Put Your Whole Self In
Eventually, you get to the place where it’s not worth it holding back anymore. It’s too hard and it’s boring.
The effort of not being who you are outweighs the value of being who you aren’t.
That’s when we turn our lives inside-out and blossom.
We get glimpses of this beginning in childhood, anytime we do something useful for someone else, but it doesn’t usually unfold all the way down until around midlife, when we have enough experience to be fearless and fully present.
A kind of convergence happens between what makes us happy and what needs to be done and so the question “what’s next?” is answered for us. That’s when we naturally bring all that we are to all that we do without hesitation.
In personal relationships, this usually takes time to occur, too. We have to share experiences with someone else that reveal who we are, and have to have reflected back to us a similar degree of honesty and trust.
With young children, we bring this sentiment relatively easily, with adult partners typically only over time and with some consistent work. With the world at-large, though, it takes reaching a point at which what people think about you doesn’t matter as much as how you care about them.
That’s when we arrive at that place where it all flows.
You put your whole self in. That’s what it’s all about.
I’ve thinking a lot about the Hadza in Africa, especially this 94 year-old guy, Kampala, spry as an elf, and how they didn’t seem to be anywhere else than right there and no one other than who they were.
And it’s the best of each of us when we’re like that, when we allow ourselves to simply be seen doing what comes most naturally to us all: caring for others.
Why is the world isn’t organized to make it easier for us to help one another?
Isn’t that why we’re here?
The effort of not being who you are outweighs the value of being who you aren’t.
That’s when we turn our lives inside-out and blossom.
We get glimpses of this beginning in childhood, anytime we do something useful for someone else, but it doesn’t usually unfold all the way down until around midlife, when we have enough experience to be fearless and fully present.
A kind of convergence happens between what makes us happy and what needs to be done and so the question “what’s next?” is answered for us. That’s when we naturally bring all that we are to all that we do without hesitation.
In personal relationships, this usually takes time to occur, too. We have to share experiences with someone else that reveal who we are, and have to have reflected back to us a similar degree of honesty and trust.
With young children, we bring this sentiment relatively easily, with adult partners typically only over time and with some consistent work. With the world at-large, though, it takes reaching a point at which what people think about you doesn’t matter as much as how you care about them.
That’s when we arrive at that place where it all flows.
You put your whole self in. That’s what it’s all about.
I’ve thinking a lot about the Hadza in Africa, especially this 94 year-old guy, Kampala, spry as an elf, and how they didn’t seem to be anywhere else than right there and no one other than who they were.
And it’s the best of each of us when we’re like that, when we allow ourselves to simply be seen doing what comes most naturally to us all: caring for others.
Why is the world isn’t organized to make it easier for us to help one another?
Isn’t that why we’re here?
posted by Professor Dave at 7:34 PM
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