Drifting? You are not alone.
Earlier in the month, I was away walking with 12 men and contemporary mystic, Sujith Ravindran - initiation, pilgrimage and conscious leadership mastery all in one. This a story for another time.
Reconnecting to my phone on return, my 14 year old shared footage of the Nepal Gen Z uprising - disaffected youth burning down institutions, fighting against powerlessness and lost hope.
Gen Z Riots, Nepal image via Wikipedia.
A few months back a well meaning friend was blaming Trumpism on the uneducated - dismissing, as old Brexit news, communities robbed of purpose by de-industralisation and lost work.
Which brings us to you.
Doing work you don't really enjoy for people you don't respect, stuck in roles and companies lacking purpose. Busy for the sake of it.
The Nepalese Gen Z, the disaffected voter and you, outwardly successful but flat in your work and life, are different in many ways - and others less so.
The tectonic plates on which you live and work are shifting. Old paradigms crumble, stories told to make sense of the world are melting away.
And as they do, people look for new story. For want of alternatives, a strong man story, of hate and fear, finds root. It need not be this way.
Last week we hosted the inaugural session of LeanMind; a community for leaders to stop the drift and reclaim agency, clarity, simplicity and joy, shifting work, companies and families as they do. Whilst their entry point might be joyless work, the through line to the Nepalese protester, the disaffected voter is clear.
There is drift...people blown along by stories which no longer serve them.
Understanding that you're connected to something bigger, more mysterious and wonder-ful than you is important. It's grounding. A reminder it's not all on you. With it comes the opportunity to control less.
This is wisdom.
The wise old sage Lao Tzu told a good story. One nugget resonates (I paraphrase): knowledge is grown by adding something everyday. Wisdom is realised by subtracting something everyday.
This the inflection point of our time. We're full of knowledge. And need wisdom.
Wisdom shifts our story of work and role, of meaning and contribution.
Wisdom helps us understand our interconnection with each other.
Wisdom is necessary to create new ripples of work, contribution and opportunity affecting your day-to-day, and the communities near and far into which you're plugged.
People are cross and angry, without hope or opportunity. Nepal today, where tomorrow?
The work starts with you.
Stop the drift and reclaim agency. Orientate to meaning, purpose and contribution. And find your way there by going slow, diving deep and simplifying.
Less really is more.