Finding Your Passion

There are a lot of articles and books out there that help you to locate your passion, or more wisely, to stop looking between couch cushions and start being aware of your existing passions.

Let’s start with the bad news: if something isn’t making you jump out of bed excited in the morning, there is no exercise or article that’ll change that. You have likely architected your life to be repetitive, safe, controlled, and unexposed to passionate living. Surprised? Shouldn’t be. We gravitate to circumstances that provide predictability, control, stability, and future benefit. So we actually architect a life that attempts to avoid those things that are risky, exciting, spontaneous, and soulful, and this is what passionate living is all about…but there’s more.

Let’s talk about passion:

  • Personally I don’t have a passion for knitting, but some people do, so we know that passions are individualized
  • Some people have a passion for fixing up old cars or gardening, so passion can be a process
  • Some passions are about completing stamp collections or ensuring thing from the past remain untouched in the present, so passions can be outcomes
  • Some passions are about a general practice, like art, and some passions are for very specific things like the medieval harpsichord, so passions can vary in scope
  • Passions are identified from exposure. Olympic athletes, dancers, actors, and medieval harpsichord players all discovered their passions when something inside of them resonated with something to which they were exposed. This point is key and worth repeating. Passions are identified when a person is exposed to something and their soul resonates with that process, thing, or outcome.
  • If you talk to many passionate people they’ll tell you that their passions were not identified instantaneously, the passion only arose when they discovered the characteristics of the practice at deeper levels of complexity. So passions can be ‘love at first sight’, or ‘grown over more exposure and/or practice’. This is another very important point:
    • Some passions are identified instantly (however these may be lust and happy hormones masking as passion, so be cautious)
    • Some passions become passions only by engaging our desire for complexity, challenge, excellence, mastery (for some people, they can adopt most any activity that offers challenge and complexity and be passionate about it, which is what Flow is all about).
  • Passions, IMHO, are things that make you bound out of bed in the morning and lose track of time at night when engaged in them. Many of us leap out of bed on a travel day, so we can be passionate about the unknown and possibility of adventure
  • Passions are not about being sanctimonious, attention seeking, personal gain, or anything else that fuels the ego or offers a sense of belonging by providing access to a community.

So to borrow a mathematical structure: passion = (x) new exposure + resonance

Passion is found by one or more exposures to something to which you have resonance. So, if your current life lacks passion, you will need to expose yourself to new things (no, I’m not advocating flashing), and in those exposures, do it enough so that it challenges you not from newbie frustration, but from needing to improve your skill along a spectrum of expertise. The wilder and more differentiated experiences, the better. How do you know you’re passionate about the plight of wildebeest in Botswana until you get your butt to Africa and really understand their circumstances? How do you know you’re passionate about harvesting olives in Italy unless you’re in Italian olive groves? And the best part of choosing such wild experiences is that you can find your passion in a zillion things in between, like travel, speaking Italian, growing vegetables, harvesting machinery, Italian cheese making, and every other thing to which you’d be exposed.

Not every passion identification mission needs travel; what it needs is to be very different from your patterns. The more difference, the higher your potential for resonance. And better still if you don’t ‘bring yourself’ on these experiences because you will want to seek comfort and familiarity and also find things that gel with your tenacious self identity rather than show up open and disarmed for anything that may tickle your soul. Go to a tractor pull. Attend a support group. Visit a part of town you’ve never been. Seriously. Choose things you would never in a million years choose to do. This is where your passions will be illuminated if you remember the math and don’t get discouraged when it isn’t love at first sight.

Reflex, Reaction, Response

In decision science, a properly understood context often makes the ‘decision’ a natural consequence that requires little thought. Contextualizing, therefore, is the activity we conduct poorly. Let’s explore!

I was an avid squash player and one day I hurt my back pretty badly. What was my decision here? There is no decision to be made. If I am functionally incapable of playing, then I cannot play until I am medically cleared to safely play. Some would say I should suck it up or power through it. That would be the ego talking. It is a separate choice to relinquish your captain’s chair to your ego or not.

For clarity, I like to use the 3Rs:

Reflex – As the name implies, something that occurs immediately as a result of the situation. “Rebound” or “reflection” also work nicely and maintain the same alliterative fun, like a billiard ball bouncing off a bank (oooh, that was alliterative fun too). If you place your hand on a hot stove your reflex is to remove it. If a ball is sailing toward your face your reflex is to avoid it or brace for impact. No thought is required, a reflex is what occurs by universal determination automatically.

