Dancing with Reality

I was encouraged to share this recent article I wrote in the newsletter for Envision Coaching Solutions, LLC.  With all of the hectic activity around the move this week, it seems like great timing for it.

 

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Sometimes I have been frustrated when plans go awry, especially when I have spent a great deal of time and energy formulating how things can ideally play out. Unexpected elements can emerge and change things suddenly and radically. There are times when it is tempting to delay action until all the unknown factors come to light. But even though chances for success may be greater with increased information, you might never have all of the information pertinent to a decision.

I wrote a few issues back about "paralysis by analysis". Now I am experiencing the other side of that conundrum, dancing with reality. Without knowing what the future would hold (and without expecting to be able to have such knowledge!), I created a plan for the next several months, and now I am faced with making some pretty big changes to that plan. The reasons for those changes is on the whole very positive: My wife is taking a job doing something at which she excels in a field she absolutely loves. There is some payoff for me in that as well. But it still means making changes to some pretty exciting plans.

Rather than see the situation as a loss, though, I am able to see how I can still be creatively engaging my passions for one simple reason. I knew from the start that there was more than one way to get the outcome I most want in my life. Had I believed that the first possibility I determined was the only way, this would be a very frustrating time indeed. Some people call that single-mindedness attachment to a particular result.

Attachment is not your friend. Determination is valuable to a point, and commitment and resolve and all of those admirable qualities that keep us focused on a goal. But danger arises when we focus on that goal to the exclusion of all other possibilities or when we ignore reality. Every plan of action is really just a proposal, a hypothesis to be tested. You test it by taking action, with full commitment and resolve and determination toward your goal. Then you get feedback, from other people, from circumstances, from your own gut.

The key is to take that feedback and adjust your plan accordingly. You can still focus on the same goal, but you may have to take a different route than you were expecting. It may even be a better route than you had considered. If you are unwilling to alter your plan, you are essentially saying that you know everything that you could possibly need to know to get where you want to go. No one can honestly say that. That is at the very heart of attachment. You must be willing to be wrong in order to create anything of value. That doesn't mean that you will be wrong, but a person who is willing to consider the possibility that he doesn't have every possible piece of useful information will be much more receptive to feedback than someone who can't bear to be wrong.

So, determine your goal, make your plan, take full throttle action on your plan, and then pay attention to what happens next. Whatever feedback you receive is incredibly valuable, and what you do with it is the key to having a plan that will truly carry you where you want to go.

Unseen Influence

Seeker's Journey will most likely resume its course at some point, but I want to share with you some of the big pieces that are falling into place in this time of transition (more on that in a moment).

Having never been to Fort Worth, I was delighted to find that people there were very connecting and warm.  In a conversation with someone on the Texas Christian University campus, I remarked on this and related my experience in a grocery store that morning.  I had popped in on that Tuesday morning to grab some juice, and half a dozen other shoppers greeted me over the course of that visit, some with a purposeful nod and smile and others with a verbal Hello or Good morning.  One person even complimented my tie.  This sort of thing has never happened to me in Houston, and I took it to mean something about me and something about the people of Fort Worth.

The person with whom I was speaking remarked, "The purple in your tie may have had something to do with it."

I glanced down and glibly commented, "Well, I do have some ties that tend to make me stand out in a crowd."

With a patient smile, the individual explained, "Well, purple is the school color.  You see a lot of it around TCU.  It's kind of a sacred color around here."

Of course, I laughed a bit at my own assumptions.  I don't doubt that Fort Worth residents are warm and friendly, and expect to find that they are so even when I am not clad in a sacred color.  But there was something at work of which I was not aware during my little grocery store stroll.  Although I knew purple was associated with TCU, I hadn't intentionally picked that tie because of its color.  Somewhere in the back of my subconscious I may have thought it was a splendid idea, but I certainly wasn't thinking of that connection even when someone directly complimented my tie. 

