I recently did a continuing education article on managing people in the workplace. The article was not about managing people in the workplace. It was about learning how to successfully manage oneself. The premise is that it is impossible to be a successful manager if one is not managing one's own life. The article hit home, since for the past 1 or 2 years questions have been chasing eachother in my mind like a dog chasing its tail.
I usually don't want to deal with the questions, I try to sweep them aside and turn to more practical things or divert myself with more interesting things. But the questions are accumulating and taking up too much space to sweep aside any more. And the article put these vague uneasy questions into plain English so I could deal with them in a more practical and systematic way.
First and foremost: What is my Mission? The article suggests that if I do not know, I need to write a Mission Statement. I rolled my eyes. Every corporation has a generic beneficent-sounding Mission Statement that sounds good and perfect but usually doesn't seem to be true. I hate stupid personality-less black and white corporate policies and procedures and the Mission Statement is usually where all this bullshit begins. But I sighed and tried to contain my naturally negative and cynical mind and read on. As I read, it came to me that this IS my primary question. What IS my mission here on earth? I haven't really needed a mission before because the last 7-8 years or so have been just trying to survive on hard work and very little money and very little sanity. The nice thing about struggling to get by is that you don't have nearly as much time or energy to spend dealing with vague existentialist questions which cause uneasiness and the feeling that time is rapidly passing by with little to no progress being made toward invisible and intangible spiritual/physical/emotional goals. yes, i think that was a run-on sentence. but it does sum up what my current problems have been, and better a long sentence than several long paragraphs, which I could also write but won't.
The paragraphs were going to be about various philosophers, but after reading a several good things and a much larger amount of blather (wiki-dictionary says: Blathering:Talk long-windedly without making very much sense: "she began blathering on about spirituality"; "stop your blathering".) perfect word. it's what my mind does best. so, I tried to sweep all this complicated thought from my mind and try to figure out my own philosophy. I would start from scratch. And I suppose I would need some sort of "Mission Statement" to top it off. Easy. I found my statement when I was recovering from a nervous breakdown of sorts years ago. At the time, it became clear to me that I was wrong about almost everything and that I needed a major paradigm shift. And I needed to KNOW one thing for sure in order to begin this new foundation. Kind of like a crystal formation needs one little particle to begin. So the simplest and truest thing I could think of was something that i have heard countless times in church but never really gave much thought: Mission: "First and Great Commandment: To love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And the Second is Like Unto It : Love your neighbor as yourself. " Not many people would argue against love. MY problem, though, is that I still don't really know what love is. Or how to do it. Or if I even love myself to begin with. If I hate myself, its pretty easy to love my neighbor as myself, because I don't have to love them. I know this is long and tedious, but here is a PERFECT quote from Dr. Carl Jung, who I happen to think is a genius...
"The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ -- all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself -- that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness -- that I myself am the enemy who must be loved -- what then? As a rule, the Christian's attitude is then reversed; there is no longer any question of love or long-suffering; we say to the brother within us "Raca," and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide it from the world; we refuse to admit ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves."
So he says that my relationship with others pends upon my relationship with myself. And if I can indeed even have a relationship with myself, that must mean that there is more than one part of me. I am divided. against myself. mind vs soul vs heart vs body? Ego vs superego vs id? i don't know how many parts there are. All i know is that it is VERY complicated. If you don't think so, try making a New Years resolution again and see how often you succeed. And try to rationally figure out the failure. It SHOULD be easy. make a decision to do something or not to do something. and yet, what is that extremely insistent and demanding part of me that says "I must do this now, I can stop later" or "I don't feel like doing this now, I'll do it later"? Try to sit down for a mere 20 minutes and meditate peacefully with no thoughts. Impossible. A thought will crop up whether you want it to or not. Try to NOT like/love someone because they may not be available or they might not love you back. Its much more difficult than it should be. well, enough about that. people are complicated and divided.