Reaction – Stems from a cause but unlike a reflex is a learned response. When my kid was young and barfed all over me I would adeptly sop up the puke from my child and ensure he was okay and then attended to the smelly mess on me. No emotion, no revulsion, just mechanical puke attendance. If someone random walks over and barfs on you, by contrast, this is disgusting and you will not be calm. You will totally wig out. In both cases you will react with an understanding (the baby needs to be okay and then I need to restore hygiene or, I may need to right a situation and then I need to restore hygiene). The only difference is your state of mind in an otherwise mechanical set of steps you now must complete given what transpired.

Response – The whole shebang, where something (a decision point) has come to be and you need to consider your best course of action out of several options before it is acted out. Your neighbour is parking partially in your driveway. Your partner wants to get a tattoo. You are contemplating getting a puppy. Here is where you’ve got the most latitude to exercise your free will and not just react automatically to things.

Why does this distinction matter? Many people misattribute decisions to others that are not decisions, they are reactions, or natural consequences of their actions.

“Why did you decide to fire me?” “I didn’t decide to fire you, you punched your fellow employee and cannot remain employed here.”

“Why did you decide not to admit to your ballet school?” “I didn’t decide to reject you, your lack of ballet ability determined this outcome in advance.”

“Why did you decide we can’t be in a relationship?” “When you chose to be abusive you chose to not have a relationship.”

These are reactions, not responses, in my parlance. The outcome was predictable and therefore a decision (response) was not needed nor made, reactions play out natural consequences.

Some folks intervene where reactions should flow. Instead of being in the world to find their way, sometimes parents fund their adult children in lives they have not built. Or in a bad relationship, one party absorbs a lot of unpleasantness to avoid admitting that the relationship should end. These choices distort reality and create unnatural circumstances that carry all sorts of downstream repercussions.

Distortions can take place in both reactions and responses, the latter being not so uncommon, and in fact much of society is structured to influence the decisions of others as commonplace. We cannot possibly cover how to make good decisions, but from a spiritual standpoint, being yourself is always a formula for authenticity, which ain’t too shabby as an outcome.

Shrouded Priorities

Carl Jung, one of the pioneers of modern psychology, famously said, “you are what you do, not what you say you’ll do”.

It is seemingly easy to distinguish between thought and action. Or is it? Is a gift of jewellery a thought or an action? Giving a gift is indeed an action, but the gift itself, precious metals and gems, is often intended to express something by proxy like, “I worked for many hours to buy you this gift”, or, “I know you like to look sparkly so I hunted for something special and sparkly for you”. These kinds of embedded symbolism make actions more or less understood and appreciated by the recipient and by others who may have various interpretations on the symbolism contained within. The book The Five Love Languages does a good job outlining interpretative differences of this kind. What I find lacking in this book is a sixth love language called ‘intentions’. Our minds are busy all the time and thinking nice thoughts about a person and intending good things for them does indeed seem to be a way some people express love. I think Carl Jung would agree.

Why this matters is that in any relationship, a person often thinks they are contributing beneficially when there is nothing tangible offered or received. Nice thoughts, as nice as they may be, do not translate into a feeling of love. Abstaining from diddling the secretary does not translate into a feeling of love. Absurd as it may sound to need to clarify, some people need to wake up to the fact that wanting to make someone breakfast in bed will not be received the same as serving breakfast in bed.

Our free will is a glorious gift, and it allows us to choose among tradeoffs which, IMHO, is being. I can be kind if I am charitable and I can be mean if I harm things. Both are choices and by choosing, I am deciding the person I am. The power of this cannot be understated, nor can the fact that we can change our actions like a lightswitch for most things and be something else.

We make choices in a way that illuminates our true priorities. I call them “true priorities” because people often misconnect their actions and their outcomes, and I say “illuminate” because they are apparently not so clear all the time. If I’m trying to lose weight and I pig out on chocolate cake, am I truly trying to lose weight? Some would argue yes they are trying to lose weight but are having a oopsy moment. To that I’d respond that temporary insanity for chocolate cake is almost believable, but still doesn’t account for the motivation to diverge from the stated priority. Same for an alcoholic having a drink. If your goal is to stop drinking, but you celebrate your success with a drink, there is another priority lurking in there.