That experience has me thinking about other unseen influences.  Not fairies or guardian angels or ghosts, but the conscious and unconscious systems at work within ourselves or within other people (or groups of people) to which we are blind.  We operate on a great deal of assumption most of the time.  If we always assume the best about people, someone may take advantage of us at some point.  But if we assume the worst about people, we will likely see adversaries where there are none. 

Certainly other consequences abound from those extremes as well, but at the end of the day we must operate on some amount of assumption.  We can never actually know every single factor that will impact a result.  The secret as far as I am concerned is to maintain a willingness to evaluate and shift course when new information arises.  Which leads me to why I am suddenly moving to Fort Worth when I wasn't even considering doing so a month ago.

My wife, Joy, has accepted a job with Fort Worth Opera, doing something that she does well, connected to an art form she loves.  The whole process happened rather quickly, and I am proud of her for paying more attention to her hopes than her fears at the end of the day.  What it means for me is relocation to a place where I have no clear and definite plan, but there is some exciting freedom in that.  It will mean a rethinking of our finances, a retooling of how I spend my time and energy, and a chance to keep focusing on the things that matter most to me.  From what I can see right now, it appears that there will be immediate opportunities for me to be involved in the musical goings-on in Fort Worth, which can lead to new collaborations as a pianist and composer.  In a way, I've been preparing for this move for the past year.

Neither of us would have predicted a year ago (or even six weeks ago) that we would be relocating for Joy to take a position working once more in the opera field.  We had our perceptions of where various paths were leading, but we couldn't see everything influencing the direction of those paths.  The paths I have gone down over the past year have all taught me something valuable, even when I didn't stay on a path for very long.  I learned things I would never have truly learned otherwise, and some of those lessons have helped to define me.  Or, at least, they have helped me see the value in being honest about who I truly am.  I'll say more on this aspect of the journey next week.

What I want to clearly acknowledge right now is the importance of accepting that I do not see everything that goes on in other people's minds, and that I cannot know beyond a shadow of a doubt where a particular path will lead.  At a certain point, I have to decide whether or not to step forward on a path, with only partial knowledge of what may lie ahead.  But I can keep making that decision at every point along the way, taking in new information to guide my expectations and recognizing what I can do to contribute to the outcome I want.  If I want people to be friendly to me in a Forth Worth grocery store, I know now that wearing a purple tie will go a long way toward getting that outcome.  It might also work for me to walk into a place with a friendly greeting ready for the people I find there. 

Since we can never forecast every unseen influence, I think life becomes a bit of a game in which we win by doing our very best as consistently as we can.

Feeling the Rhythm

When expressed in their most simplistic iterations, astrological and biorhythm forecasts just seem silly to me.  Can it be that everyone born on the same day will really experience more or less the same life, with ups and downs coinciding in a lifetime of synchronicity?  The idea is hard for me to digest.  So I don't.  I typically think of it as a bit of fun and leave it at that. 

Someone was recently explaining a more in-depth astrological approach to me, and I began to see how the fortune-cookie blurbs in the morning paper don't do the practice justice.  When a full blown astrological reading is done, there is a lot more specific information taken into consideration than I ever realized.  Shortly after this conversation, I was reading about biorhythms. Once again, I learned that some people get much more involved than drawing a few simple sine waves and matching them up with dates. I still don't know that I believe one can make accurate predictions about another person's life, even with an elaborate system of forecasting. But it did get me thinking.

I create plans days, sometimes weeks, in advance. I know what I expect to be working on way ahead of time, even though I don't know how I'm going to feel or what other things may crop up. It's a flexible plan, by necessity, but I am not always flexible with myself. If I have planned to work on a brass ensemble piece next Tuesday, and then I wake up feeling rather uninspired, my typical response is to work on the brass ensemble piece anyway and just trust that inspiration will eventually be there.