and this brings me back to loving myself so I can love God and others. Or should I love God and others so that I can love myself? not sure. I think it may be an intertwining and complex process that ultimately the Spirit works out with very little help from us. But what I think ties in here is a reoccuring theme in my mind....authenticity. I talked a little about it in earlier posts. For some unknown reason I think that one of the essentialist of essentials is to be authentic. I don't CARE how sweet and good and pure and innocent and sun-shiny a particular group of people may be....I am CERTAIN that God does not want clones. I believe God wants sharp corners and contrasts, dichotomy and paradox, texture and deepness, "salt of the earth" and "hide it under a bushel: NO!" Jung again: (and let me digress a moment and explain why I quote Jung and not Bible passages here. It is because Jung was first and foremost a scientist. He tried his utmost to give objective observations on the pysche of man based on his experience and experiments. It is, however, more difficult to engage others in meaningful conversation about the Bible if they do not believe in the authorship of the Bible. You either believe it or you don't. Experience and experiments sometimes hold more sway than religious beliefs.) Here is Jung on authenticity; although he does not use that word.
"...anyone who attempts to do both, to adjust to his group and at the same time pursue his individual goal, becomes neurotic."
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"The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are."
"To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed; and suddenly we realize how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality is."
Uncommonly difficult. So this is kind of where I am bogged down and stumbling awkwardly about. A lot of the time it comes down to very sneaky and very camoflauged self-seeking motives. Other times the motives are glaringly obvious but I do not care because I want something really bad and suddenly don't care about authenticity as much anymore. I want attention and affection and well, to arrange everything the way I want it to go. Wishing to be like God? Or to BE God? Was that not the original temptation at the Tree of Knowledge? So, the difficult puzzle ensues. How to be authetically REAL, passionate, unique, full of searing LIFE, yet under the humble constraint of God's will. Interesting that Jung also says "Explore daily the will of God". And if this isn't difficult enough, a good part of the time I am almost completely numb and oblivious to anything but my immediate comforts of food, shelter, companionship, entertainment, etc etc. Complacent and ambivalent. Inertia Creeps (good song).
so far i've made some limping progress. in two words: art and nature. i find a method to explore my hidden and shamed authentic self is through art. Art which I do not show other people. This is personal, exploratory art and not meant for display purposes. not created for aesthetic enjoyment. again, don't know why, but it works. secondly, when it comes to loving God, nature is so important to me. i set aside at least 2 days every 2 weeks to spend alone in the woods or on the water and I feel closer to God. Interesting that these two helpful activites are accomplished alone. Solitude. Other people might do different things, I don't know. I think almost ANY hobby which a person enjoys and actively engages in can be a doorway to authenticity. The weirder the better, in my book. I love the eccentricities of certain people. They make me giggle with delight. And I am not laughing at these people, I laugh because of joy. And joy only comes from One Source. So that's why I think God wants us to be really weirdly actively authentic. Sorry it took so long to say that.
Last quote:
"The fact that a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means nothing...He must obey his own law, as if it were a daemon whispering to him of new and wonderful paths...There are not a few who are called awake by the summons of the voice, whereupon they are at once set apart from the others, feeling themselves confronted with a problem about which the others know nothing. In most cases it is impossible to explain to the others what has happened, for any understanding is walled off by impenetrable prejudices. "You are no different from anybody else," they will chorus or, "there's no such thing," and even if there is such a thing, it is immediately branded as "morbid"...He is at once set apart and isolated, as he has resolved to obey the law that commands him from within. "His own law!" everybody will cry. But he knows better: it is the law...The only meaningful life is a life that strives for the individual realization--absolute and unconditional--of its own particular law...To the extent that a man is untrue to the law of his being...he has failed to realize his own life's meaning.
The undiscovered vein within us is a living part of the psyche; classical Chinese philosophy names this interior way "Tao," and likens it to a flow of water that moves irresistibly towards its goal. To rest in Tao means fulfillment, wholeness, one's destination reached, one's mission done; the beginning, end, and perfect realization of the meaning of existence innate in all things."
