One month into the New Year and thankfully, my friends have almost forgotten about the resolutions I loudly proclaimed, much to their approving applause. Jeepers, was the applause what I was really aiming for? There was some juice for a short while, lots of accolades and congratulations and offerings of support. Felt good…on the outside.
I have almost completely surrendered to the status quo…once more. It was easy to rationalize as ‘more important things got my attention for now.’ Have to include that ‘for now’ so it looks like I am still sincere about it all. Maybe to hold on to some of the ‘hey, look at me’ if I find myself accidentally accomplishing a few things I wanted to do this year.
Sincere? Of course I am. We all are. But when has sincerity alone made any huge difference?
The equation ‘sincerity = positive results’ or even ‘sincerity = a looking-good person’ is not a balanced equation. What is our reality? Our truth?
Thank you to CBS commentator, Dick Meyer, from whose article I offer this paraphrased short clip on which to build my own renewed 2014 resolutions.
“I can witness and write about…stupidity, bureaucracy, incompetence, greed, boundless ambition and power lust…What I can no longer stomach…is phoniness…what I miss is the simple honesty, the genuine moment, the unscripted moment, the gaffe…
The late columnist, Lars-Erik Nelson, said. “The enemy isn’t conservatism or liberalism. The enemy is bullshit.”
Pretty poignant words if applied to our personal, business, religious, public, community lives. There comes a time when we need to face such words squarely, not like a finger-wagging condemnation of everything, but rather to notice how much we are driven by something we may have lost the full capacity to notice anymore. ‘Bullshit’ seems to reign supreme in an environment of ‘have’ or ‘stuff.’
Okay, is this commentary to be about how we need to stop having stuff? Nope. Just about the ‘noticing’ part.
I have written a couple of times about February, the month of Love or as some refer to it…The Month of Chocolates and Flowers.
Valentine’s Day is so involved in the hype of ‘showing’ our love as demonstrated in how much stuff we shower on our ‘object of ownership.’
Ownership? Yep, we go to all kinds of effort to make sure we mark our territory, renew our sense of ownership of another or at least ownership of their affections. But it is mutual, so what’s the big deal?
It’s about what we are not noticing or only subtlety noticed until it got lost in everyday swirl.
“But I don’t think I own anybody,” I have said to myself. “That’s only an interpretation.”
Okay, but I did not notice that ‘ownership’ is implied in…
Am I afraid of losing that someone who is in my life now or expected to be added to my life?
What is my sense of self that would remain if they left or said no?
Am I concerned if I don’t get much ‘stuff’ – that certainly ‘must’ mean the lack of any depth of love?
Do I really love them…or do I ‘need’ them as evidence of something?
What is the feeling that gets activated when they hand me a gift? Relief?
Is it even a feeling that I have, or a reaction?
What is my reaction to their reaction when I see that my gift to them was sufficient, at least for another year?
No need to dwell on any answers. The idea is to formulate questions that rattle the status quo a bit.
So, it would matter a lot if we began, with compassion, tosee our entangled lives for what they are. Don’t make it good or bad, so what do we notice? Just a touch of what Dick Meyer is referring to? It would take courage to just look. If we did do that for 2014, by the end of the year we might have folks in our lives who know us on a deeper level, who see us as we remember ourselves to have been some time ago, something that we are aching to re-introduce once more.
How about a new resolution for 2014 – to ‘just notice?’
Rich