M: On Fear of Suffering, Avoiding Risk, Losing Joy→
“If you evade suffering you also evade the chance of joy. Pleasure you may get, or pleasures, but you will not be fulfilled. You will not know what it is to come home… Fulfillment… is a function of time. The search for pleasure is circular, repetitive, atemporal… It has an end. It comes to the end and has to start over. It is not a journey and return, but a closed cycle, a locked room, a cell… The thing about working with time, instead of against it, …is that it is not wasted. Even pain counts.”
– Ursula Le Guin
Reflection:
I see so many people (myself included!) avoid and run away from opportunities for joy due to fear of suffering, pain, and failure. Who and what are you turning away from in your life? What are you losing by saying no to those opportunities?
Life is not as certain as you think. So many of us operate on 2, 5, 10 year plans, when tomorrow it could all radically change. I think we need to ask ourselves more often–is it worth the risk to be patient, to feel secure, to feel ‘ready’ before we take a leap? There will always be another excuse, more growth we need to do, but there is only one today. And people, opportunities, can disappear as fast as they appear.
Friendship, Vulnerability, Asking For Help, and West Wing→
A man was walking down a street when he fell into a hole and the walls were so steep he couldn’t get out. So the man in the hole began to cry out for help.
A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, ‘Hey you. Can you help me out?’ The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.
Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, ‘Father, I’m down in this hole can you help me out?’ The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on
Then a friend walks by, ‘Hey, Joe, it’s me can you help me out?’ And the friend jumps in the hole.
Our guy, aghast, says, ‘Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.’ but his friend says, ‘Yeah, but I’ve been down here before… and I know the way out.’
Right now, all of us are in one of two places: We are either stuck in a hole… or we’re walking along the street, able to see these holes all around, able to hear those calling out.
For those of you stuck, maybe you are too afraid to ask for help, or ashamed. Maybe you don’t realize you’re stuck or you convinced yourself its not that bad. Or maybe you have so many prescriptions and prayers piled up at your feet that you’ve all but given up hope of getting out.
Hold on. Keep going. There are those out there who will stop and help. And sometimes even the earth itself shifts and changes the landscape.
And for those of you walking on the street, I know its easier to throw prayers and prescriptions–likes, comments, critiques, judgments. It’s easier to keep walking along, minding your own business, taking care of yourself and yours.And that to jump down and help someone out, to make yourself vulnerable again, to give your most valuable resources of time, energy, and love to someone, can be scary–it might backfire, it might be difficult.
Be brave. Reach down. Jump in.
You don’t have to jump into every hole. That would be foolish, because you don’t know the way out of every hole. But you’ll know which ones are familiar, and which ones aren’t. Pick the ones you know.
If you want meaningful community and deeper friendship, you must also be willing to show up where you can. You must be willing to look up from your phone, move beyond your apathy or fear, and jump in.
The Overprotected Kid and Barriers to Play
Recently the Atlantic there was an article released on
“One very thorough study of “children’s independent mobility,” conducted in urban, suburban, and rural neighborhoods in the U.K., shows that in 1971, 80 percent of third-graders walked to school alone. By 1990, that measure had dropped to 9 percent, and now it’s even lower.
When you ask parents why they are more protective than their parents were, they might answer that the world is more dangerous than it was when they were growing up. But this isn’t true, or at least not in the way that we think. For example, parents now routinely tell their children never to talk to strangers, even though all available evidence suggests that children have about the same (very slim) chance of being abducted by a stranger as they did a generation ago.”
⭐Maybe the real question is, how did these fears come to have such a hold over us? And what have our children lost—and gained—as we’ve succumbed to them?⭐
M: On Living in the Moment→
When ‘living in the moment,’ you are only capable of thinking about one person–yourself. Considering the impact of your actions on the world around you and those within it is an act of looking into the future and reaching into the past in order to give yourself the best chance of creating an outcome that is in alignment with your standards of being.
2018.11.15
M: On Peacemaking→
“Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite. Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody. But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?” – Kahlil Gibran
The peacemaker in my soul is paces in the backroom, tirelessly at work and often met with failure. To negotiate between logic and love; to choose with wisdom and also clarity.
It is not easy.
” Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes. “
M: On Friendship, Labels, and Language→
I’ve been having a couple of really fascinating conversations around friendship and language the last few days. Over the last decade, the integration of the internet into daily life has enabled us to sustain a larger number of personal, platonic relationships than in the past–with wide variances in levels of intimacy and mutual responsibility.
The word ‘friend’, which was past reserved for a smaller circle of intimate relationships, has been commodified and diluted..and is now used frequently and casually in modern society to describe this entire, wider spectrum–from casual acquaintances to those closest to our hearts.
There are a number of problems with this, but mostly, it is that this label of ‘Friend’ no longer communicates any meaningful information about the nature of that human connection or the level of intimacy and emotional truthfulness shared. Everyone has wildly different interpretations of the responsibilities that come with the assignment of the title of friend–with turmoil ensuing.
