Not Easy: Just Clear

By Jim Selman | Bio

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Yesterday I was coaching a friend of mine. I was sharing a bit of how important it is to ‘come from’ your vision for your life. Our future is always a product of our actions, and our actions are always a correlate of how we relate to the future. When we act as if the future has already happened, then it is only a matter of time before that future is realized or we learn what we need to learn to achieve it. Her response was, “Well, you make it sound so simple, but it is too abstract and I need to know ‘how’ to have what I want in the future.” This was my response.

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"I understand. Everything is abstract until we learn it.

I don't think learning a new way of being or a different way of observing the world is simple. I think it is clear when we can set aside our conventional wisdom and ‘try on’ a different mindset. Not easy, but clear.

If you are 100% focused on 'how' and 'doing', then it is impossible to learn a different way of being.

We normally try to BE different (or become resigned that we can't change the way we are) by trying to change what we DO—we try to modify our behavior. It doesn't work that way.

We must separate ‘being’ and ‘doing’ as two separate domains.

Our way of being is not CAUSED by our behavior any more than a Picasso painting is caused by the brush. It is CREATED. Moreover, your way of being doesn't CAUSE anything, it is the CONTEXT that defines the boundaries of what can be accomplished, all meaning and whatever is ‘doable’. Once we can keep these domains distinct (by creating the distinction), then we have a choice about who we are and can move in a world of commitment and coordination that is not a 're-action' to whatever our history (our story) about a given situation is telling us.

The 'how to' is simply changing our conversations and having some mastery of committed speaking and listening. It also helps to have a coach.

If we can accept that 'who we are' as persons is not separate from 'who we are’ as parents, lovers, managers and so forth, then that is a beginning to the awareness that we CREATE how reality occurs for us through our interpretations in language. There are many choices and possibilities beyond merely COPING with our circumstances.
Many of us are masters at coping with difficult circumstances. But we often speak of our lives as if they are permanently conflicted in terms of our balance between home and work, where we live, who we are with, our private life, and our concerns about the future. This is normal. Most of us have demonstrated intelligence and talent in getting along and being reasonably satisfied. But the big question isn’t about what is reasonable. The big question is:

 Are we TRULY happy and satisfied, empowered and enthusiastic about the future on a day-to-day basis?

If so, there is nothing more to say. If not, then the questions are “What is missing?” and “Can we CREATE what is missing?” If we can’t, then we are left to cope with what we have.

My worldview is all about BEING, not DOING. In our conventional worldview, there is no distinction between ‘being’ and ‘thinking’—there is no BEING. (This is the Cartesian paradigm: the “I think, therefore I am” worldview.) In this view, BEING doesn't exist except as something metaphysical or as an abstraction or as a 'thing' and object.

The key to mastery of self (and, therefore, happiness) is to be able to tolerate the discomfort of not understanding (or believing) and to stay connected and committed to the possibility that:

1. As beings, we are not objects.
2. We have choice at every moment regarding our way of being and how we relate to the world.
   
3. We have the power to 'have it all' in terms of maximizing our happiness, health, experience of love, being valued and self-expression (our well-being).

Another part of mastery is the understanding that the future has already happened. That is, our actions are always correlated with how 'the future' appears or occurs for us. If we can change how the future occurs for us, then we can have a different future than the one that is available to us from the past—from  'the circumstantial (Cartesian) drift'."

Written by eldering at Learning

Tagged with: being context doing learning mastery paradigm