The Direction of Intention

313.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Lora was on a ship that late one night ran aground in the Icy Straits of Alaska. They had to abandon ship. With several other passengers she was taken onto a fishing vessel. One of the passengers had a cell phone that had service so she left me a message (I was on the east coast sleeping in a comfy bed while she was having her adventure) telling me that she was fine, that all of the passengers where safe and that she’d call me when she was able. She wanted to call because she knew the news channels would tell a story of disaster instead of the story of safe competent response to an unfortunate accident.

Indeed, the next morning after receiving her message I turned on the news and saw the ship run aground. All around it were life bright orange rafts – in cold climates the life rafts are like tents – the news choppers couldn’t see inside so they were reporting that people were freezing in the rafts and that almost certainly there would be casualties. The rafts were deployed but no one was in them. All the passengers were transported to an Alaska State Ferry boat; while the news reported a tragedy the passengers were enjoying a warm breakfast and a good nap after a night of high adventure.

I remembered this experience today as I listened to the stories being told around the tragedy in Italy. People died. The captain most certainly abandoned his ship. And, within two hours, the crew safely evacuated over 4,000 people despite the limited ability to launch their lifeboats – a listing ship renders the boats dangerous to deploy. Someone did something right. And, it was certainly messy and panic-filled.

Yesterday I listened to economist Tyler Cowen’s TED talk in which he implored us to doubt our facility for story. I think he got it wrong – we are storytelling beings and our facility for story is what makes us human. It is the glue that binds community; it is how we make sense of the world. What we need to doubt is the intention behind the stories that we tell (and are told). We are in too much of a hurry to assign blame, too interested in whipping up disaster. Affixing blame also limits our capacity to see, to think, to act, it is easy, feels good (because we are not to blame), and makes victims of us all.

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306.
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Horatio gave me two great gifts last night (well, in truth, there were more than two but I’d make his head swell were I to admit it).

First, he told me he was going to hold my head in the toilet, drown me in the porcelain pool, until I told more stories within these posts. “I want examples from real life!” he exclaimed. “Practice what you preach!” He is, of course, right. He is also quite a bit taller than I am and fully capable of making good on his threat. I love a good story and sometimes tell them. Lora would caution you to remember that I am given to exaggerating details – I call that good story telling, and she once threw a frozen leg of lamb at me feet. I danced like she was shooting at my boots. No toes were broken and she made me eat the leg of lamb later that night. Imagine my trauma.

Second, in the bar after the Pinter film, Horatio cautioned me to pay attention to my language (he took a play from my playbook!) and helped me see that I too often set up oppositions: for instance, I regularly assert that process is better than outcome. It’s not. It is more accurate to say that I believe outcome nests within process as a finite game nests within and infinite game. We need both. I believe that if you pay attention to the process, the quality of your relationships in the moment, the outcomes will take care of themselves. If you focus on the outcomes to the exclusion of the process (i.e. standardized tests, bottom lines, the ends justify the means, weighing our interests against our values), you will end up asking yourself, “What’s it all about?” You will end up justifying and defending your actions.

Everyone deserves a friend like Horatio. I mean it. I’m not exaggerating. I’m not saying it just to keep my head out of the commode. Really.

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305.
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Just outside my bedroom window, attached to the upper right frame of the window, a spider has spun a web. She’s been there for months. At first she was a passing fancy, something I noticed or not; now, she is part of my morning ritual. When I wake up, the first thing I do is look to the corner to see if she is still there.

I live on the 4th floor in a building that sits on a peninsula. The winds that come off the Puget Sound can be ferocious and my building is on the front line; there is nothing to break the wind between my apartment and the Sound. I have watched with amazement how my spider is buffeted by the winds and yet seems unaffected. Her web pulses and violently vibrates with the wind and she seems to be napping. I have been in more than a few earthquakes and my spider’s ride with the wind is longer and more fierce than any quake that I’ve experienced. She rides the power of nature (so far); there is no resistance to it. There is no point in resisting it and she knows this far better than I.