Brainpickings, a while back, made a pretty lovely post on the subject with a diagrammatic attempt to clarify this striation of platonic relationship. It definitely was a stand out in my memory, and informed my own private approach to understanding, clarifying, and categorizing the relationships in my life (which in turn helps me appropriately invest my time & energy).
Definitely take a read of this quick little article (like 6 minute read!). I also want to drop in this fantastic excerpt from Seneca( on the subject of friendship from Letters). I came across this about 10 years ago, and it definitely impacted the way I conceptualized and approached building my more meaningful Friend-ships.
“If you consider any man a friend whom you do not trust as you trust yourself, you are mightily mistaken and you do not sufficiently understand what true friendship means.
When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment.
Those persons who put last first confound their duties–who judge a man after they have made him their friend, instead of making him their friend after they have judged him.
[So] ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul. Speak as boldly with him as with yourself…”
On Having Difficult Conversations→
When facing a difficult conversation, (with partners, friends, family, etc) I learned to ask three questions:
Is what I have to say kind?
Is it true?
Is it necessary?
The first two build empathy and emotional awareness, but it’s the last question thats the most illuminating of the three–for the answer reflects how much you value the continuation and growth of that relationship.
Congruence, Trust, and Personal Integrity In Our Commitments→
When honoring your commitments becomes too hard, you have two choices: you can change your behavior to meet your commitment or you can change your values to meet your behaviors. One choice will strengthen your integrity and the other with will erode it.-Stephen Covey
Powerful reality in simple terms. Whether it is a commitment to yourself, others, a company, or a community, whether it is an agreement explicit or implicit. Taking ownership of our commitments, and acknowledging the impact of our behaviors, is a critical element of trust and relationship building
Tied to this is the concept of congruence and dissonance. A common phrase I often hear is about how we shouldn’t listen to what people say and instead look at what they do when it comes to determining character and quality. 🤔However, while there is certainly some valuable information to be gathered in that observation, I think it is incredibly important not only to hear what someone says, but to see if someone matches what they say with equivalent action. This 🙌Congruence🙌–the alignment of word and action– consistently over time, is the basis of trust and integrity.
Dissonance, meanwhile, is the opposite, and happens at all scales. Dissonance in our lives appears in small ways, such as saying you’ll get up at 7 and yet still snoozing until 8, or that you won’t eat sugar and yet still have a little chocolate after dinner to promising to send an email tonight and not doing it until tomorrow….. up to larger scales such as being lazy at work or doing the bare minimum after promising excellence; It’s deprioritizing people you say are important–ie not calling back or standing someone up or giving them time. And at the height, its major breaks of trust and commitment.
And each moment of dissonance, large or small, adds up. It not only harms the trust others have in you but the trust you have in yourself.
The Speed of Trust and Building Congruence in Your Life
📘🧙♂️
I recently finished the book Speed of Trust, and it suggests 3 things you can do to level up and improve rate of congruence in your life… to help in building deeper trust:
- 1️⃣ don’t make too many commitments. Time is a limited, invaluable resource and each commitment you make requires a certain amount. Make sure you’re committing that time to who and what and where it matters. people? self-improvement goals? your degree program? business projects?
- ️2️⃣️ treat commitments to yourself, large and small, (ie that alarm clock, your gym new years resolution, your dieting habits) as seriously as those you make to others. If you can’t trust yourself why should any anyone else? trust starts with you.
- 3️⃣️ don’t make commitments impulsively or hastily. Think through the entire lifecycle of a commitment. Discuss them with your partners, boss, associates, friends, or self. Make sure you are on the same page and can honor what you claim you can, to the level expected.
These three stepping stones can get you pretty far actually in building better trust-founded relationships. But what isn’t mentioned here is what to do when you break a commitment–when dissonance resonates?
Resorting Integrity in the Face of Dissonance
Personally, despite my best efforts, I’ve been guilty of dissonance and still on occasion find that I have made a commitment I either can not or am not actually willing to meet.❌What I have learned is that the only way to restore trust, and my integrity, and get back on track is
- 🔸 take ownership. admit you had and broke a commitment
- 🔸 acknowledge the impact. recognize that there are levels of impact–on your communities, your partners/friends emotions and well being, on the performance of your organization, etc. what are they? this is an important step because you also begin to understand why YOU are important, and why your commitment was important to begin with
- 🔸 renew the commitment, re-negotiate it, or terminate it. here is an opportunity again to set accurate expectations, make appropriate commitments, and move forward in a space of trust and integrity.
At the end of the day we should all be striving to achieve high levels of congruence in our lives, where people can trust us–that our actions and words will align. Congruence inspires confidence and trust, and demonstrates not only high levels of integrity but a capacity to make meaningful commitments–and it sits at the heart of what it is to be a Leader.
And.. whether you are a leader in a large space or just leading your own life, congruence will help you show up better not only to yourself, but to your partners, co-workers, and friends.⚔️
Reflections:
- Where and with who or what do you have commitments, and what are they?
- Do you accept those commitments as they are or do they need to be renegotiated?
- Which commitments trump others when there are conflicts of action?
- Are your words congruent with your actions?
- Who and what matters to you, and are your actions communicating that they matter to you in a consistent manner?