Losing Perspective

Have you ever gotten so busy that you felt the only thing you could do was to work harder or faster. Then you found, like I have, that the hole you found yourself in was only deeper. It is a rather maddening place to be.

Over the past few months, I’ve become more involved in the operational details of my business. To some extent, I love these details. They both make life more tangible and give me a false sense that I’m important if I’m so busy.

This is a trap! Busyness isn’t a virtue. Focusing on what’s important is a virtue. Deliberately choosing what to do next, that’s a virtue. Working more hours because I’m busy is a modern form of insanity.

So what can you (I) do when you find that you have more “on your plate” than you feel you have time for? Put less on your plate is the answer. How do you do that? You start by stopping everything. I don’t mean you go to the beach. I mean you stop for a short while (maybe an hour or a day) and observe the momentum of your life.

You will quickly see two types of work in your “in box”. Work that is something you feel you need to do so that someone who is important to you will be happy.  The other type of work, the work that really matters, is work that moves what’ s important to you forward.

Is it really that simple? Yes and No.  Yes, if you focus on what’s important to you, you will find fulfillment in your day, vast amounts of energy, and those you are working with will want to work with you more. No good comes from the fact that most of our training from early childhood on is that we are here to please others. This is a dead-end street that we spend so much of our life following.

It may seem counter-intuitive that you are doing what’s important to you. We believe that this will be selfish. Just the opposite is true. When I do something because I’m passionate about it and it serves what’s most important to me, it always creates value. I will gravitate to be around those who appreciate this value.

We are just afraid to try this out so we stay stuck in the old pattern of more hard work, rather than the work we love.

Spring Cleaning

Well, it’s officially spring, at least according to the course of the earth’s orbit around the sun. This time of the year seems to inspire cleaning. For some its their closets and for me it’s life. I know, it’s kind of dramatic, but that’s what’s up.

Recently I wrote about focusing on what’s important. What could be more important than clearing away everything that’s not essential? You may say, “sure that’s easy for you, because you work for yourself.” Actually, it’s not easy for anyone. We all hold on to what we are familiar with, sometimes with a death grip

As much as I teach about change, I really don’t like it. It’s kind of like taking medicine that you know is good for you but doesn’t taste very good. So here I am, taking my medicine and not particularly happy about.

I find in this process some simple rules help me decide what to keep doing and what to discard. The first rule is I have to enjoy what I’m doing.  Getting to the truth about this can be a little tricky. If I’m doing something that I feel is important for what I care about, such as making money for my family, I might “fake” enjoyment. So pay attention and don’t deceive yourself.

The second rule is that whatever I do is promoting growth for me. I understand so little of the breadth of the world I inhabit. Each day, I love learning (well at least most of the time). This learning is like the most important food I ingest that keeps me growing in greater awareness.

The final rule is that I find what I do to be rewarding. It could be that it’s rewarding in the traditional way we think about it such as money or other types of material goods. It can also be rewarding because it feels right. In my world, that can happen when I see someone’s life change in ways that are better for them

I have pruned away a number of areas of endeavor that don’t measure up to my three rules. When I finally realized that they were out of whack, the decision was actually easy and I wondered what took me so long.

Rather than labor on the last part of that point, I’ll just say, I’m enjoying my spring cleaning and looking forward to summer.

Time to Remember What’s Important!

Have you ever looked around in your life and wondered, “where did all the time go?” I found myself having that experience yesterday afternoon. I was talking to someone who is overseeing how I communicate in the world of social media. I suggested she attract people to read this blog. While we were talking she said, “Oh, I see you haven’t posted since last October”. Ouch..

I’ve been involved in a “startup” business and falling into my old patterns of how busy I am. The startup mentality (at least the one that I learned) is that everything in your life is put on hold to get the business started.

Now I haven’t quite followed the old script. I have been busier than normal, but my family is not being ignored (althougth I’m sure they are feeling less attention). Other aspects of my life have been taking a hit, though, when I live out of the way of the past.

As I’ve drifted into this pattern, I stopped writing. Sure, I’m writing all kinds of things for the new business. You know, the important stuff like business plans, presentations and marketing material. It’s not the same.

