Enough of the cheap talk.
Welcome back to my writing. Fresh off the summer break. This week, we're writing to cheap talk and your needy, greedy, lazy, crazy mind (worry not, mine is too).
It’s easy to talk cheap.
Like me telling you…:
Slow down
Go deep
Focus only on the most important things….
(….and connect with interesting folk as you do).
What to do when your shit is real?
That’s all fine, I hear you say, except your juggle is real.
I was talking to a friend yesterday, viscerally familiar with the each of the horseman of the midlife apocalypse referenced here; those unwelcome signals that your road is done.
I like the call to simplicity, he said. And to focus only on the most important things. But what to do when the shit is real and large and impossible to put down?
When your company is fighting to survive. The tax man is at your door. Or you’re stretched to a living point too far beyond your means point, irrespective how big that might be, each and every month.
How then, simplicity? Or clarity? Or focusing only on the most important things?
The Second Arrow
The Buddha told a good story. It goes by the name of the Second Arrow. Allow me to paraphrase.
Shit happens / there is suffering.
Let’s call this the first arrow. Maybe it’s your company in trouble. Or the tax man demanding more than you have available. Whatever. This shit is real, yes, but in a sense it's just data which needs tending to.
And then there’s your reaction to the arrow. We don’t just acknowledge it, we twist it, pull it, yank it, fight it. This in the form of stories and projections and frustrations which bubble up: stories like, I’ve fucked up. Like I always do. I’m a dick. And look like an idiot. Or some versions thereof.
It’s these stories that linger. And clog up our minds, stifle our creativity, and weigh heavy on our hearts. These the Second Arrow. We can do nothing about the first but everything about the second.
As one teacher of mine beautifully explains it, sitting somewhere inside this being called you is a mind, rich in wonder, alive with potential but deeply, madly, ‘needy, greedy, crazy and lazy’.
And What Of Stopping The Drift and Reclaiming Your Agency, Impact and Joy?
Here’s the work too.
Stopping your drift and reclaiming your agency, simplicity, clarity and joy is, in part, about knowing your tendency to the second arrow. If you’re simplifying anything, let’s start with these second arrow stories, rumblings and ruminations.
It might very well be your company needs urgent care, or your finances or your family. If so, care. And then put the story down. Or, more accurately, learn to let it go (which it will, if you'll let it). A subtle and important difference.