Is what you're asking of others and asking of yourself exhausting or enlivening?The way you're working, living, speaking, demanding, offering, contributing: bringing life and possibility, or having it rapidly or gradually slip away?This is not a trivial question, and over time has enormous consequence, whether you face it or not.Can you even tell?And have you considered the consequence of having things just continue as they are?
In it for who?
Once in a while you need to ask yourself who you're in life for.One way of being in life is to be only in it for yourself - your security, your status, your comfort, your peace of mind.Another way is to be in it only for those close to you - your immediate family, perhaps, and your friends.Of you can be in life for a specific community - perhaps your organisation, or people of the same social background, same income bracket, same religion, same skin colour, same orientation to life as you.Or perhaps you can be in life for the people who will come after you - all the generations yet to be born.Or maybe you can even be in life for the sake of the whole of life itself.Which of these, when you look at it, will produce the most meaningful, principled, generous, flourishing life and work? And which the smallest, most constrained, most petty, most trivial? And which one are you the midst of living right now?
Right-sizing
You probably have no idea of the actual scale of your presence in the world.Under-sizing:
I'm so smallThey'll never take any noticeI can't do anythingWho cares what I see and know?Better not to cause any ripplesNobody listens, why would they?Who, little me?
Over-sizing:
I'm so importantIt's all about meI'm entitled to whatever I wantGet out of my wayYou owe me
It shouldn't be surprising that you adopt one or both of these positions, such is our desire to hide from or conquer the complexity and confusion of life. But, in the end, both reduce the world to something small and rather petty. They are a way of manipulating life to get what you want, or avoid what you don't want to have to feel. And each diverts you from the duty of stepping up and contributing what is only yours to give.When you right-size yourself, you'll find out that you have both immense power and immense responsibility, because to be human is inescapably to be a creator of worlds.You always have the power to speak, act, imagine, trust, create, persuade, love, build, challenge, connect, listen, invent and teach. And with it the responsibility that comes from knowing that everything you say and everything you do shapes you and the lives of those around you. And when you right-size yourself, and you see all this, all you'll want to do is serve.
What are you running from?
Most of the time we're running, doing whatever we can to avoid experiencing the anxiety and fear that are an inevitable part of living. Do you really need to check your emails on the train, at the bus stop, while we're talking, in the bathroom, as you're about to begin a new project, instead of calling me, when you get home, while you're putting the children to bed? Is reading the latest tweet or news headline as important as you make it out to be? Or are you just numbing yourself, falling into the soft reassuring glow of the screen, longing for the message that will soothe you, save you, make everything alright again?Over time, your habits of disconnection render the world a shadow of itself, dull your relationships, and blunt the sharp sword of your contribution. It might not look like it, but given enough repetition you really do become what you do.Is your habit of distracting yourself actually supporting you in being the kind of person you want to be?
Turning in
If you want to be up to something beyond fitting in, settling down or taking up the roles others have made for you, you're going to have to look closely and seriously at your relationship with tension. And ask yourself, when you feel your body tense, which way do you go?You may not be able to address this question until you spend some time quietly observing yourself. What does tension actually feel like in your body? Where does it show up? What is its quality? How does it move?The easiest way to interpret tension is as a problem to be resolved. So you move away from it, dissipate it, release it so that it can't trouble you. You'll have your own well practiced ways of doing this, and if you continue to observe yourself for a while you might find out what they are.But know that if your move is away, always away, you're acting to keep the world exactly as it is. Because tension is stirred at that exquisite moment when difference or possibility present themselves to you. The possibility of speaking with courage, of standing out, of surprising others and yourself, of being known in a new way, of being fully and radically in contact with others, of standing for something - all profound sources of tension.So take on a bigger, more generous interpretation of what your body is up to. How about tension as an invitation, a doorway, the opening of a new horizon that you've never experienced before? Tension as a profound call to throw yourself wholeheartedly in to the riskiness and creativity of being alive.If you want to be up to something in the world, sooner or later you're going to have to step in and learn to stay in the midst of what you've turned away from for so long.
A million small choices
At every moment you have a choice.Will you choose that which magnifies dignity and freedom? Or that which reduces life step by step to a shadow of itself?The choices are often subtle, and it can sometimes be terribly hard to know which is which. And the familiar responses of a lifetime, turned to habit through endless repetition, have a weight and trajectory of their own which can make it look like you have no choice at all.But your relationships with others, with your work, and with life itself are born of a million small choices like this.Do you even know what kind of life you're in the midst of choosing?