Now that I’m invested in her life I am busy wrapping stories around her experiences. My window does not seem to be a great place to build a web either for food or protection. I wonder about her choices and how did she get so high in the first place? I wonder if the wave motion of her web makes her seasick as it surely would make me queasy (and attaining sea legs for a spider is either less or more complex than it is for me and my two points of contact). Not only that, but she lives in a vertical plane and I wonder if she experiences gravity like I do. And, if she doesn’t, what does she experience?

I know one day I will wake up and she will be gone and I will wonder if she left by choice or was carried away. Perhaps she just let go. In any case, she has been a great teacher and has inspired some wonderful questions and more than one inner reflection (How do I live with such ease and ride the winds with as much grace? What is it to construct your world to flex and adapt to the changes and forces of life?). I imagine that, were she human, she’d tell me not to fret so much. “Spin your web,” she’d say, “you have no control over the winds or how many bugs fly your way. Do your part, the rest is out of your hands.”

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292.
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Here’s one from Viv. She doesn’t know it but it is also the resolution to a challenge. For years I’ve been teaching about split intentions and although it seems to me like an easy concept to grasp (to me), it is a slippery concept. A split intention is to try and serve two masters at the same time. It is to try and listen to the devil seated on your right shoulder while also heeding the angel on your left. This ridiculous yet pervasive notion called multitasking is a study in split intentions. Driving while texting is a split intention: studies tell us that it’s the equivalent of driving drunk – really drunk. That is also true of most split intentions: the split leads you to believe that you can do anything – it is especially useful in giving you the illusion of efficiency but when you’re drunk it is easy to believe you can sing, or dance, or fly, too. You’re not more efficient, it just feels that way because you’re moving too fast and are stressed out of your mind.

Most artistic blocks are rooted in a split intention. In fact, most business challenges, hurdles in education, political stalemates, and stress-related health problems can be traced back to a split intention. And, wouldn’t it be nice, I said to myself just yesterday, to have a nice metaphor, proverb, or catchy lyric to encapsulate the concept of a split intention. Then, Viv flew in today and dropped this Chinese proverb on me via a Twitter egg:

If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.

I have nothing more to add. Case closed…except for this: do you know when you are chasing two rabbits? Do you know what the rabbits are and why you are chasing them? Just checking (Thanks, Viv!).

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287.
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Ana-the-wise and I talked this morning about the return of the light. Literally and metaphorically. The return of the light used to be the meaning-of-the-season! The sun’s march into the darkest day, the winter solstice, was a sacred time. The disappearance of the sun, the life-giver; what could be more profound? And then, instead of disappearing, the sun returns! What could be more worthy of celebrating?

In archetypal terms the return of the sun is understood as the birth of the inner child. In metaphor, the birth of the child is the birth of your consciousness. I suppose, technically, it is the rebirth of the consciousness since it happens in a cycle, again and again and again. Each year we have the opportunity to celebrate the expansion of consciousness – the return of the sun, the birth of the inner child – and in some places on the planet the expansion of consciousness is still understood as having a spiritual life. Everyone is living a spiritual life.

The return of the sun happens outside of you; the return of the sun happens inside of you. Imagine what you might be doing if you still felt a deep connection to the sun, as if what you did actually had some influence over the sun’s return! And then consider this: people worship the literal return of the sun because it mirrors the inner return; they feel connected: no separation. With no separation between inner sun and outer sun it is the birth of the inner child, the expansion of consciousness that they see in the sun’s return.

It turns out that what you do and what you think actually does matter! It turns out that you have an enormous impact on the return of the sun (whether you know it or not…and isn’t the point for you to recognize it).

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284.
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I look forward to my conversations with Joe. He thinks about interesting things. He wrestles with titanic questions. Today we were talking about how I intend to best serve people through this meditation on power and he asked me this question:

If truly powerful people are dedicated to inspiring true power in others, if empowered people empower others, what is power used for? Is it to create a better world, to create personal fulfillment, what is power for?

