safe and to feel at home. I think we'd be better off knowing this.Then we'd set aside our mission to control what can't be controlled. And we'd work on how to feel safe and at home in the world as it is - in this ever-changing, surprising, vast and mysterious life in which we find ourselves.
Ten factors that are more important than the productivity you're measuring:
How important it is to discover that often it's our very fixation with freedom that most enslaves us.We easily think that we're most free when we can choose whatever we want, whenever we want. Or when we're free of binding, lasting ties (anything we can't get out of when we choose).But one of the defining qualities of our humanity is our capacity to care, deeply, about things. Care always implies commitment, and always implies dedication. How much can we say we care about anything or anyone if we can leave them behind when the whim takes us?It's a paradox, for sure. Our freedom to be completely free holds us back from dedicating ourselves. And the very act of narrowing our options, of choosing what we'll commit to and what we won't, opens up the widest freedom to participate in the life that's in front of us.
Three basic human fears about what we do:
You're standing for the first time on the edge of a platform above a wide and deep canyon, harnessed, checked and secured to a zip wire that descends at a steep angle towards the forest floor below. Many people have gone before you. And yet you hesitate at the edge, feeling both the way this possibility calls to you, and the way it frightens you.Can you distinguish your anxiety at this moment from your fear? They're different, in important ways.Fear is related to the threat to your safety, real or imagined. I'll die here. The harness will undo. I'll fall. I'll go too fast. I won't slow down in time. Something will go wrong. I'll never be able to get back again.Anxiety is related to your freedom to step into this possibility or to step back, and your knowledge that the choice is yours alone. I want to do this, but I don't. I've never done this before. I won't know how to feel. I won't know how to be with what I do feel. I won't be able to deal with how unfamiliar this is going to be, with being changed by the experience. I won't know how to be with others when I'm done. I won't know how to be myself. Every developmental opportunity in our lives is like this, when we find ourselves standing on the brink of a new opening, a deep, broad vista stretched out before us that we suspect will change us. And while fear can sometimes be addressed with competent support - someone who can show us the equipment, explain how everything works, point out the successful descents that came before, and give us the statistics - anxiety cannot be resolved in this way, because anxiety is to do with what it is to become the one who leaps.And when we want to travel the wire, or start to see that we simply must do so, what we need most is not people who'll push us over the edge, nor people who'll try to pull us back to the familiar world that is no longer serving us, but those who'll stay with us a while, peer with us into the opening, and explore what we see with compassion, curiosity and wonder until we're ready to do the work for ourselves that nobody else can do.