Not really my life
"This is not really my life," you say. "I'm just getting ready."You'll be ready to live properly, you tell me, in earnest, only when
You get promotedYou find the perfect partnerYou make some moneyPeople appreciate youYou have it all worked outThe children leave homeYou get discoveredYou find happinessYou sell the companyYou're not so confusedYou live in your dream houseYou feel peacefulYou become famousYou find out what you're meant to do
You've been taught to live this way by happy-ever-after fairy tales, celebrity fantasies and by believing that there's some step which will take away your suffering, clear up your uncertainty, allow you to settle at last. So you've continually postponed fully inhabiting your life, because every goal reached reveals to you how lost you still are and how much further there is to go.Living in a suspended state saves you from coming into contact with the fierceness and love and immediacy of living. You learn to settle with life lived at a distance, a perpetual watching and waiting for the answer that will free you.What if you gave up the idea that anything or anyone can relieve you from your longing and from your confusion? What then? You'd have no choice but to throw yourself headlong, passionately into your life. Or maybe to allow life to sweep you off your feet. And who knows what might come from that?
All made up
MoneyOrganisationsManagementLeadershipHierarchyGovernmentWhat we choose to measureWhat gets to be valuableThe roles we take upWhat to wearWhat a relationship isWhat's in fashionHow to live togetherHow we travelWhat constitutes successHow you talk with your colleaguesWhat's worth doingHow to respond to fear, and loveWhat needs fixingWhat's yours to doAll of them, made up by human beings. Some of them even made up by you.Of course, knowing we invented all of this doesn't mean it's illusionary, nor that any of it can be changed by an act of imagination alone.But when you find out that so much of what we take to be 'just the way things are' is nothing of the sort, how can you help yourself from doing whatever you can to improve things?
Better to fall
The floor of the martial arts dojo where I am a student is covered wall to wall with soft mats. Because if you want to learn to move in a new way, it turns out it's better to to fall than to try to stay upright. Staying safe, looking good, holding on all work directly against the risks and failures needed to learn anything in a profound, lasting, embodied way.Many of us have a never fall strategy for getting through life. If you hold on tight enough, tense your muscles and hold your breath then maybe nobody will ever see that you're incomplete. Perhaps if you make sure you're always in control, that everything is perfect, you'll never find yourself flat on your back. Maybe you'll be able to escape the shame that's lurking just out of sight, or the harsh inner criticism that threatens to engulf you.All this does is create a very tight spiral in which to live. And a very small space in which to learn.What huge vistas would open for you if you gave up keeping it all together and allowed yourself to be human for once, in all your extraordinariness and all your imperfection?
Feels like me
That familiar feeling again. She said "You've let me down" and something dropped in your belly, your posture collapsed just a little, and the world seemed to lose its solidity. You know how this goes. You'll deal with the deflation by apologising and the energy for all your projects and plans will slip away until long after you get home.Or you're five minutes late for the meeting. Pulse racing. Tightness in your chest. You're holding your breath, mind whirling, all the excuses and ways you'll save face working out as you dash down the hall. You arrive hot, out of breath, mutter an excuse that blames the trains or the email system or someone else for holding you up, and then stay disengaged from the conversation, wrapped up in your shame and self-judgement.Or maybe he sent you an email telling you he wouldn't be seeing you as you'd arranged. Fury and resentment knot your stomach. Your jaws clench, your shoulders tighten. "It's always this way," you tell yourself, "he's so self-centred". And already your fingers are tapping out a reply: cold, distancing, laced with judgements and sarcasm.Those feelings that are so familiar, that 'feel like you', are where your freedom can begin. Because every emotion conjours up a world, in which certain people loom close and others become far away, in which some actions become obvious - necessary even - and others seem impossible. And from the world that's revealed to you by your moods you act: the combination of the familiar feeling and well-rehearsed action giving you a sense of who you are. In a way, over time, your way of responding indeed becomes who you take yourself to be.You can see that this is the case by observing yourself for a while. What kind of possibilities become available to you in love, hate, resentment, joy, boredom, anger, frustration, sincerity, cynicism, fear, panic, anxiety, gratitude? And what familiar actions do you tend to take? What results do they bring?The first steps towards your freedom are taken when you find out that there is no right 'thing to do' to respond to what you're feeling. What seems so self-evident might just be the result of years of practice that's conditioned you to react in a particular way. Don't confuse its familiarity with appropriateness.Next time you find yourself propelled into action like this see what happens if you make a change - and just a small one - in your response.What happens if you do the opposite of that which your body seems to compel you to do? You may just find that new possibilities begin to open for you and those around you... that the world starts to open up in ways you'd never imagined.
Image courtesy Malene Thyssen