All in Life
It's that time when we start planning our resolutions for the New Year. At the same time, there's also a sense of concern inherent in some of us - the sense that we're not really going to keep at it, given our past behaviors, so what's the point?
As I discuss in today's episode, we should do it anyway, because our false starts in the past provide the education and fuel for us to be successful in the future.
"Success isn't determined by how many times you win, but by how you play the week after you lose."
-- Pele
As we kick off 2023, our thoughts naturally turn to new beginnings and starting afresh.
Those words from Bruce Springsteen's The River got me thinking about this idea of singular dreams and how they define who we are and what we do.
I dive into what this potentially means and what it, perhaps, should mean for us, in today's episode.
It’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of our daily work.
Particularly, when you’re growing something - from a project to a business - there are any number of things that need to be taken care of, and every single one of them seems important.
Sometimes, telling others - and ourselves - that we've arrived isn't a good thing.
In fact, as I discuss in today's episode, it can lead to a complacency that can derail everything that we've achieved so far. So that messaging, to others and to ourselves, is important.
If you’re at all into football (soccer), you’ll no doubt have watched the World Cup Final yesterday.
It was, in my view, the greatest world cup final in history - with goals, drama, late comebacks and ultimately, penalties. Argentina were amazing winners and, of course, as everyone’s talking about, Lionel Messi got his World Cup, rounding out one of the most storied careers in the history of the sport.
It’s been a heck of a week (on many levels), so my head has been in a few different places the last few days.
My natural instinct in times like these is to make sense of it all, to put everything into a construct that makes sense (to me). But as I tried to do so…
Social media provides us with a very specific idea of what "the" life is. There's no shortage of influencers who showcase how glamorous their everyday life is.
But before we get caught up, it's worth understanding that what we see is what we're shown, as I discuss in today's episode.
One of the hardest things for me, and for any of us I suppose, is to be thoughtful in that space between stimulus and response. I’m referring, of course, to Victor Frankl’s observation that:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.”
Today's episode looks at Keanu Reeves answer to that question from Stephen Colbert a few years ago.
The answer, to me, was thoughtful and insightful, and could be interpreted in multiple different ways.
When I was growing up, I loved reading British football magazines such as Shoot!
And one of the topics I’d love reading in them were articles about the “greatest goal” or the “greatest player”, etc.
In fact, I remember a piece somewhere about “The Greatest Save In The History Of Football”…
The Franciscan Friar and ecumenical teacher, Richard Rohr, said that the things that brought you success in the first half of your life are of no use to you in the second half and, in fact, they actually get in your way.
The older I get, the more strongly this statement resonates.
It's tempting, when we've achieved some measure of success, to believe that we've arrived.
The Greek philosopher, Epictetus, counseled against this idea of "arrival" and believing we are important, as I discuss in today's episode.
In last Friday’s post, I talked about the need to accept the duality in those around us, from those we live and work with on a daily basis to those we see periodically (for example, friends and relatives during the holidays).
Here, in the US, this is the season of Thanksgiving and it’s a wonderful time to remember who and what we should all be grateful for (putting aside the fact that giving thanks should be a daily activity).
When doing so, though, one of the things that we tend to struggle with is the duality and contradiction of so much in our daily existence.
Structure, rules and constructs can be useful mechanisms and when we're growing up, they're usually unavoidable.
At the same time, they can be both good and bad and, as we grow older, it's worth questioning many of them. Both in terms of what they mean for us but also, as importantly, what they mean for others we live and work with.
Carl Jung said that the greatest tragedy for any child is the unlived life of his parents.
I don’t know if there are many of us who haven’t been impacted by those words, in one way or another. Whether it’s related to what we do for a living, to how we behave with others, to who we associate and spend time with.
In ancient times, when a Roman general achieved success and marched through the streets of Rome in triumph, an auriga (a slave) was appointed to walk behind him and every so often, whisper in his ear, “Memento Homo”.
Remember, you are only a man.
Getting older is something all of us have to deal with. And, especially in today's hyper-competitive, social media driven environment, it comes with its own challenges.
But, as I discuss in today's episode, the reality isn't quiet so black and white, which is heartening, because life is full of nuances. As are each of us.
