HAPPILY EVER AFTER IN THE MOMENT
Monday, April 30, 2012 § 1 Comment
Seeking happiness and practicing happiness are not the same.
People pursue happiness in their own ways. Some seek it in wealth, in beauty, in fame, or in power. Some feel they have recognized those goals as false promises. Instead they seek happiness in making the world better in their own garden or in the global community. Others seek it in the creation of a harmonious family or community. Another seeks it in achieving excellence in meditation or yoga.
The language of goals that need to be achieved to finally be happy and content repeats itself; just the goals themselves are exchanged: “I will be happy and content, once I have a million dollars/ created an NGO that stops the killing of whales/ have three kids/ can hold downward dog with no hands.”
Mostly the stories are more intricate and often not articulated – but there are images: “once I get the promotion, I can move into a slightly nicer apartment and work a little less to be able to do some sports. I will lose a bit of weight and feel better about myself, be sexy and get a great partner and be happily ever after.” Or: “I always feel good after doing yoga. Once I get my yoga-teacher-certificate, I can be in that state of mind all the time and be happily ever after.”
From the outside looking in, we can see with all those storylines, happiness will be elusive. Sometimes life’s a bitch and the first million Dollars is hard to come by. And worse, once the first million dollars is there, we will want the second. Once we can sit in lotus, we find it unsatisfying that we cannot levitate.
“Nothing makes us as unhappy as the constant pursuit of happiness.”
Buddha suggested that happiness is a state mind, not a situation. While circumstances have an influence on our state of mind, they don’t control it. Practicing happiness is the practice of our attitude in response to all circumstances. It’s inside, not outside; it’s right now, not projected into the future.
The revelation that we are waiting for something to fall into place to be happy often hides in a story of plausible conditions and correlations. “Well, I am just waiting for X, so I can do Y.” is often the beginning of that story. If you hear yourself saying sentences like that, please ask yourself the question: “why am I waiting?”
THE LIMITING FACTOR RIGHT NOW
Tuesday, April 24, 2012 § Leave a comment
The limiting factor for us to act wisely is mindfulness. Not age, not experience, not hair-color, not opportunity, not education, not religious affiliation, not title and authority, not luck, not gender, not skin-color, not yoga certifications, not how little or much we’ve been hurt in the past.
“There is no path to wisdom, wisdom is the path.” Siddhartha Gautama, a.k.a. the Buddha.
In every moment we choose our response to our circumstances. Wisdom is not a stage we can get to and then hang out in it as if lying in a hammock. It’s an every moment practice. No need to wait for different circumstances, resources or power. Nor do we need to wait to develop into a more mature and better person. In this moment you choose not to click on the stupid-ass link on Huffington Post about Jennifer Anniston wearing a very short dress – those never live up to my expectations, but instead you are reading this supremely nourishing blog. It requires our attention, right now!
ON BEING AN ARTIST
Monday, April 23, 2012 § Leave a comment
Malvina Reynolds sings about the ticky-tacky professionals, who all look just the same.
I suspect that her distance from them lets her miss the point. You don’t need a guitar to sing your song.
The musician battles the same two choices as the sales-executive every day: risk averse and conforming to expectations vs. emotionally courageous self-expression. Ticky-tacky is as ticky-tacky does. It’s not in the profession that we occupy; it’s in how we express ourselves in our profession.
For the singer, as much as for the lawyer, art begins beyond the “notes:” when we care.
ON BEAUTY AND LOVE
Friday, April 20, 2012 § Leave a comment
When we look long enough, our fear of the different dissolves, we recognize each other and then “understanding is love.”
ARE YOU WORTH IT?
Thursday, April 19, 2012 § Leave a comment
Everything that is true for the briefing business – see post below – is true for personal relationships as well. It’s no good to get all huffy puffy about disappointed expectations that were never articulated in the first place.
You act and feel like a douche/bitch though if you set-out your demands on what needs to happen for you to be satisfied and happy.
“Jump up from the sofa when I come home and look at me admiringly!”
“Buy me expensive things for my birthday!”
“I am your best lover ever! In fact, forget that you ever were with someone else.”
“If push came to shove, I could take him.”