Let’s take more time to examine the things people do because many of these things seem to fall under the sensibility bar. There are situations where someone can abuse or neglect their partner repeatedly and then claim they are devoted to them. Nope. There are situations where someone can have chosen something in their lives (i.e. serious addiction, retention of unhealthy dynamics, participation in serious crime) and claim they are available for a healthy relationship. Nope. Whether these incompatibilities are misunderstood or misintended, they obviate the possibility of the outcome desired through unilateral action. Devotion to your abused partner is to take decisive and unwavering steps to extinct the abusive behaviour. Availability for partnership is permanently excising the dysfunction or crime they’d otherwise be embroiled in. Choosing to retain the abuse, crime, addiction and/or dysfunction demonstrates the true priority that exists. It is whatever that act is and not what is claimed.

Remember at the end of Breaking Bad where Walter White finally admitted that his drug kingpin aspirations were for him and not for his family, where this was his original intention? Skyler (his wife) came to understand this prior and knew his intentions and consequent choices and knew he was no longer a viable partner once his true priorities were clear.

People fall prey to promises, illusions and hopes and this becomes a contract in relationships without a exercise date. I will (one day) get help for my abuse/addiction/dysfunction. I will (one day) end dysfunctional relationships with my ex, or mother. When you stress me out less I will (one day) stop acting in rage. I will (one day) not prioritize work and show you love in action. The problem with these promises are that they are false and don’t reflect the person’s true priorities in action, they are just words. Their minds may know otherwise or may be tricking them too that these priorities are just temporary when they are reality. Priorities chosen are chosen for a reason and unless the reason goes away organically, the choices will remain. Losing weight to look good in a wedding dress will almost certainly result in weight gain after the wedding because it was linked to that priority. Someone not drinking when you’ve expressed an issue with it will have the drinking behaviours expressed secretively or delayed because it is your priority and not theirs.

If someone chooses to have an unboundaried relationship with their ex, or an unconstrained addiction that puts your future in peril, or brings around an abusive person who you feel ought to be forcefully removed from your property, their intentions and promises are meaningless when their actions are contradictory and consequently put you at risk. Both parties must wise up to what priorities mean in action and not delude themselves with hopes and promises.

For those facing their own priorities:

  1. Spend the time to see reality for what it is. Life is about tradeoffs and what you choose also dictates what you are not choosing.
  2. Acknowledge your true priorities as they are actioned.
  3. Determine if you want to live differently (achieve different outcomes). Do this with honesty.
  4. Take decisive steps to live such that priorities are expressed in action with consistency as they are prioritized.

For those struggling with the priority expressed by others:

  1. Spend the time to see reality for what it is. Life is about tradeoffs and what someone chooses also dictates what they are not choosing.
  2. Acknowledge their true priorities as they are actioned. Accept that these are their true priorities.
  3. Determine if you want to live differently (achieve different outcomes) for yourself. Do this with honesty with no expectation of someone changing.
  4. Take decisive steps to live such that priorities are expressed in action with consistency as they are prioritized.

Coaching a Teen

Borrowing from a concept in marketing, people tend to best respond to aphorisms or ‘key messages’ that sound self evident and robust to better help relate to the individual and describe a path to a better outcome. Each key message is supported by bullets that are talking points that directly support the key message. The following are intended to support a teen through the difficulties they experience. Stress the truth of the bolded lines over and over and over. Conversations about these bolded lines use the bulleted points. Good luck parents!

Life is hard, and this is likely the hardest phase in your life.

  • You will learn how people can judge, hate, objectify, conform and discriminate because they are fearful
  • Expectations just to maintain your status seem overwhelming
  • You are still young and want to grow at your own pace and be imperfect without all the stress

You have one primary job in life: be your best self irrespective of circumstances.

  • Inauthentic living is not living, it’s a big act in a stupid game.  Authentic living will always feel the best, even when it’s difficult, because you are being who you are
  • Being yourself helps others who struggle by being a compassionate role model and safe harbor
  • Difficult times teach great strength, resilience and perseverance

It gets much easier when you move past this teenaged pressure cooker.

  • The adult world isn’t perfect, but the social pressure will not be in your face 24/7
  • Your life and relationships will be more meaningful and honour and explore all of your being
  • You will know the silliness of teenaged life and live a life of joy, confidence and lightness

The Roots of Distress

All distress results from an unwillingness to accept reality.