I miss stopping what else is going on and wondering. Wondering about what makes life tick and why I am happy or not. I ponder questions of big and small scope. In these times of reflection and the writing that come from them, I learn so much. I’ve missed both the learning and connecting with you.

So the drought is over. I’m back at the keyboard, pondering and feeling and writing. Some of you have written and encouraged me to resume posting. To those of you who proded, Thank you.

Until tomorrow.

Thomas

Finding the Quite

I must be on a fall theme. I’m sitting here in the early morning, enjoying the fire in our newly installed woodstove. There’s something about heating with wood that you can witness burning through the glass doors of the stove that brings warmth that seems unavailable in traditional heating.

The treat for me of this quietness is the feeling of grabbing some precious time for myself. Just the fire and I, sitting here talking with you. In the daily quest for a life filled with service and learning and family and friends and everything outdoors, I seem to have overlooked quiet time.

I know it’s easy to justify this oversight. Sure, I’m busier than I can remember. Physically I feel pretty maxed out, in terms of my capacity. Yet, I know that if I can pry away minutes that have no agenda or mission or task, and just sit with the silence, I feel rejuvenated. Nothing else restores me this way.

I feel a bit selfish. There is so much to do. I know this inner voice of concern is a distraction, and not true anyway. Earlier in the week, when I started writing again, I felt like I had regained a lost friend. For that’s what writing is for me. A friend, that listens patiently, offers reflection if asked, and never complains about anything.

I know that my day has a different music whenI start it this way. I tend to be more patient, more aware and way more peaceful. What needs to get done, does and things don’t, weren’t that important anyway.

So why doesn’t every day start this way, I wonder. Simply put, I get sloppy. I know that being deliberate is so much richer than living in reaction to the stimulus around me. Yet, I forget this simple truth and fall into the pattern of reactivity.  The good news for this morning is, I remembered. I celebrate remembering and sharing it with you.

May you find your own quiet moments today and remember what matters most.

Falling Leaves and Plans

I am surrounded by the most amazing maple trees. This is a new experience for me. Watching them come alive in the spring (which was May where I live), I was amazed each morning by the umbrella of leaves that changed my relationship with the sun. Sheltering me on the long scorching days of summer, my appreciation of the abundant maples expanded.

Now as they transition to winter, and the leaves that so magically appeared are changing colors, I am in awe. I look out my window and see their gold and red leaves drifting to the ground like the snow that will follow. One leave bumps into another, sometimes disturbing it’s hold and together they fall, silently.

The ground is now covered with these remnants of spring that again change. Changing from their vibrant colors to brown. They curl in lifelessness into carcasses of the forgotten spring that will be covered with snow and return the gift of their decomposition to the tree that bore them.

All this happens without one instruction. No grand action plan has been created that guides the trees through their life’s cycle. Yet, I seem to be bound by my need for how. How can I make the program I am teaching work? I need a clear plan, of course. How can I buy the land I desire? A plan is needed so I make sure that I have the money I require.

Attachment to plans is the root of false security and suffering. Plans are today’s music helping to focus my thoughts. That’s good. When I think of plans as more than that, however, I am setting myself up to operate in a manner that is different than the way things are.

Life unfolds in its purity and uniqueness, beyond the scope of my ability to understand, like the unfolding of the trees outside my window. If I use plans to sharpen my ability to adapt to what I am finding before me, then they are fulfilling their true purpose.

So whether you are writing a business plan or today’s to do list, remember not to be lost in the plan, or the most amazing possibilities that are occurring right before you may be missed.

To Conform or Not to Conform – The Story of the Big Orange Splot

Last night, I was reading to our young boys one of my favorite children’s stories, The Big Orange Splott by Daniel Pinkwater. In this story, Mr. Plumbean’s world is disturbed in a most unusual way when a seagull drops a can of orange paint on the roof of his perfect house. You see, his house is like all the others in his neighborhood. This unlikely event starts a change that I invite you find out more about by reading the book.