“Never tell your stupid shrimp joke when we are with my friends.” (Lady is coming out of the grocery store, two big shopping bags in her hands. A man in a trench-coat steps out in front of her. He opens his coat and is completely naked underneath. She stops in her tracks and says, ‘Oh! I forgot the shrimp.’)
“Never wear socks in bed!” (if you are not German, you might not have heard that one.)
The business briefing (see post below) that sets all sorts of rules is useless if it doesn’t also address the emotional subtext of the task. The same is true for articulating personal expectations. The example demands above are a cop-out. If you want your emotional needs met, you need to bare exactly those needs, not some stand-in behavior rules.
Baring emotional needs is a scary business. It requires you to inspect your insecurities and then to share them. If you find friends and partners that respond positively, you’ve got yourself a keeper and are building a rewarding relationship. If you don’t invest that vulnerability, you are wasting your time.
DELIVERING ON THE BRIEFING
Wednesday, April 18, 2012 § 1 Comment
It’s easy to give a general direction to your staff member and then be disappointed with the results. “If only my staff would be better, but they just don’t produce up to my expectations,” you might hear a manager say. That’s not an acceptable response.
Sitting down and putting in writing what you expect from a staff-member or supplier takes time and effort. Your staff cannot deliver on a briefing, if there is no briefing.
There are standard things that a brief needs to cover (objectives, resources, constraints, etc.). Crucial though is your soul-searching on what you really want, what you are willing to give and what you are willing to see happen.
The task exists because you want some innovation/change. That means some things that are in place must be torn down and new things need to be built. The task exists because it is not clear what exactly needs to happen – the briefing is not an instruction. To innovate, your staff member needs to get an understanding of the radicalness with which to approach the task and what sacred cows to stay clear of. In most cases there is a bunch of organizational baggage and history attached to what can and cannot be changed.
Those taboos in the organization and in yourself are tough to acknowledge. It takes honest reflection and courage to express them and to commit to what’s allowed to happen.
Delivering that briefing is hard work. That’s what leadership is.
A BEAUTIFUL MESS
Monday, April 16, 2012 § Leave a comment
I had to think more about Caine Monroy and how his arcade had come together . Now that the whole thing is a beautiful video and the arcade has won fans from all over the world it’s easy to forget how messy this whole thing started. At first, there was Caine, cutting up some cardboard, taping things together and generally making a mess. In comes Caine’s dad.
Caine’s dad…
didn’t say, “Look at this mess Caine. Clean it up! I have customers coming through here.”
didn’t say, “Stop wasting your time and do something productive.”
didn’t say, “Don’t you have some books to read?”
hadn’t given Caine a Game-Boy (or whatever today’s equivalent is), a super-hero, Barbie, or other ready-made toy;
hadn’t put Caine into a summer-camp or other organized activity;
didn’t jump-in with his own skills and opinions.
Caine’s dad gave Caine a few resources and space to make a mess, encouraged him when he saw the enthusiasm and passion with which Caine was working, took interest in the little things and mostly just let him be. When the world came to see his son’s card-box-world in his ailing auto-parts-shop, he took no credit and was proud as can be.
If you manage people (or have kids), you get the best from them, the more you behave like Caine’s dad.
FOR THE LOVE OF WORK
Monday, April 16, 2012 § 1 Comment
Here’s a beautiful 10 min clip about 9-year-old Caine, who one summer built a whole arcade from card-boxes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faIFNkdq96U
An arcade of card-boxes doesn’t hold a candle to even the shabbiest of real-arcade games. Why does that obviously not matter when we respond to Caine’s work?
Because care, passion and ingenuity speak to us no matter on what playing-field they are exercised.
Because we recognize when we see someone working with the joy of building, rather than with their eyes on a pay-off.
Because he takes pride in our joy when we appreciate and play his games. It’s about sharing, kinship and human connection.
Caine’s work is self-expression. It’s applied love.
When we can put that into our work, or have our organizations put that to play, the rest has a good chance of falling into place.
A SKI JUMPING ELEPHANT
Saturday, April 14, 2012 § Leave a comment
The elephant and the rider in a blossoming relationship, might talk to each other like this:
Business Buddhism 