My fear is that if I take a day off, or if I postpone something on the schedule, I'll never go back to it. I'll become a lazy underachiever with nothing to show for my all my creativity and experience. A bit drastic, eh? But that fear creates a demand that I must keep to my schedule, I must keep on track with my projects at all costs. I don't always like what I create out of that fear, but at least I stick to the plan.

The strange thing is, sometimes I do wind up taking a little time off. Sometimes I do get off track with my preconceived schedule. There are days that I just can't concentrate on the creative work, or I don't like anything that I'm creating, and I have always gone back to it later with renewed interest and inspiration. It's often just a matter of giving myself a little time to take a break and recharge.

I don't know if it has anything to do with when I was born or where the stars were at the time, but my life does have a rhythm. It may be a bit more complex than simple sine waves, but there is value in tuning in to what I'm feeling at any given time. Not only is it alright to allow myself to feel uninspired, it's the most honest thing to do some days. Giving myself permission to take a day off and trusting that I will come back to my creative projects refreshed is simply a way of recognizing the rhythm of my life. Forcing creativity can get the work done, but allowing it to flow naturally helps me to enjoy what I create.

One Bad Apple

Yesterday I heard about an open position at a place where I once worked. The person who was in the position hadn't impressed the committee that oversaw his work, and they had decided not to continue his contract. In addition, they decided that they were going to revise the position to favor people that had a different set of credentials from the individual with whom they were displeased. Even though it is likely to be much more effort, it seems to make more sense to revamp the position than to consider that they may have just done a less than adequate job in filling the position.

The human brain likes to put things in boxes. It loves to label partly because it can make extrapolations about other things with the same label. If a person behaves a certain way, then other people with similar characteristics will behave in a similar fashion. If a situation has a particular outcome, then other similar situations with have a similar outcome. It becomes a matter of prediction.

We can predict how someone will behave based on their skin tone or age or attire, and we can determine in advance whether we are going to like or respect someone based on our predictions. Except that we are often wrong about our predictions. When we assume what is going to happen without regard for the actual relevant data, we are likely to be surprised. When we assume how a person is going to behave based on arbitrary attributes, we sometimes overlook useful information.

Sometimes we draw conclusions about a person's trustworthiness, capability, drive, or intelligence based on the flimsiest of observations. Some dangerous issues go overlooked while our attention focuses on less critical matters, all because we act on superficial assumptions. Some people are hired for a position largely because of their alma mater, and yet it is inconceivable that everyone who graduates from a particular school will have the same level of capability. At the end of the day, we cannot completely trust all of the conclusions we draw from extrapolation.

An alternative might be to assess things more purposefully. Awareness that our minds are likely hurrying us along to a conclusion before we have taken in all of the relevant information can give us incentive to slow down and look at the truth of a situation or an individual more clearly. This requires a certain level of consciousness, of course. I wonder how often challenging circumstances can be traced back to a series of decisions and assumptions made by someone on autopilot. Or a whole group of sleepwalkers. I believe that what we create tomorrow will be built on the purposeful decisions we make today, about ourselves and about the people around us.

Remarkable Timing

It was raining and cold. I had parked to run into a store for just a moment and was getting out of my car when I heard a thunk. Looking around on the ground I saw nothing, and I concluded that one of the buttons of my bulkier-than-usual clothing had whacked the car door. No problem. I took care of my business and was returning to my car when I heard my cell phone. I darted through the rain, trying to get back into the car quickly, and reached into my pocket as I slid into the seat. But my phone wasn't in my pocket.

I looked around in the car, but didn't see it anywhere. So I opened my car door and heard the faint sound of my phone letting me know I had missed a call. Out in the rain, on my hands and knees, I searched for the source of the sound. Lo and behold, my cell phone was on the ground, underneath the vehicle next to mine, completely out of sight unless one was crawling around in the parking lot. If my friend had not called at the exact moment I was returning to my car, I would most likely have driven away and left my phone behind to be crushed under the wheels of an unsuspecting SUV.