I was reflecting on Mr. Plumbean last night and he wandered into my dreams. Conformity is such a strong force in our lives. It used to be called “keeping up with the Jones”. How we can belong to our local tribe by being alike seems to compose our actions in ways that we don’t really understand. Marketers know this, and people like Malcolm Gladwell have talked about it. Conforming is as good a name as any to describe this phenomenon.

I have always fancied myself as a non-conformist. I tell myself that I don’t like “the conventional wisdom” – another way of saying I don’t like others telling me what to think. Yet, I see the many ways that I allow what other’s think to influence my thoughts and feelings and actions. I want to be liked, so I stop considering what I feel and let others shape my life.

The act of non-conformity is not so much an act of rebellion, but a declaration of independence. It’s not selfish, although maybe your mother told you it was so. It’s your right to choose what you feel is right. One of my favorite aspects of Buddhism is the following that has been ascribed to the Buddha: “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

We assimilate so much based upon what we are told. Look at our current political campaigns for president. Candidates feel that if they say something, even if it isn’t true, we will believe it because we don’t take the time to follow the Buddha’s wisdom. The compelling story teller can influence us because we have forgotten that we are the ones who decide what’s true for us.

We pride ourselves as Americans on our fierce independence of thought. That may have been so a few hundred years ago, but what about now? Without our return to discernment, we will miss the amazing adventure life offers outside the lines of conformity, and the opportunity to create a life filled with wonder will be left behind.

A reminder to stop thinking!

I was at the American Airlines ticket counter last week trying to change my ticket so I could return home a day earlier than planned. I thought that I could go standby for the flights and fly without a fee. That thought was immediately popped by the ticket agent,who, I can readily say, was a very pleasant woman oriented to being helpful.

She said that there was the possibility of paying a $150 fee and using the ticket I already had. She then arched her brows as she scanned her computer screen and said it didn’t look good. I noticed that I immediately was filled with thoughts of all my recent problems with American. I was getting up a good head of steam to tell her all about it. After all, they owed me some special favors, didn’t they?

As I was watching the irritation and righteousness roll in, I realized what was happening. I was on the verge of jumping into a very old pattern. “Oh,oh”, I said to myself, “this approach won’t be very useful.” So I shifted my attention to feeling appreciation and love for the ticket agent. I shifted my gaze and put my attention on the ticket agent next to her, felt appreciation for her, and continued moving my attention to all the people I could see.

I began to feel calm and knew that everything was going to be just fine. The righteousness went back into its shell and I was humming to myself. In a few minutes, the agent smiled and said everything had worked. I could get on a flight that left within 2 hours and I’d be back home by early evening.

I was reminded in that moment that my best thinking often creates such a mess – and its avoidable. I smile as I write this posting from my seat on the airplane knowing I’ll soon be home with my beloved and boys a day earlier, and with no drama necessary.

One person’s weed is another’s flower

Yesterday, I was sitting in our back yard having a conversation with a client. Our home sits along a vibrant, spring-fed creek. The beauty and tranquility of this spot, along with its rushing waters, creates a sense of peacefulness and wonder.

I was gazing across the stream looking at a “weed” that had sprung up over the past few weeks. I was told by a friend that it’s called jewel weed. It is beautiful, that’s for sure. It slender stalks are capped by beautiful orange flowers. The flowers are a favorite for the local hummingbirds.

Then I discovered some more about these “weeds”. The juice in their stems is a very effective antidote for poison oak. I have been an adult sufferer of poison oak. In fact, it was so systemic at one time that I was convinced the only way to curb its effects was intense treatments with steroids, which had all sorts of complications. If only I’d know about these “weeds” then.

As I was marveling at the wonders of this “weed”, I began to consider how we treat what we consider “weeds” in our lives. I first consulted Webster’s to find its preferred definition of the word. Here’s what I found: “a weed is a valueless plant growing wild, especially one that grows on cultivated ground to the exclusion or injury of the desired crop.”

I could feel the power of the word valueless, and the notion, “injury of the desired crop”. I’ve been taught that weeds are to be killed or rooted out with vigor.

How often do I look at my surroundings thinking that which I don’t understand is a weed? This could be an annoying acquaintance , a motorist who cuts me off in traffic, a relative whom I find annoying or an ethnic group that I don’t understand. The range is great in my personal world of weeds.

