A Walk on the Edge of the Woods

There are more animals living on the edge of the woods than there are in the deep woods or in the meadow. This zone provides both an abundance and a diversity of food as well as ample protective cover. In the meadow, raptors fly above and silhouettes bring the attention of every predator. In the deep woods, the lack of sunlight on the forest floor creates a zone that provides little sustenance; animals climb the trees or cluster near streams and lakes where there are openings to nutrients.

In our society, the public life is out in the meadows and the media provides attention to those that dwell there. While rewards can accrue to those that live in the meadows, there are raptors above and predators of every type examining the silhouettes. Do you seek a public life? If so, what drives your desire? Does attention translate to inner worth?

Are you one of those people that would rather hide in the deep woods? Do you do this for protection or is it an act of rejection? In many ways there is a peacefulness and wholeness to time spent in the deep woods and I would encourage everyone to choose to withdraw inward from time to time. However, complete disengagement is a path without sufficient nutrition for the soul and the ego.
I choose to walk on the edge of the woods. I purposefully wander into the meadow from time to time and retreat into the deep woods periodically. Some times I walk the edge of the woods alone and some times I walk it with others.

A creative life occurs both in the deep woods as there is an inner creative act that precedes any outward creative act and in the sunlight of the meadow where the creation is exposed to the often harsh mid-day sun.
Too much time in the meadow often triggers a defensive rather than creative response to life. Is it any wonder that sunlight provides needed vitamins, then the skin tans to a deeper color but beyond that the long term results are destruction of the skin and poisoning of the body. People and organizations that stake themselves in the meadow of attention often lose the sheen of health and become merely bleached bones of their former selves.
Whether hiding in the deep woods or staked in the meadow, choose to expend your energy and walk at the edge of the woods. Bring balance back to your life, not by taking on more but by shedding the imbalance. Return to the creative path and actively create again.

Materialism: Salt, Fat, Sugar and Limits

Human-beings naturally consume too much salt, sugar and fat when it is plentiful. Science tells us that these three items were both needed for survival -and- were generally scarce in the natural environment during most of human existence. Therefore, we are genetically designed to detect and enjoy the taste of foods containing salt, sugar or fat to help ensure that we seek and ingest at least the minimal quantities for survival.

The dominant feature of snack food is their content of sugar/salt/fat. Remember the Lay's Potato Chip add, "Bet you can't eat just one"? It is possibly the most truthful add slogan of all time. It is true that once, that salty chip hits your tongue, you do crave more.

What happens when we eat too much sugar, salt or fat? Data suggests that we increase our chances of diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and heart attacks if we consume too much of these items amongst other things. This provides good long term reasons not to overindulge in these items and yet our taste buds and cravings make limiting these items a hard thing to do.

Materialism is similar to salt, fat and sugar as a dominant driver in human behavior. If truth is, “what works in the world”, then materialism is partially true. Materialism run amok causes social, spiritual and well-being problems just as too much sugar or fat would cause a health problem.

The partial truth of materialism is similar to the eating of potato chips. The first bit of material wealth does meet our survival needs and provide some security. The next bit brings us some comfort. The bit after that brings us a little luxury and then a little more. After a while there is a disconnection between the desire to have more material wealth and the unintended consequences and limitations of material wealth.

Material wealth can be consumed, invested in the ownership of assets or given away to friends, family or others such as charitable organizations. The government will take its fair share of your material wealth as well. I am not opposed to the accumulation of material wealth. A common quote that is misquoted is "money is the root of all evil" when in fact the truer quote is, "the love of money is the root of all evil".

Materialism raises the accumulation of material wealth above all other things as it tends to assign value only according to direct financial measurements of income and assets. With the great support of advertising, personal attributes are associated with the possession of certain material goods. "Success" is defined by the car you drive, the town you live in or the clothes you wear without any consideration to your sense of happiness, peacefulness or self-fulfillment through creative expression.

The path to building a legacy is a three-fold path as first consideration is given to the focal point of your creative expression, “creating what matters most” and second consideration is given to, living a life that affirms your beliefs and values on a daily basis. These are never separated from but purposefully placed above the third essential ingredient which is earning enough money to support your efforts.

