Risk's Sweet Reward

Man, I love to be the center of attention. Not a spectacle, per se. But up front, on, performing. Coming off a speaking event, I am full of the alive feeling of absolutely having to rise to the occasion and meet the moment. Sweet.
Many associate such feelings with vanity, hubris, arrogance. To the extent such worrisome adjectives may be partially true of me, I am not too concerned at the moment. Because dominant is the achievement, the crucial aspect of my role, the encounter with the unknown and unanticipatable dynamics, and the adrenaline rush of risking failure on a moment by moment basis in the presence of others.

Shifting Attention

Corporate mumblings about about someone needing to take the fall. Action is necessary even though no one really understands what happened. Lack of response would be interpreted as incompetence, though, any incompetence was what allowed this situation to get to this point in the first place. Now that power is watching, the appearances must be otherwise. The criteria for the next crucial decision is self-protective. The strategy is to shift blame. The motivation is fear. The rewards are self-congratulatory. Nothing changes.

Firsts

Nerves, pressure, excitement, stress, performance, achievement, failure, gift, embarrassment, emerge, soar. A lot of different angles on another day at work. But it's not just another day at work. It's a first. And I'm excited and nervous at the same time. It's going to be a good day.

Background Music

The thing about background music is that it plays a supporting role. It enhances the environment without drawing attention to itself. Rather than becoming the experience, it complements the experience. No one stops what they're doing to hum along, fantasize about their concert debut, or inquire into the title or original performer.
In not being noticed background music finds its applause. Anonymity distinguishes it from the competition. Its success is measured by the fruit of those whom it serves.
I would imagine something similar is true for people as well. We would be mistaken to underestimate the significance of those whose presence and efforts enhance the effectiveness of others. Who are these people in your life?

Surprised by Cope

The human capacity to cope is truly amazing. We are dumbfounded when people we thought we knew fall apart. We are scandalized when someone hurts someone they care about. I wonder, though, whether the surprise and incredulity belongs the other way around. That anyone can cope at all, much less continually over a life span, through myriad difficulties, is the real oddity.

Blamed For Living

A real body blow. The kind you don't see coming. For as obviously and quickly as the roles of villian and victim are being cast, it gives me pause that everyone is so surprised. Such bombshells usually suggest more complexity over more time than the damning indictments would lead one to believe.
Still a shock. Still painful, even from the sidelines. Who is safe if such things can sneak up on you unnoticed? "I'm in pain. There must be someone else to blame." Who isn't in pain? Who are these people who we think waltz through life and against whom we interpret our own lives as unsatisfactory.
It's enough that the surface we traverse is treacherous. We don't need to blame each other every time we discover that traveling involves stumbling. We might not need to take so many people down with us, if we felt it was safer to struggle along the way.

Making Progress

Step by step. Walking, running, wandering, pacing, marching, racing, tip-toeing, climbing, dragging, lunging, skipping, crawling, jogging, falling, strolling, creeping, leaping... Step by step.

Constant Change

Beginnings and endings. Even the end of something is the beginning of living without it. All things new all the time gets old after a while. Newness is the new sameness. The only thing constant around here is change. I was thinking of trying something new and doing something again. Get the middle back in between the beginning and the end.

Emotion Ambush

It's interesting how powerful our emotions are. Actually, I should say, I'm repeatedly both caught off guard and frustrated by how easily and how often I am ambushed in my decision-making by feelings out of proportion with the facts. A blessing and a curse. Adding flavor, texture and rhythm for so much. What varies, though, depending on my own internal health, is whether they are enhancing additions or distorting additions. A mixed bag at best.

Internal Mutterings

The internal mutterings and murmurings distract more than inform. While possibly clues warranting further reflection, they are simply not clear enough voices to join the conversation or vote on decisions.
As distractions, though, they must be quickly acknowledged and set aside. Not pushed underground. They will merely bubble up again a little louder though no more distinct. If I could find a way to affirm their validity without ceding my emotional well-being to their inarticulate darkness, I'd be able to act with a more grounded confidence without having to resort to bravado to move forward or succumb to hesitation and get stuck.