What’s happening is that my reality doesn’t fit with what I’m seeing. This reality is cultivated over a lifetime of experiences that shape how I view the world. It is my personal realm of truth. So when I see something that doesn’t fit, or disturbs my orderly world, I classify it as a “weed”. Now, I don’t use that word, but I do feel it’s valueless and it grows wild on my cultivated ground of reality.

I thought about this over the past day and find that my world is filled with weeds. When I encounter something that I don’t understand or doesn’t fit, I immediately want to classify it as something that is not useful and discard it. Wow, how much of the world am I missing?

LIke the jewel weed along the creek that could soothe my poison oak, the world is filled with experiences that at first don’t seem to fit my orderly thinking. If I can transcend this limitation, and not push away what doesn’t fit, I may have a surprise that truly astonishes.

From Here to Simplicity

So you get caught up in your daily life’s stress. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon and you have lost perspective about what’s important. How do you know this? You are gearing up to spend four or five more hours getting “things” done before your day is over.

In our culture, there is a rationalizing story that hard work is the way to success. I come from many years in Silicon Valley. Company leaders don’t feel you are pulling your weight if you aren’t putting in 55- 60 hours a week, and go home and continue reading and answering emails.

What’s the cost? Everything that’s vital to our life is the cost. As I’m burning the midnight oil working on a project, I start transferring greater and greater importance to my work. Every day, I inch my way further and further away from the people I care most about, I deny my health, or I ignore the need in my soul for quiet.

All this to feed the beast of success. Success, so I can have more stuff. More stuff, that for the most part, isn’t essential to my life, and requires gobs of non-renewable resources to build or use.

This pattern is played out every day all over this country. If that’s not bad enough, we seem to be infecting the rest of the world. As consumer spending grows here and in Europe, it fuels manufacturing in Asia. The growing population of factory workers and supporting business employees want their taste of the fruits of consumerism.

Where does this end? It ends in a mess. Right now, we are consuming more resources than the planet can replenish. The problem is there is a tipping point and the stuff we all want will rise dramatically in price until it’s only available to the elite. We hard workers will have less and less reward.

Now many feel that the solution is some government intervention, or a restructuring of large businesses. I don’t think that’s going to happen right away. Are we doomed? Not necessarily. A movement called Transition Town is emerging in more parts of the world. It’s doing some wonderful things that help bring us back into harmony with the earth and each other. This is good, yet insufficient.

What’s called for, is a real change of perspective. We are called to reframe our material needs. Move from working and living so we can have stuff to only having what we truly needs. This will mean a lot less for most of us. For those who are practicing this radical simplicity, the reports are encouraging.

They report that they feel freer. They spend significantly less time working at jobs. They are healthier, and their relationships are the richest they’ve been in years.

Even with these appealing outcomes, the change to living a simpler life appears daunting. Does it mean that I have to give all my stuff away. Nope! It means that you start getting deliberate and honest. You have anything that you require to have a safe, healthy, harmonious life. These three criteria are at the root of four questions you can ask about anything you have, or are considering having.

What are these four questions? OK, I’ll share.

1. Is this possession required for my personal or family safety?
2. Does this possession promote my well-being or health?
3. Do I agree with the practices employed to create this possession?
4. If I don’t have this possession, will my quality of life be truly diminished?

Remember that real honesty is required. Questions like number 3 require us to consider something that we mostly overlook. How was this manufactured? Was the labor employed in a way I would agree with ? Is it done with the most ecologically sound approach? Is the building of this the best use of the natural resources required?

Now here’s the key for the four question exercise. If your answer is no to any of these questions, it’s probably a good idea to pass along the possession if you already have it or not acquire it if you do.

Whew, you may say. That’s a lot. Yep. If you don’t want to drop over the cliff as a consequence of our continuing mindset of more, you are offered this opportunity. It won’t hurt. It will just be a bit uncomfortable for a short while, and then the real benefits will kick in.

I’m writing this not just for you. I was here at my desk until midnight last night. This was very familiar. I could rationalize the situation and say that I don’t normally fall into this type of behavior. I know how easy it is to fall into the old habit, and I’d be off to the races.