Some people would call that a remarkable coincidence. Others would cite the experience as proof that there is a higher power watching out for us. Or our phones, at least. I think there is a useful perspective somewhere between the two. After all, calling it coincidence puts me at the mercy of chance, which is in a sense true. I can't control anything but my own actions, but I am far from a helpless victim. It was absolutely a case of remarkable timing, but I am left wondering how many other instances of remarkable timing I miss every day. Not mere coincidence, but opportunities to act.

Taking it as a wake-up call to be more aware of what is happening around me gives me an opportunity to notice things that I can do in my own moments of remarkable timing. Leaving my phone behind in that moment would have been a frustrating complication in my life, and my friend had no idea how a call at that specific time would save me from that frustration. Imagine what would happen if we were purposefully watching for those opportunities.

Being On Purpose

Horror movies are in plentiful supply this time of year, and they come in all forms. Sometimes the fright comes watching the machinations of a malicious intelligence, human or supernatural, unfold in some gruesome manner. Zombies are terrifying for an entirely different reason. They relentlessly and thoughtlessly keep pursuing their most basic need without conscience or rational thought. They don't care that they never actually accomplish anything beyond eating because they have no purpose and no ambition.

Being willing to ask the question "What am I doing here?" opens a floodgate of possibility, as it turns out. Without that question, we are not much further along than the zombies, acting to satisfy what we perceive our most basic needs without stopping to think about what we actually want to achieve. Asking the question paves the way for an even more meaningful one: What do I want to be doing? With a meaningful purpose, every decision can be measured. Does what I am doing contribute to what I want to create, or does what I'm doing actually stand in the way?

Waking up to a clear purpose also means that I invite opportunities to live out that intention. If I were comfortable being a zombie, I would never even consider watching for those opportunities. I would just keep doing the most obvious thing without questioning it. Now, I can clearly state that I want the music I create to make a difference in the world, that I want what I create (musically and otherwise) to have a positive impact on other people's lives. I also want to continue seeking out things that inspire and invigorate me, the things that keep me asking questions and finding answers.

Odd Duck

It's the ones that don't quite fit in that often attract my attention. When I am standing in line at the supermarket and there is just one cheery, talkative, fat guy commenting on other people's food choices, he gets my attention. Not because he's conversational or overweight necessarily, just because his behavior is so far from what everyone else is doing. In a way, I find him more appealing. If he wasn't there, I might notice other people more, but that's a different blog entry.

I'm thinking today about that one house on the block that is more dilapidated and sad-looking that all the houses around it. If every home in the neighborhood was in dire need of repair, that one house would be of little consequence. But when every other home seems well-kept and structurally sound, that one home gets my attention. It works just the opposite way, too; if there's one brand new, two-story palace on a block with run-down ranch-style homes, I think most people would notice the one that doesn't quite fit.

It's about how "normal" becomes defined, I think. We accept something as normal because of its abundance, not because of its quality. We may prefer a certain type of house when we consider it in isolation from its surroundings, but what winds up attracting our attention is the house that isn't "normal." We then form whatever judgments we want to about that particular home (or person), for good or for ill.

Don't get me wrong. I am capable of judging large groups of similar people, or houses, or whatever it may be. Our human minds do this all too well. But I am thinking today about "normal" because I am realizing how far my own vision for my life is from that measurement. What I want is not "normal" life. In my own way, I want to be the cheery fat guy in the checkout line, only with regard to my career, my creativity, and my connection with other people. There is absolutely no reason for me to accept "normal" as a quality to which I should aspire. That a lot of people live a certain way doesn't mean anything about what I can create when I reach for the fullness of my capability.

Of course, I am aware that there are any number of reactions from others that I just can't control. Some people are attracted to what's not "normal," but some people are afraid of it. And some people can be downright offended or hostile toward it. When I notice all of those other people in the checkout line, how many of them actually find that talkative guy appealing? What are all of those people in the other houses saying about that one home that doesn't fit in their neighborhood? Honestly, I don't know. It's that simple.