Once you’ve accepted that your car has a flat tire, you need to redo your work, you’ve got a wrinkle, or that you have an injury that needs immobilization, the distress vanishes. The gap between awareness and acceptance is where the ego self-talks about your suffering, discomfort, frustration and you allow this to become your reality by becoming emotional. It’s as though the ego thinks that if reality is fought, it can be avoided.

The sooner you accept reality, the less you will experience distress.

What Does the Universe Want?

Everything is exactly as it’s meant to be.

What?! People are supposed to suffer? Wars are supposed to be fought? The environment is meant to be destroyed? Well…yes. Until it’s no longer meant to be, and that’s when it changes.

As we described in another blog, pregnancy may seem awful if you only observe month 9. A cocoon may seem like a coffin if your window of observation is similarly narrow. Even a cosmic explosion of epic magnitude may seem unbearably bad, but if you’re around to observe the universe 15 billion years later, it seems not so bad from the human perspective.

The universe has an intelligence that is unfolding in real-time, and we all play a part. Everything that is, is. Everything that isn’t, isn’t. And these states change, as Newton’s laws of motion teach us, when acted upon by an outside force.

So, everything is exactly as it’s meant to be, until it’s no longer meant to be and a force changes what is into something different. And this goes on ad infinitum.

Misconnection

If you finish your vegetables, you can have dessert. What’s the thinking here? If we eat enough healthy stuff then we are counterbalancing unhealthy stuff and then they neutralize they other? Well that’s just not how things work digestively. Unhealthy things are unhealthy things and the body needs to process additives and preservatives the same way regardless how much of the other stuff there is.

People make these cognitive misconnections for many, many things unnecessarily and gum up outcomes that could otherwise be more productive.

Consider doing someone the favour of buying them something from a store that they requested. If that thing doesn’t work, should they not reimburse you? What if they decide they don’t want it anymore. Is it yours to return? For those unclear, the favour (which was generous) was the single transaction of purchase and to make the good available. The minimal duty to this favour is to reimburse. Irrespective whether the good is delivered, broken, picked up, desired, ugly, all of these conditions fall outside of the duty to reimburse. Why? Because if that person purchased it themselves they would be in the same predicament and therefore have to resolve any issues themselves. People who incorrectly attribute or misconnect these subsequent conditions with the favour are likely not going to generate a good outcome and receive future favours.

Some of the misconnections are embedded in social and relationship norms. When two people are dating, are they obligated to take vacations together? When two people cohabitate, is it a truism that this obligates them to share a bed at night? When people marry, are they obligated to share finances? Do you need to marry your best friend? Somehow we have convinced ourselves that these connections are appropriate and anything less would suggest a lack of love or commitment.

Therein exists the obfuscating factor. The connection has been attached to symbology that if not respected is symbolic of discord. Imagine not presenting a diamond engagement ring when proposing marriage but rather offering a cheeseburger. Practically, the cheeseburger has more value to the recipient (it can be eaten) but ‘love’ and ‘commitment’ exist in a diamond, and rings are longer lasting than most cheeseburgers and are far more attractive when worn.

Retailers, governments, schools, service industries, professional groups and lots of other institutions have successfully created these misconnections intentionally to better serve their own interests for many decades and many are deeply ingrained, often because they play to our insecurities and impulses. It’s pretty easy to be convinced we exercised hard enough to deserve a cinnabon, despite the contradictory logic, because our sacrifice (the misconnection that is elicited from our emotionality) ought to be satisfied. We should buy flowers for people because flowers demonstrate thoughtfulness (the misconnection) when what’s often more thoughtful would be verbalized condolences or to spend an hour actively listening to that person. We should not move because this place is our home is a common misconnection that anchors a household needlessly to a specific locale despite the opportunities available and proven relocation success experienced by many in the world because a false connection was created to appease insecurity.

Misconnections form the roots of prejudice through stereotyping. We erroneously extrapolate instances to represent groups. Some police abuse their power. Some Germans participated in war crimes. Some males are misogynists. Some gun owners commit crimes with their guns. “Some” does not equal “all”, and it is cogitative poverty to substitute one word for another. Why do we do this? Because human brains are highly fearful and attempt to find cause-and-effect relationships to categorize fears and consequently live in fearful ways. Oceans contain sharks and sharks are scary so I avoid the ocean. Relationships can be painful and so I engage in them superficially to avoid being vulnerable. These are, of course, misconnections as the mind wove together an oversimplified cause-and-effect relationship.