Clues Everywhere

Even silhouettes can betray demeanor. The recesses of light's absence as revealing as its presence. Clues everywhere. Where are the attending eyes? One would assume at least the curious or desperate would show up.
Short-sighted or possibly overwhelmed, we abruptly give up at the perimeter of perceived reality and consequently cede its interpretation to others. We feel powerless and/or victimized within the confines of that interpretation, but never come to terms with the mortal blow we dealt ourselves by standing at the periphery working only with what we are handed. How often does our own passivity become our most active weapon against ourselves?

Hating Chores

As much as I hate household chores, they provide both a structure and an impetus I lack in my vastly spacious world. Dishes, laundry, mail, trash, all continue to pile up until dealt with. Best, of course, to address while discreet and managable. The consequences of avoidance are immediate and ugly.
Of course, those who know me know how negatively I respond to negative motivations. Needless to say two negatives do not make a positive in this case. Hence the conjecture whether the unintended effect of structure holds potential for unlocking the fortified gates of resistence.
Not that I'm ever going to jump up and down about my chores. (Though I suppose temper tantrums involve similar motions.) But it would be nice to get at a more constructive motivation for keeping the piles down. Every moment is my life, even the more mundane ones.

Desert Decisions

Temperature rising in the desert. Intensity in the midst of deprivation. Trying to conserve energy with tinges of panic urging a desperate run before it's too late. Identical horizons echo blindness without the darkness. Inaction is not an option. What clues to discerning next steps lie undiscovered deep within?

Fabricated Stress

Pressure fabricated in one's own imagination. Stressing that which was never the case. How often? The wasted energy. The lost time. The internal toll.
Can't second guess so much, but do need to take a step back every so often. Make sure I am perceiving with some perspective. It's when certain things fill the canvas, perspective and periphery get eliminated. Makes it more difficult to interpret the subject.

Companions for Courage

There is a fair amount of courage one derives from the courage of others. Or I should say, there is a fair amount of courage I derive when accompanied by the courageous.
I am not talking about the confident. That is a different skill, albeit also an important one. I am talking about a fellowship of mustering. Walking alongside those who have to summon something extra from a deep, inarticulate recess within themselves to accomplish their task. Whether it be to take on a daunting mission or to confront a mean-spirited coworker, the risks (even the irrational ones) are tangible and dangerous.
Hence the mustering. The drawing on deeper, stronger, richer, sounder resources to choose as we know in our heart of hearts we must.
I, for one, am more likely to rise to the courage-mustering task in the company of those who are determined to do so as well. Courage engenders courage. Fear engenders fear.
Join me.
Please.

Exploring vs. Wandering

Blurred at best is any distinction between exploring and wandering. Between blazing a new path and being lost. Am I the determined, persistent visionary courageously co-creating the emerging future or the deluded, disoriented egoist possessed by my own unconscious needs? Both extremes, granted. But useful. To pursue the first there is the risk of the second.
Key seems to be locating points of reference one can interact with without being absorbed by. Good friends can serve here well. The combination of love and loyalty creates a safe dynamic for working through much that is mysterious in life. Jesus would be another such a point of reference for me. (Not though in the conservative tendency to defer unthinkingly to some 21st century theological conceptualization of morality or obedience or faithfulness.)
One thing have I determined: I will not fail to explore in order to avoid the risk of wandering. I will not reduce my efforts to participate in the future in order to console myself or anyone else that I am not dishonoring the past.

What Will Be

What will be will be. I used to consider such attitudes a form of giving up. But I sense as much, if not more, peace than passivity in this phrase today. A peace that does not bother with passivity because we are a part of something bigger than ourselves. Something going on whether or not we participate. Someone building something wonderful to which our contribution is a significant enhancement but not the foundation itself.
And so the sun will again rise in the morning. It will shine whether I achieve or fail. Failure finally loses its vicious grip on my psyche. I actually become willing to be play a bigger part in the story as I realize how small I am in the overall picture.

Fear's Calibrations

Calibrated down to the facial expressions. The amount of energy required is enormous. What will happen to me? The question haunts and colors everything in fear. The step become softer. The eyes grow tentative. The voice prefaces and qualifies even the most inocuous statement.
Is this even worth showing up for? When one's mere presence is a mere annoyance, an unwelcome disruption.
What courageous frame of reference frees the human soul to be unique in the context of others? When are the distinctions enhancements as opposed to detriments? Certainly the experience of community does not require that we all disappear as individuals.
I am reminded of the apostle John's juxtaposition of fear with love. From whence does my decision to step more softly derive?