Powers of Observation

Tonight I enjoyed an Alley Theatre performance of Sherlock Holmes and the Crucifer of Blood. It has been awhile since I read any of Doyle's original stories, but I always enjoyed them. In tonight's play, however, I saw the character's remarkable powers of observation in a slightly new light. The claim that his conclusions were "elementary" had a bit of a gift in it.

Although many people fail to see what is there to be seen, the potential to notice still exists for all of us. It is not beyond human capacity to be awake and aware, it is simply not what many people choose to be. "Coasting along" or "sleepwalking" or whatever one wishes to call it merely requires less effort than consciousness. Or at least that is the way it seems sometimes. But the ability to notice is always there when we choose to tap into it.

For Holmes, at least in this depiction, the opportunity to use his powers of observation was a source of elation. He felt most alive when he was noticing all there was to notice and drawing connections between every detail. While I am not advocating going out and trying to solve mysterious crimes, I would like to suggest that Holmes was not all that unique. In many ways, I believe that willingness to notice life is what gives me a chance to feel more alive.

Self-Fulfilling Prophets, We

I had a conversation with someone yesterday who didn't believe she was being heard by a third party. Her initial demeanor was tense and agitated, and she became more so as we talked. I listened, I said that I heard she was frustrated about not being heard, and that things weren't going the way she thought they should. My words didn't really have a chance in that conversation, which ended with a bit of a threat toward me implying that I would have to do something about the situation. When she disengaged, I understood exactly how she felt about not being heard.

This complaint is not a new one for this individual. What I noticed as she spoke is that she repeated herself several times, and her voice had an edge to it. In fact her body was visibly shaking from the intensity of her emotion. She stated a lot of her beliefs as absolutes (i.e. "x should not happen," "y has to be this way," etc.), and the conversation was almost entirely on her terms. She wasn't really interested in my response, and she left when she chose to do so without opportunity for discourse. Basically, she did a lot of things that made what she had to say a bit more challenging to hear.

As I sat down today to send out some pieces to competitions and commissioning opportunities, I found myself doing something very similar. When I become convinced that I don't have a chance of being recognized or acknowledged, I act in a way that makes it more difficult to get recognition or acknowledgment. I pass up opportunities, or I approach the task of assembling the submission materials as a chore and an inconvenience. In reality, what I want can become more possible if I direct my energy appropriately, but I sometimes become bogged down by my doubts and fears and my energy becomes devoted to feeding those things instead. Fortunately, I recognized it today, and I sat back and thought, "What would it be like if the music I created won this competition?" I liked what I saw, and I was able to jump back into going for what I wanted with a smile.

It's what I want for the people I encounter, whether I see them for a moment or every day. I want them to get how much control they have over whether their fears or their hopes win their time and attention. I want to be a part of their awakening to how different their experience of life could be, and that it is a choice they can make, moment by moment. And I'm realizing that I don't have to go out and make opportunities for myself to be a catalyst in this way. The opportunities for me are all around me. All I have to do is notice them.

The Warrior's Bus

I just spent a tremendous week at Way of a (Spiritual) Warrior, a deepening of the tools I learned at the More To Life weekend in Houston last November. While much of the week's actual material is covered under a confidentiality clause, and it would be lacking in integrity to reveal what other people shared about their lives and discoveries, my breakthroughs alone could give me material to write on for weeks.

My first challenge turned out to be bigger than I expected. When I arrived at the airport, I had a few hours before the charter bus to the conference center was set to depart. I had a leisurely lunch, enjoyed people watching, and eventually made my way to the place where the bus would be waiting. I had printed out the instructions, which included the location to meet the bus, the name of the bus company, and a detailed description of how the bus would look. I was calm, confident, and eager to meet my fellow warriors.