In the workplace, connections may not be so emotionally-generated because there are so many things in motion it’s sometimes just a lack of knowledge. It’s very common for people to confuse flows of goods, money, information and permission. I can’t teach process reengineering in a blog, but when discussing processes and outcomes, each step has prerequisites before it can complete. Maybe your goods cannot be used before approval is received, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be shipped and arranged so they are ready to use. Extinct your false connectors by questioning what appears to be the limiting factor in all processes.

This blog is not about proxies and anchoring, which do appear often in misconnection, this blog attempts to illuminate how connectors are invented to link things that are not linked, often with powerful emotionality and symbolism, sometimes simply from lack of knowledge. Misconnections also result in misadapatations. With this awareness, now we need to think about the merits of breaking the connection.

Workplaces are pretty straightforward insofar as improving throughput by removing misconnections. They also help parties collaborate more closely the more extraneous gobbledygook is removed. On an individual level, false connections sabotage otherwise authentic and organic experiences. They create expectations and forego the opportunity to co-create something unique and special between two parties. Imagine if there were no such thing as an engagement ring or one-knee proposal; how do you think people would propose? Or would they propose at all? Would marriage exist as an institution? I’d wager that what people in love would co-create instead would blow our minds and be far more meaningful.

Misconnections have a way of tossing the baby with the bathwater (what a great old expression!) When injured we convalesce in bed and watch TV. When depressed we lay on the couch and eat ice cream. We are misconnecting that some amount of inability creates complete disability. There is a powerful expression that goes, “don’t let the things you can’t do stop you from doing the things you can do.” Realize when you have made a misconnection and rid yourself of it so you can live authentically and to the fullest of your capacity in a moment.

Humanistic Secular Haggadah

The Passover Haggadah sets out the activities of the Seder. As someone deeply appreciative of gatherings, yet not so enamoured by religion, I have attached a Haggadah that offers some new views and opportunities to create memories and growth.

In advance, I am aware that some may be offended by this Haggadah and they are welcome to use something different. I am not attempting to replace or judge the Passover ceremony as it is today, rather just offering an alternative to those seeking one.

Humanist-Haggadah-shareDownload

When using, I recommend going around the table to allow each attendee to read a paragraph. Don’t be afraid to stop and have conversation about points, make jokes, drink some wine. Most importantly, enjoy the moments you are creating not within a set a rules but rather as a bunch of earthlings assembled in a point of time to share an experience that can be whatever you make it.

The Perils of Labels & the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

I want to attribute this story to Eckhart Tolle but I can’t find it anywhere. Here’s my version.

A father was bringing his young son to the forest for the first time. It was going to be a great day for these city dwellers. They drive into the park, park their car, and start walking toward the trees.

As they approach, the boy stops dead in his tracks and points to a huge, towering pine tree. He gasps, “what’s that?” The father replies, “that’s a tree son.” The boy is utterly astounded at the majesty of this evergreen with all of its precarious needles and rich fullness. The boy notices a squirrel’s nest inside and many, many pine cones. The father urges him to continue walking and promises more delights. Reluctantly, and prematurely for the boy, they walk away.

They walk further and arrive at a weeping willow. The boy is floored by this amazing creature that looks like it’s crying yet has such tremendous strength and girth. The boys runs beneath its huge shaggy branches and feels the coolness of the shade that it provides. With his mouth wide the boy asks, “papa, what’s this?” “That’s a tree son. Let’s carry on.”

They continue down the path and arrive at a wisteria tree in full bloom with its beautiful purple blossoms cascading down so gently and softly. The boy steps beneath the canopy and twirls around and feels the blossoms whispering tranquility to him as his mind dizzies. He falls to his back and starts to cry. His father rushes beneath the wisteria with panic, “what’s wrong?” he demands. The boys continues staring up into the tree unfazed and tearing from joy asks, “what is this father?” “That’s a tree son.”

On the way back to the car the boy visits a birch tree, with its benevolent, paperly white bark, a cherry tree, with its delicious fruit and lovely cherry blossoms as well as its strong supportive arms for climbing, and a eucalyptus tree, feeding creatures, healing us and offering an aroma that blesses its recipients. And each he learns is a “tree”.