Earlier this weekend I had a conversation with Duncan. He is a composer and is wrestling with all the questions that come with being an artist in a consumer society. He asked a question not unlike Joe’s question: what is art for?

It is the holidays and I’m reconnecting with some people that I’ve not talked with since this time last year. We’re condensing a year’s worth of life into a phone call. We’re catching up. This has been a year with many deaths; death of a parent, a spouse, a friend. Twice in these conversations I’ve heard this phrase: “It makes me wonder what my life is about.” What is life for?

I have many different responses to these questions about power and art and life and my responses depend upon the circumstances and my intentions. There is not one answer. One of my lessons from Bali was that the way a question is asked reveals the consciousness of the asker: I saw things there that I will never be able to explain and repeatedly asked my guide, “What was that for?” or “Why?” He would always smile; a Balinese rarely asks “why” in the face of a mystery, they dance with the mystery because they know they are part of the mystery. Budi would say, “There is no why. There is no what for.” And then he would laugh.

The question, “What is if for?” reveals the belief of separation: power, art, and life are resources to be used, love is something you find instead of something you are.

Power, art, life, and love are for helping you realize that alone we are meaning seekers; together we are power, art, life and love.

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278.
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Today I have been thinking about the word Separation – it was a thread of the conversation that wound its way through both coaching classes. Alan pointed out to the group that somewhere in the 18th century we western thinkers separated thought from impact on reality; in other words we stopped believing that our individual thoughts in the moment had any effect on the world outside of our noggins: thinking only has punch if the body is engaged. Essentially we found a way to cleave our Being from our Doing which is particularly absurd when you consider that most of what you do in a day is think thoughts, and the thoughts you think create the world you believe you inhabit. It is not a stretch to recognize that thinking IS creating. That we managed to embrace a philosophy of compartments (head is separate from heart) and reduction (what’s the bottom line?) leads me to believe that it is our just desserts that we wander the earth looking for meaning and wondering what is truly valuable.

Of course, the being/doing separation that intrigues me the most today is the separation of the present from health and/or fulfillment. Here’s how it works: convince yourself that if you just do x,y, or z someday you have health (or wealth or success or meaning,…fill in the blank). It is life lived as an outcome. Life lived someday, achieved out there in the future. If you just have more money, more time, more friends, more wine, more clothes, more technology, you will arrive and be complete (this is lack in disguise)

It is a miracle (I use that word consciously) what happens when you release the story of separation and, instead, tell a story of connectivity: health/wealth/happiness is something you create now; it is something you choose in this moment, and the next moment. It is your story. Your thoughts create your world. You are powerful. Your thinking is not neutral in impact nor is it passive. Separation is an illusion.

How would you live if you believed that your thoughts mattered? How would you live if you believed that your actions mattered and were an expression of your being (your doing reveals your being)?

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271.
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Here’s an interesting phrase that came up twice today: soul searching. This is not a new phrase. In fact, I’ve heard it a lot. I use it myself sometimes. I heard it anew today because I had two conversations and the phrase was used in two remarkably different ways (I have permission to share this with you):

• “I have a soul and I am searching within myself for my truth.”

• “I have lost my soul and I’m looking for it.”

The first usage is healthy. The second is tragic. What is it to feel as if you’ve lost your soul? I am not asking a religious question. I am asking something fundamental and practical that applies to us all.

Here is the context from the person who feels as if they have lost their soul (I’m generalizing a much bigger conversation): In business (and government) there is often an invisible scale – like the scale of justice – in one tray is the word “values” and in the other tray is the word “interests.” How often have you heard someone in a position of authority say, “We had to weigh our interests against our values,” as a way of justifying the action that betrayed the stated values? My conversation was with a man in authority who recognized that he makes that statement a lot. Today is the day he realized what he was really saying. He said it this way: “I have no values that matter. The bottom line, what we’ve been calling interests are in practice, in truth, what we really value; interests trump values every time. I’ve been making excuses, pretending that I’m serving a set of values. I’m not. It’s a lie.” Strong words! That’s when he used the phrase “soul searching.” Today, he is my hero. I do not underestimate the power of his revelation and the bind that he now faces.

