Posted on:Aug 07 2020
So I’ll confess to some still-sticky looping of “Am I doing this ‘right’? What if I do or say something stupid? What if people don’t like it?” and a real doozy, “Is anybody even reading this?”
Probably right enough.
Wouldn’t be the first time !
Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe.
Mmyes, thanks to you, Mom!
Moving along, this second blog begins with a brief look-back.
In 2008, in a delightful burst of clarity, passion, and purpose, I constructed The Pursuit of Happiness curriculum around Gordon Livingston’s book, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart. Some of you purchased the curriculum and worked through the course on your own; some of you took the class when I gave it some test runs; some of you have been loyal facebook (business page) followers; some of you are new to the party. However you landed here now, welcome and thank you!
The LRNhappiness website provides more backstory, but I’ve found over the years that Gordon’s TSO,TLS ’thirty true things’ make so much sense they’re practically embedded in my DNA, like scaffolding, as I observe, reflect, interpret how we move through life. By extension, it backbones what I’ll write about in these blogs.
Gordon, who was so generous with his time and support and sadly passed away a few years ago, is pretty much my guru. He walked his talk, gave full permission to use his book however I needed for LRNhappiness, and has permanent residence on my forever-grateful-for list.
To that, as I do the silly little internal tussle with putting myself out there, I channel Guru Gordon and in particular his chapter titled - “Life’s Two Most Important Questions are Why? and Why Not? The Trick Is Knowing Which One To Ask”
Let’s be honest, we all have these whyorwhynot, changeorchangenot, riskorrisknot tussles. (Kinda reminds me of an elementary school rite of passage, back in the day, of memorizing Robert Louis Stevenson's poem, "I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can see...")
If there’s something we want to change about ourselves, the first step is to acquire some understanding of Why? we do things. This is especially true when we’re talking about repetitive patterns of behavior that aren’t serving us well. It would also be helpful if we got over thinking that our behavior is, for the most part, a matter of conscious choice !!
Recall Socrates’ dictum, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Perhaps most of us don’t take his advice because self-examination implies hard work and potential embarrassment. (And isn't life just always soooo Busy?)
Add to the mix Freud’s theory of the unconscious mind (i.e. that there’s all this Stuff going on below our level of awareness that influences behavior), and looking at our motivations can be disconcerting, even frightening. No wonder auto-piloting status quo becomes deceptively attractive.
Paraphrasing Gordon here : Once we acknowledge this swamp of repressed desires, resentments, and motivations that affect our day-to-day, we’ve taken an important step, but here’s the thing - we also confront a paradox: If we deny the existence of this inner life, we’ll be surprised when our determined efforts at control collapse. Maybe you've noticed that ignoring our subconscious tends to have troubling results.
The consequence of such unawareness/denial and finding ourselves surprised is that we make the same mistake over and over and over again. We may try to invoke coincidence or place responsibility on someone or something else (enter troubling results), but then the question becomes, “How many times are you gonna do that?”
Because, in my experience, that unawareness or surprise festers and flares. Surprise after sooooo many replays becomes disingenuous, even irresponsible...and drifts toward a host of undesirable feelings (irritation, annoyance, dissatisfaction, impatience, anger, sadness, depression etc) and just a general yucky foggy feeling of disconnect from others, on whom you flare, but also from oneself, on whom you’re also flaring, one way or another.
Which brings us to the second operative question, Why Not? try something new and different when evidence abounds that This. Isn’t. Working.
However reluctant we are to answer the Why? questions in our lives, we also have trouble with Why Not? because it implies risk. We’re steeped in habit, fearful of change, and to some degree risk-averse. Particularly around things that involve rejection.
It’s as if we’re wrapped in a teflon of “I’m fragile and must protect myself.” And while you might think we’d shed this protective shield with age and experience, the opposite is usually the case.
Granted, deciding to write a blog is a pretty low-stakes undertaking, but take a high-stakes wager that involves the heart, like getting back in the dating game in our middle years, or at any age for that matter. It’s a struggle against loneliness. And when we should be asking Why Not? take the chance, we instead dial up myriad Why?-generated excuses and play it safe.
Choosing loneliness over the difficult task of getting to know new people, with its attendant risk of rejection, is “safe” but something vital is lost when we abandon our spirit of adventure.
So consider taking a bite of Socrates' advice and scan your life for Why? or Why Not? opportunities, because they're there.
What are you waiting for?
I say go with courage and drop in.