This boy had a rare opportunity to understand what can exist within the word “tree”, whereas the rest of us will never fully comprehend the range of characteristics a tree can possess and how it can be so many things depending on how it is seen. It can be supportive, nourishing, healing, protective, beautiful, odorous, strong, yielding, painful, fragile, symbiotic, and so many other things that may even be contrasting.

The mind is exposed to so many things that we need to be hyper efficient at labelling things heuristically so that we quickly know what they are so we can move on to the next thing to comprehend. This is why we enjoy brands so much. They are designed to tell a heuristic narrative about us without ever having to put in the work. She drives a Jeep so she’s adventurous. He drives a BMW so he’s sophisticated and discriminating. We know the label game and we play it.

Kierkegaard famously said, “Once you label me you negate me.” Once we label something we no longer interact with it authentically, instead we interact with the image of that thing in our heads. To people we assign an archetype and then expect and receive exactly what we know (think) to be true. Decision science is dominated by this expectations bias which in cognition, and hence the person’s experience, translates to a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

Another little story about the self-fulfilling prophecy, which strangely is touted as a joke:

Once there was a young guy who lost one of his eyes to an injury sustained at his job harvesting olives. He wasn’t wealthy, and so the prosthetic eye he used for cosmetic purposes was made of wood instead of the more popular acrylic. He developed serious self-esteem issues related to his wooden prosthetic eye.

A friend of the guy encouraged him to accompany him to a dance one evening so that the guy could meet and socialize with girls. The guy with the wooden eye reluctantly agreed to go with his friend to the dance.

Once the two guys entered the hall where the dance was being held, the friend pointed out a woman with a cleft (“hare”) lip and suggested to the guy that he should perhaps ask the woman to dance with him. Because she herself possessed a physical abnormality, she might be less put off by his wooden eye and more likely to accept his invitation to dance with her.

The man walked over and shyly asked the lady to dance. The woman’s face lit up. In excitement she trumpeted, “Would I!?! Would I!?!” 

The man was stunned. All he heard was “Wood eye! Wood eye!,” so he thought he was being insulted brazenly about his wooden eye. In response he screamed, “Hare lip! Hare lip!” and stormed away from this now mortified woman.

His own labels of being undesirable and freakish had tainted his lens such that the dialogue of people around him was contorted to his own self image and expectations, even when it was the opposite.

Nassim Taleb, famed economist, wrote about the black swan phenomenon. Swans are white. Storybooks teach about ugly ducklings turning into beautiful white swans. When we talk about swans it is known by everyone that swans are white so we don’t even have to say white swan because it’s a given. But what happens when someone observes a black swan?

Most likely we’d dismiss this as a dirty swan or big mallard. The more mentally expansive would think about reverse albinism so that the label still remains. But ultimately if black swans do exist then we can no longer call them all swans. We now need to increase the precision of our swan stories by including the colour. And guess what? Black swans do exist and yet we still refer to white swans as swans. This is similar to how natives in North America are still called Indians despite not originating from India. We really hang on to those labels even long into absurdity and foolishness because they help to sustain our self fulfilling prophecies, incorrect beliefs and stereotypes.

Back to the forest story. How can we prevent unnecessary labelling, because in some instances it is useful to group things into categories? The answer is simple. The father could’ve rather said, “that is a thing we call a tree.” This allows the child to understand that we are not defining the characteristics of something exhaustively but rather we are simply naming it for linguistic ease. And by using the indefinite article (“a”) versus the definite article (“the”) the child is taught that the name applies only to this creature being observed and not the group.

Alternatively, the child could have rather been told the actual names of the trees versus the grouping “tree”. Calling something a tree is like calling a person a human. It’s accurate but it abstracts away the differences among them and also represents the entire grouping in however it presents. A white birch tree could not be more different then a baobab tree as much as Mother Theresa could not be more different than Donald Trump, so calling them both humans is a disservice to the learner.

Your own labels limit your own ability to grow in the eyes of those who know you. Your actual name that you’ve had since birth. The nickname you got in college. The title you have at work.

Assist people to interact with you and not the image they have of you in their minds or that which they create from your heuristics. If your entire environment automatically treats you like you’re saying ‘wood eye’ and not ‘would I’, then it’s worthwhile to invest the time to challenge and remove labels. And ensure you learn from ‘the artist formerly known as Prince’ who boldly rebranded himself from his birth name only to have a new unflattering label imposed by those who failed to understand his attempt at liberation. Then do likewise for the labels you carry and honour those things by discarding your labels so that the thing can define itself.

