The Cost Of You Holding On
A friend shared that over half the dad's of his son's school friends are now long term unemployed.
This in Manhattan.
Home to banking, finance, tech. Etc.
Half.
A few quick caveats - we know not how many school friends his son has - could be 2! Nor how (in)competent the dads might be. But a measure or marker nonetheless?
There's no doubt as you get older you're a) easier to replace (with cost the guiding metric, which it mainly is) and b) it's harder to find the next thing.
But other things are at play too, no doubt.
There is tech. Obvs.
An economy flat lining.
There is nervousness and apprehension, politically, socially, ecologically. Fear contracts.
And the felt sense that the giant wheel we call life is turning.
And as if turns, are you, left holding on, slowly spun into an irrelevance?
Ouch. There's a nasty thought.
Maybe less a wheel, more a road?
There comes a time when the road you're walking runs out. It might be your company road, or your personal road, or both; you're spat out, left naked and nervous on the other side.
There comes a time too when life runs out - life leaves the body, as the Hindus beautifully describe death.
What might this life death moment teach us?
Or teach the above mentioned dads at the school gates?
In the Hindu view, how you die is important.
You don't want to a) hang on too long nor b) make the separation too fraught or messy. These riddle your afterlife.
The school gate dads are experiencing a dying of sorts.
Theirs a very real signal that the Act I of their work and life might be over and an Act II is trying to be born.
So the question is...how will you (let) die?
The will to live is strong. See that in end of actual life. Keep feeding in energy (food), the body keeps pushing on. Until it can no longer.
This plays out differently with the school gate dads. If no less messily.
You, like them, have likely invested decades in a story of you; a story largely inherited from family and culture. About your place and where you fit. About what is right and wrong. About money, status, power, belonging.
These stories run deep.
Letting them die is hard.
The other side is unknown.
So we push harder, chase the old roles, apply the defibrillator and hope to jolt the patient back to life; that this role will fix it, or that project, or this change. That my luck will turn on this interview. It might. For a short while.
What, by way of alternative, if we let go? What if we let the old life die, blow into the wind?
It need not mean destitution or burning down the metaphorical house. It need not mean your children starving to death. It might require shifting priorities, and a healthy dose of trust and faith.
Work need not be a slog, a largely unwelcome stream of shit for people we don't like or respect, in service of not very much. There are richer, fuller, more joyful alternate roads.
I don't mean become a yoga teacher either - unless of course that's really your thing. Not that there's anything wrong with yoga teachers. Some of my best friends are yoga teachers.
I'm more interested in your thing.
I believe we all have a thing trying to birth out. This the opportunity for work (and the underlying motivation, whatever we're doing): to be seen and heard, to contribute and create, to feel useful and loved and like we're weaving a new thread into this giant tapestry we call life. The whispers of 'your thing' run deep, threading back to your childhood and beyond.
I believe this because I've found it. LeanMind is a creation from this place. I've seen it playing out too in the work of hundreds, thousands of friends and collaborators and readers of this very newsletter.
It might not feel like it, stuck, chief of school gate snack bars as you are, wondering when your luck or insight will change, But it is there. This just your invitation to let the old life die and birth in the new.
Maybe in this new you'll end up doing a version of the old, via a news lens, oozing a new spirit or perspective. Or maybe the path turns more dramatically. It matters not. Iterate. Play. Experiment - and, as one LeanMinder said this week, follow your interests.
It will not be easy. Not should it be. Nor quick. The best things aren't. But navigating to it will be rich in reward, meaning and purpose, if you'll let it. And you'll be healthier and happier as a consequence.
How could you not be as the town's next hot shot yoga teacher.
Whether you're drifting or already on the iterative path to a brave new motherland, feel free to join the next workshop on Monday 23rd Feburary at midday (GMT):
The Cost Of You Holding On: How To Let Go to More Joy, Clarity, and Agency
Until next week, you badass yoga dude.
Ben