I think his dilemma is the dilemma of our times. There is not greater expression of values lost in service to interests (there was no weighing) than a government that collaborated with its financial institutions to rape its people and bring down the world economy. And the people (that’s us) are not innocent either: shoppers stampeding and pepper spraying each other to get a bargain are certainly in service to their interests and completely void of any greater value set.

The question posed by my hero-of-the-day is this: aren’t our interests supposed to be in service to our values and not the other way around? We could all use a bit of soul searching.

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256.
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It is 1984 and I have moved to Louisville, Kentucky to support my girlfriend, Linda. She has been accepted into the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville’s intern program, an elite intense year of actor training, all day, everyday, seven days a week.

We’ve been in Louisville for several weeks and our money supply is running dry. I apply for jobs all day, everyday and I am either too educated or not educated enough, too skilled or not skilled enough. I’m doing temp work, unloading semi-trucks filled with mattresses, digging holes, raking leaves, painting houses and still we are falling behind. We have very little furniture. In fact, the stuff we call furniture was never meant to be furniture: cinder blocks and saw horses. We are now rationing our Ramen noodles.

One night Linda snaps. She is angry and tired and frustrated. I come home from a day of waiting in lines and being summarily excused from potential jobs. I pick up the landlord’s newspaper as I come up the walk, look up and Linda is waiting for me, arms crossed. She unloads her exhaustion on me and I am too young to realize her anger is not meant for me so I take the bullet and return her anger with some frustration of my own. I fling my arms up in protest, the newspaper slips from my grip and like a pop fly at home base, it soars straight up above my head and down again, retracing it’s path, bounces once off my head with a supplemental bounce off my shoulder before I reflexively catch it.

She is a master of comic timing and waits just long enough for me to recognize that I’ve just clobbered myself with a newspaper before she bursts into gales of laughter. I try to continue my protest but cannot through the storm of her glee. My black mood cracks and I chuckle too, claiming that I meant to do it. I assure Linda, now overcome with her laughter, that I am an excellent shot and although I may not be qualified to do many things in Louisville, Kentucky, I am very qualified to humiliate myself publically.

The newspaper helped open our eyes. Her fear and exhaustion was hers. My fear and anger was mine. As is always the case, the bullets we shot at each other had nothing to do with the other person. It would be years of public humiliations before I’d learn the lesson: it is never personal; my stuff is mine to navigate, theirs is theirs to navigate, no matter how angry or ugly I have the choice to take the bullet into my body or let it pass me by. More importantly, navigating my stuff means to speak my truth, to say what I need before I start with the bullets.

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252.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

It was a lazy autumn afternoon and we sat in a coffee shop for a few hours talking about art and life and travel. Our conversation was like a winding path that slowly went deeper and deeper into more personal and meaning-full territory. He asked a question, more to himself than to me, “If I value my family, why is it that I can never let myself just be with them? Why is it never enough to just be?”

A great question!

He was quiet for a moment as the question hung in the air between us, then he continued, “Why the judgment? Why the need to achieve all the time? I can never just be – and this need to achieve things every moment of every day is driven by this voice on judgment! There is no resting in the moment. Why can’t I feel contentment?”

His questions are ubiquitous; I hear people asking the same questions everywhere. Why can’t we feel contentment? Why the judgment?

Here are some questions to ask about these ever-present questions: What are you actually achieving? What are you actually judging? Do you know what you are trying to achieve or is it some abstract idea that is impossible to attain? What do you gain by giving away your life and relationships to something that is impossible to grasp, like sand running through your hands? What does doing enough look like? What does being enough feel like? Who in your life is the keeper of “enough?” Whose voice is in your head judging you? Why do you listen? Do you need to listen to the judgment?

As Viktor Frankel wrote, “Happiness ensues.” Contentment, like happiness is not something you attain, it follows. It is in the meaning your give to your day and your life not in what you achieve. Your life is like sand and it runs through your hands each and every day. What would it take for you to decide to be present and content in it?

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