The Universal Language

Spiritualism often touts a soul or spirit that animates otherwise lifeless creatures (our “jiva”). Eckhart Tolle calls it “consciousness”, which he determines is part of a collective consciousness that forms the universal intelligence. And we know it’s there because it can observe the other things in there. This “observer” can hear our egoic self talk and witness ourselves becoming emotional, and even brings its own voice to the party to take master control over our selves. Neat! But so what?

Good question! We’ve been doing just fine until now, right? Our paths are pretty clear. Grow up, go to school, meet someone special, fall in love, go to university, get a job, get married, have kids, retire and die. And within those life events we can horse around, play some sports, watch TV, go to some parties, travel around to exotic places. It’s pretty busy actually and this feels very filling.

So why is the population so chronically unhappy, overworked, stressed out, impoverished, underserved, unhealthy, underwhelmed and generally dissatisfied? Is the explosion in antidepressant meds because the ‘path’ is working? Do we just need our hometown sports teams to win more championships? Or maybe salvation lies in more Kardashian shows and viral memes?

Modern society consists of a dizzy array of distractions that do an excellent job of clogging up our sensory pathways during all waking hours. We are so barraged that if we don’t deliberately remove these stimuli we have little to no ability for independent thought or reflection. It’s gotten so pervasive that when there is a power outage that cripples Internet access, people become genuinely distressed on how to spend their time.

The always-connected phenomenon, I believe, has completely impaired our few remaining moments for thinking, introspection, feeling, daydreaming, planning, spontaneous creativity, discovery, observation and otherwise being in and with ourselves. And mindfulness is far more difficult while we are juggling texts, emails, work, kids, news, friends, events, family. How can we possibly listen to our observer with all this constantly going on?

Many things exist more enduringly than the structures and distractions created in society, and this is what is quite remarkable about the universe as we know it. We have and obey a series of scientific laws that are immutable. These laws make things entirely predictable such that we can build bridges, shoot rockets to the moon and pocket the 8-ball in billiards all without mysterious mishaps.

Mindfulness, even in its most sophisticated form, tends not to be mindful of the laws to which we are governed or even the forces that act upon us directly! Have you ever felt gravity act upon you in meditation? Are you mindful of your potential energy when up high in your condo or office tower? Do you feel the friction of your clothes as you walk around when you don’t have static cling? Have you pondered your kinetic energy when zipping down the highway in your car?

External forces are acting on us 24/7 and we are rarely aware of them and their duty to carry out the awesome will of the universe. Similarly, I believe we have internal forces that act out and we have a much harder time ignoring them because we are the space in which they dutifully impose their will.

Not to be confused with hormonal or neurotransmitter cravings stemming from withdrawal, desire, boredom or psychological stress, internal forces arise and impel us to action in an organic manner. These forces emerge without thought, feelings or other internal apparatus or learned responses. Absolutely we do think and feel about these forces reactively, which we ultimately permit or not based on this deliberation, but the force itself originates proactively from the soul and it is striving to achieve its duty like all other forces in the universe.

Do you put on music when you drive to electrify the experience and make it more a raucous karaoke experience than a drive? During your workout when you put on music does it energize and propel you? Have ever felt so mutually attracted to a person it’s like a powerful magnet is drawing you two together. When you hear a particular voice does it feel palpably that you’re feeling energetic friction? We have actually written up 150 ‘signs of life’. These signs of life are the result of living from soulful forces, which impel us constantly to action in ways that we do not conjure ourselves.

Psychologists have working theories for all forms of human behaviour, from biological to cognitive to motivational. Yet they are utterly confused at certain human behaviours, one of which pertain to good samaritanism. It is biologically, evolutionarily, sociologically and motivationally incomprehensible that we risk our lives to save a total stranger from drowning, but apparently this is something we do consistently. Don’t agree? Imagine your dreams for the rest of your life if you didn’t attempt to save that person.

We can fight gravity with elevators. We can deflect light with mirrors. We can slow boulders in motion. You know the amount of energy this requires, especially when our internal space is the battleground. The language of the universe is codified in law, and while science has not empirically defined all internal forces, it is foolish to think that these powerful and present forces are not as real as their well defined external cousins that push and pull us in every other way.

Being attuned and responsive to the language of the soul offers immeasurable contentment and authenticity, as well as the knowledge that the universal intelligence is being achieved in you, so listen to your internal forces and allow them to perform their duty.