Whose Life Are You Living, Anyway?
“The board and I have decided not to renew your contract.
You can go today".
And with that, so ended 17 years of a company I’d co-founded.
It was a hot, July day. A decade or more back.
There was much I liked about the work and company I was being leaved from.
CEO. co-founder. Easy labels to hide behind at a street party.
I liked flying around the world in nice seats.
The big house.
But did I really like the work we needed to do? What the company was to become?
Was I really cut out for the role that needed doing; as grand and ego inflating as it made me feel?
Everything is just data.
It might not feel that way when the knife falls. It didnt me. Cutting, as it does, through the fragile story we hide behind, leaving a little you exposed and seen. And maybe a little naked.
But in the tender remains a new truth, bigger, maybe harder to swallow.
"What do the gods ask of you?" is a brilliant and provocative question asked by teacher and writer James Hollis, designed to open an exploration into what the messy middle of midlife asks of you.
The gods, they speak in myriad ways.
Maybe the cues and clues are subtle, whispers.
Sometimes they speak loud.
A sacking here.
A failure there.
And sometimes they’re blended - where does your energy go?
What were they asking of me?
To live more truthfully.
More honest and open.
To ask and reflect: whose life am I living anyway?
This what the big house says really: look at me? Aren’t I successful.
Sticking plasters over a gaping hole.
The gaping hole might be a more useful teacher.
What is in this void?
For me, a wish, a will to connect. To weave new story, foster new connections. To allow my work to express as an artist might. Work as art. Beauty.
Last week in LeanMind, I forced a member - with a friendly smile - to share something they’d resisted doing but had finally done. That we all wrestle with doubt and procrastination, whatever our outer level of success and achievement, was interesting to me and felt useful to others. But something else too. His ‘work’ was crafting a piece of music and to him this made it different: it’s art, he said. By which he means, I think, it’s part of him. And putting part of you into the world is risky and hard and difficult to do.
This is what the Gods were asking of me on that July day when the old guillotine cut clean.
That our need and opportunity is to find our way from labels helping us feel better to contribution which makes us feel alive.
I know these threads are alive in me. And I see them in you too.
What needs removing to find your way to yours?
What needs honouring?
Because if you don’t choose to do the work, the gods might do it for you.
Embrace your storytelling heart.
Embrace your wish to create.
Embrace love.