Reading Closeness

I lounge with a child under my arm, the last one who snuggles up close to read together. Our magical reading to each other days are numbered, hence the eagerness on my part to enjoy as much as possible. I do not believe in stretching good things beyond their appropriate season. But I do want to milk it for all its worth while we have the strength and breath and attention span to surrounded ourselves with storied words. As she has written on our bookmark, "Just 10,000 more books to read and only one life to live."

Storied Soul

Poignant stories resonate and reverberate at undiscovered depths of being. Themes beyond words wrap themselves around my soul and teach me subtle variations on the party line. Every day I must dare again to be me. More often than not I am met by quashing, taming efforts that do not trust that the wild, free me will be a force for good. It gets old through the years. Until, that is, I hear another story. Another story where I recognize myself anew.

Dreamers Don't Fit

Someone asked when it would prove unviably unrealistic or outright selfish to pursue my dreams. It's a fallacious question. My dreams are my contribution. If I let them go and choose a path where I fit in and travel with the pack, then I fail both myself and the world. In that scenario, the one thing that distinguishes me would be the one thing that I didn't contribute to the mix. I may as well not be in the mix.
Of course, one man's dreams don't make sense to another. If I see valuable something that you don't, how do I serve you by keeping the information to myself? Yes, it can be upsetting when someone travels against the flow. It can feel like an unspoken judgment of sorts.
But it is, in fact, a gift. I will not be deterred from giving my gift.

Destiny or Destined

There's something fatalistic about believing one has a destiny. Admitedly, there's also something exciting about it, (provided one has a sufficiently noble and worthy destiny to fulfill.) Otherwise it feels like waiting around for an outcome that someone out there knows about but is withholding from me. "I wonder what it's gonna be?!"
When my journey concludes, I will have done what I have done. All I can do is be as responsible as I can be with the invaluable gift of these years. Maybe in retrospect, someone else will reflect on my days and doings and identify them as my destiny. Maybe.
I, for my part, must choose anew each day and, of course, be blamed for it. Oh well, I suppose that's my destiny.

So What Do I Want?

Wanting something bad enough. Isn't that what much of will power is about? Wanting something so much that action, even unpleasant action, is taken. Can the inverse be said for lack of action?
Then there is the problem of our wanters being fundamentally broken somehow. Those of us in the Christian tradition sentimentally term this original sin. My wanter is not even turned on. Or at least not turned on when anyone is looking. I don't have permission to want. That lack of permission is so deeply ingrained, I have trouble identifying what I want. (Fortunately, no one asks.) (Even more fortunately, I am starting to ask.)
Being unclear about what I want versus what others think I should want versus what I need versus what others want and need... results in inaction. I need to get clear on what I want. Not because my wants supercede all other factors, but because only when I am clear about my own wants can I more sensibly and caringly sort between and integrate the many and competing voices that cry for my attention.

Double Doses

Double doses go down hard. The searching for deeper meanings gets old after a while. The responsible next step needs to be chosen. Life in one form or another always continues. We give away power and courage to let circumstances push us around too much. We wonder where the others are before we realize that it's ours to initiate. Whatever is going on around me or to me, I need to show up authentically and unreservedly me.

Poised for Change

Sudden shifts of direction are hard enough to pull off, much less when one is not already poised on the balls of one's feet. There is an expectancy and preparedness in the tennis player's stance. Too settled translates into too complacent more often than not. Not an issue until the unexpected intrudes and changes the dynamics. The unexpected and changing dynamics are our context. If you haven't come to terms with that fact yet, then every surprise will be a storm. Consequently there is greater peace in poise than in relaxing.

Home at Home

Lazy day at home with the family. Nice way to start off the new year. No agenda. No busyness. Just dwelling with each other. Reading together and separately. Playing games. Watching the rain. Walking the dog in the rain.
A refreshing change of pace from the hectic rush of carpools, chores, errands and activities. I see and enjoy you for your own sake. Reflect on the magnificence of your uniqueness and beauty. Blessed to belong to each other.