Imagine my surprise when the location described on my printed page didn't actually exist. I went to the closest place I could find, and noticed that some construction was going on, so I followed some other people around to rows of buses for hotels and rental car agencies. That didn't seem like the right place, so I went back and started asking airport personnel. I learned about a new likely location for the charter bus, set off in that direction, and I was fine. A little frustrated, but willing to let it go.

Until I was unable to locate the bus at the new spot. Then, my frustration returned with a vengeance. I asked no less than six people with official looking uniforms and name badges and received the same three potential places, and at none of those places was there a bus that looked like the description I had. At one point I looked at my cell phone for the time and realized that the bus had been scheduled to depart 15 minutes ago. I thought: There's very little chance it's even still here for me to find. I decided to rent a car and drive there myself, even though this was an expense for which I really hadn't planned.

I was angry, frustrated, driven, and tense. I was believing that I should have been able to find the bus, that the directions were wrong, that the person who had written them was incompetent, and that I would have done a better job. I was believing not only that they were stupid, but that I was stupid and incompetent as well. I felt very disconnected from the enthusiasm I had been feeling less than an hour prior to that moment. I tried to hide all of that from the car rental agent. After all, it wasn't her fault. I told her what I needed, and she asked if I had my return flight information, documentation she needed to rent a car to me. I hadn't printed that out, so she suggested I go to the airline desk and get a copy of that.

Although I was polite to her, I was seething on the inside. One more obstacle in my path, I thought. And then I received a call on my cell phone. Another passenger from the bus had made a sign and was waiting for me by the information desk. They hadn't left. I found her and, still angry and frustrated, I followed her to the location of the bus, which I had passed at least twice. The bus didn't look anything like the description, there was no company name painted on the side, and there was no sign or indication that it was going where I wanted to go. But the driver had been there with the door open both times I walked past.

I held on to my anger, frustration, and judgment about the bus for at least a day, disengaging and remaining less than fully connected as the week began. But eventually I came to terms with the truth. The bus wasn't where I expected it to be. The bus didn't look like what I expected. I had inaccurate information. I was worth enough to them that they not only waited for me, but even sought me out. My anger and drivenness had focused my perception to such an impractical point that I was unwilling to explore possibilities outside my expectations. I could have asked the driver where he was going either of the times I had passed the bus, but I was convinced that it would have been a waste of time.

I don't know what would have happened if I had remained calm, open to alternatives, and connected with what was around me. It's possible that it would have played out in exactly the same way. But I know that I am more the person I want to be when I don't give my frustration and anger and drivenness the upper hand.

Just How I Am?

I awakened today with my own words in my head. I often remind others that we are all free to change our minds and choose something different than what we thought we wanted yesterday. There may be consequences, of course, but we never truly trapped by our decisions. So today, I am hearing my words back at me: I am not trapped by my choices or my circumstances.

It's tempting to fall back on statements like "That's just how I am," or "That's just the way I do things." But those little quips are really not accurate. My experience and my choices have all been up to this point, but I have the freedom to do things differently today if I want to. And tomorrow I'll get the same opportunity. To be honest, the choice is available to me many, many times a day.

So what do I want to change today? What do I want to do or be differently? What will get me even more on track with my goals and dreams? One thing is I'm going to speak up and make sure the people around me know what I want. How else can I really expect them to partner with me? I'm also going to be conscious about how I spend my time. I want to be awake and I want my choices to be purposeful. And I'm going to remember that I have the freedom to make any adjustments or course corrections I want along every step of the way.

Shortcuts

I was taking a large ensemble piece I wrote a few years ago and creating a virtual recording of it. I haven't ever gotten a high-quality performance or recording of the work, but I am hopeful that I'll be able to get close with my virtual studio setup. The biggest problem I encountered was one of balance between the instruments. I had been trying to take a convenient shortcut in recording the piece, but it was costing me more time and frustration than I had anticipated.