The consequences would be more severe this time. I know better. I’ve tasted life without this stress. Good, I say to myself, I can pull back now. Yes, and its this practice of reflection and writing that is bringing me back.

What do you do to maintain your sanity? How do you remember where you have fallen off the path of a balanced life and bring yourself back? Perhaps this is something worthwhile to munch on over the weekend.

The Cup is Half Full

A few days ago, I started this conversation about the half empty, half full cup. I talked about the implications of looking at the cup as half empty. You can go to the earlier posting on this blog to catch up.

Today, I’m in the world of half-full cups. We generally say that the cup half full folks are optimists. They see opportunities in everything. True, and there is more to it than that.

I have studied optimists for some time. I have a tendency toward optimism, so it’s personal. I always felt being a half full cup person was far better than being a half empty believer. It let me feeling I was better than others.

I bounced around thinking this for most of life. Then I met, head-on, someone who made me look like a pessimist. At first, I was enthralled. Great, someone who everyone loves to be around because of their bright outlook. As time wore on, I began to see fraying around the edges of this perspective.

One day, it dawned on me that I was around this person so I could see myself better. It’s that way when a big lesson is up. I’ve written often enough about the impact of living in the future. This is often the orientation of an optimist. They look beyond today, and find how tomorrow’s good outcome will take care of today’s problem.

This leaning into the future is contagious. So many of us want things to be better than they are. There are parts of our lives we don’t like. So, if we think about how things could be different, and apply a bit of hope, then “poof” all is well.

We all had a first hand example of how this brand of optimism works during the 2008 campaign. President Obama’s HOPE poster said it all. We were in a terrible economic mess, and we hoped that this man could get us out of it. This hope infected enough voters, and tipped the election in his direction.

I remember watching Obama’s speech the night of the election. After a few minutes of thanking everyone, he started to reshape his conversation with the American people. The road ahead was going to take hard work. He warned that there would be no quick solutions. I thought I could see in his eyes the awareness that his use of the optimists mantra of hope may turn on him.

Hope is something that is honored as an important attribute. I’m not so sure. Hope, to me, overlooks what’s right before my eyes. Hope has me believe in magical solutions that are often about what will happen tomorrow, rather than being present with what is, today.

I feel that confidence is a far greater quality than hope. Confidence is informed by the current situation, but not limited by it. In reading David McCoullough’s book, 1776, I was moved by George Washington’s confidence in the ability of the Continental Army to overcome great odds against the British army. He wasn’t hopeful. In fact, in some of his private letters, he reveals his concerns about the magnitude of the challenge. Yet, he felt confident, even knowing this situation, that they would prevail.

Sometimes, people will say that hope is the only way beyond a seemingly impossible situation. I disagree. You see, the obstacles I perceive are derived from what i believe. It’s these beliefs that create the feeling of impossibility. When I look at the world through these beliefs, I can’t see things as they are. I see the obstacles, or I see possibilities that aren’t real.

I’m becoming a reformed optimist. I have great help from my wife, who asks questions that puncture my optimism. For the longest time, I was really annoyed by these questions. I said to myself that she wasn’t supportive of my ambitions. I felt she didn’t understand what I could see.

I realized that she wasn’t infected by the emotions of optimism, and she could see some things I was overlooking. I had a fear, unknown at the time, that if I wasn’t optimistic, I would be stuck in a bleak world of “can’t do”. I would look around and capitulate to seeming adversity.

My experience has been very different than what I feared. I don’t have the emotional highs so much, and that fits me better. I also notice one of the other impacts of optimism. I would consistently override intuition. I would know something so clearly that there was no doubt. Yet, my optimism would sweep me right past this knowing and into the realm of wishing thinking. The outcome was often not very pretty.

I can see that pessimists have the same challenge. It’s just the other side of this coin of not seeing things as they are. In the end, the cup isn’t half-full or half-empty. The cup has a certain volume of liquid in it, and that’s it.

When we make our world something it isn’t, we are on the roller-coaster of emotional drama that some call suffering. Stepping into the reality of this moment is both a cure for both optimism and pessimism, and a way to a life that is free beyond comparison.