After my experiences this past weekend, I was quick to see that I had plenty of time to do this project well. I'm not on a deadline, and I won't lose anything by taking the time necessary to create a finished product with which I am very satisfied. What is my interest in a shortcut all about? I'm passionate about I'm doing, I have enough time to spend on it, and I'm not a lazy person. Maybe it was about finding an efficient way to accomplish what I want, but my exploration led me into understanding the flaws with my plan. What I was attempting wasn't much of a shortcut in the end. But that's really just fine. Now I can take the time to do it well.

Learning the Same Lessons

I served on the team that presented a More To Life Weekend in Houston over the last few days. My role was primarily responsible for compiling all of the documents and handouts participants received. When I accepted this role, it was presented as something that could be a bit of a challenge, so I began preparing several days in advance. By the time I arrived at the venue on Friday afternoon, I had several important pieces already in place.

What I learned early on was that other people were committed to my vision of this role. Not only was I able to rely on other people, it was vital for me to do so in order to have things done as impeccably as I wanted. I could have done everything myself, but I didn't have to. There were always enough people on hand to serve in whatever capacity was necessary in each moment, whether it was in my role or any of the many others that fit together to present a high-quality training. It was a real relief to me to recognize that I could trust other people, and that there was plenty of time. And, as I continue to realize, I can trust myself, too. My preparation contributed directly to how smoothly things went.

Then, I got a big surprise yesterday. One of the documents, a fairly important one that participants receive toward the end of the weekend, was not the version that the leadership had intended to distribute. The result may not have been apparent to the participants, but the leadership perceived it as making it easy for people to be less committed to making a powerful difference in the world. My initial reactions were to feel guilt, defensiveness, and shame, and to believe that I had failed and that others were going to hold this against me for a long time.

When I look at the truth of things, though, I see a different picture. I had prepared materials very conscientiously for this weekend. I was receiving a large number of documents from a variety of sources. I had asked for (and gotten) other knowledgeable people to look over what I had created for the participants ahead of time. I didn't know what this particular intended document looked like, or how it differed from what I had received. I could have followed up with the source for this particular document, but I didn't realize at the time how much of a difference it would make.

So, in the end, the guilt and defensiveness and shame are not a direct result of anything that happened. In fact, I am proud of the way I prepared for and carried out my role. I may have missed the mark on one document by not following up as thoroughly as I could have, but I that doesn't bring me anywhere close to failing. My experience over the weekend was that I didn't have to look very hard for people who are willing to contribute to my vision. Who are willing to embrace it as their vision... our vision together. Although a number of people (including myself) overlooked something, I can still trust people and rely on them. They are human beings just like me, and together we can recognize where we are and where we would like to be and chart a course in partnership. And I can still trust myself even when I recognize that I have room for improvement and growth.

Standing on the Tracks

I have been listening to people. Lots of different people in lots of different situations. In person, on the radio, friends, co-workers, politicians, strangers. And I have been thinking, "When do I sound like that?" Pessimistic. Afraid. Panicky even.

It takes many different forms, but I have been noticing more and more the influence of fear on people around me. It plays out like a natural, automatic response to danger, the whole fight or flight thing. Only the danger isn't real. And even if it is, reacting to it won't make it less dangerous. The more I listen to and watch people being fearful, the more I want to push them off the tracks. At least the ones to whom I have direct access.

But I recognize that pushing them off the tracks isn't necessarily the answer. I want to find a graceful way to point out: You are standing in the direct path of a crazy-train of your own device, and if you are willing to take a few steps, your perspective might grant a fuller picture of reality. The crazy-train might be exciting, but it doesn't go to the destination you really want.

And then I look at my own decisions and thought streams, and I recognize how crafty fear can be. I make intentional choices most of the time, but sometimes I stand right on the tracks. My own crazy-train doesn't smack me or crush me, though. It just scoops me up gently and carries me in the opposite direction of where I most want to go. Am I so afraid of getting what I want?
What can I create from fear that is worth creating? Who can I be when I'm in control of my fear and not the other way around?