Breathing and Calming the Mind

Although not a great book, I own an interesting book about working with "dinosaurs" that identifies the reptilian responses behind those difficult people at work. When confronted, a reptile either fights, flees or freezes. Inside our human brain are those reptilian impulses and they are triggered during periods of stress and anxiety.

If you want to read more about the evolution of the human mind in a readable book, I would suggest; Boca's Brain by Dr. Carl Sagan. (Yes, it was written by the "billions of stars" astronomer.)

The reptilian response to freeze, results in us holding our breath when we are stressed or in discomfort. It is not just the breath that is frozen, but rather we have involuntarily contracted most of the muscles of our body. When you are in the midst of a reptilian response, it is difficult to maintain an open perspective, let alone harness your conscience and your values.

Both practioners of yoga and buddist mediation already understand the focus upon and use of breathing in relaxation and meditation. During my training as a yoga teacher, the most difficult work we did was learning and practicing the various types of breathing. It was hard to master and exhausting.

When anxious or upset, taking a breath or two before you speak or act gives you a meaningful pause. You can train yourself to notice when you are holding your breathing. During the next 24 hours, make a mental note whenever you catch yourself holding your breath. When you catch yourself doing this take a handful of slow deep breaths. This will assist you in being responsive to the situation as opposed to being reactive.

The creative stance as I've discussed is a responsive stance. It is driven by vision, passion and values. The creative stance requires taking in the truth whether that truth is pleasant or unpleasant. In the creative stance, what works is more important than being right. So when failures occur and bad news comes in....breathe. As they say in sports, "take a breather".

The impulsive reaction to difficulty or disappointment is reptilian and undermines both creativity and our spirit. When we catch our reaction and add breathing and a pause, we empower ourselves to be responsive. We enable our vision, our passion and our values to shape a response. We can context our action against the desired envisioned result we seek. We can filter our options against the values we wish to affirm.

So have a great day. Take a breath and plunge ahead.

Dependency and Reactivity Lead to Disempowerment

In his must read book, The Path of Least Resistance, Robert Fritz writes eloquently on the difference between the creative stance and the reactive stance. The creative stance is a vision driven, truth telling stance where there is no room to hide from mistakes, responsibilities and whether or not the result is "working".

Vision is a clear and complete understanding of the desired end result, even if it can only be envisioned in the head and heart of a lone creator. (In an organization, there must be dialogue to really share understanding and concrete examples to true up how people see things differently.)

When what exists and what is created is tested against this vision and comes up short, you need to be prepared for disappointment and take failure head on when you come up short. You truly need to learn from your mistakes, by first admitting them and then working through the alternatives to your failed action.

If your efforts shift instead to easing the pain of failure by declaring false victory or creating secondary goals, you have actually undermined your ability to ultimately be successful. America is in the words of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, "looking for instant pudding". Deming worked with the Japanese under the Occupation Forces of General Douglas MacArthur and taught the leaders of Japanese Corporations (Toyota for example) how to manage and deliver high quality products.

This "Instant Pudding" mind set leads to all kinds of short-cuts, cheating, dropping out and blaming others for our own mistakes and failures. Our egos require instant success and our souls require, as John Lennon said, "Instant (good) Karma". We want to both have it or be it all right now.

Many of us would rather give up on our creative vision (a meaningful and compelling desired end result) than deal with the frustration, disappointment and embarrassment of our failed attempts. I have struggled with this myself.

The reactive stance is not vision driven but rather it is driven by negative consequences. In the reactive stance our life energy is not focused on creating but rather on the problems that come our way. Since the problems that come our way, have little to do with where we want to go, they are will never lead us to real progress on creating the desired results. Problems are "like tales told by idiots", in Shakespeare's words, they are " full of sound and fury, yet signifying nothing."

The creative stance can be frightening and requires fortitude, but it is also empowering. Self empowerment and the creative stance go hand in hand. Dependency and the reactive stance go hand in "hand out". When you subjugate your power to determine the path of your own life and seek to hide from or have others mitigate the consequences of your own actions then you dis empower yourself.

In Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton writes about the how the power of money to buy what others worked hard to create has left the leaders of Ingen (owners of Jurassic Park gone to hell) without sufficient wisdom to know what to do with what they've acquired. To paraphrase, Never confuse a giant with someone sitting on the shoulder of a giant. A giant is grown and developed over time and gains exceptional wisdom along with exceptional capabilities. Anyone with enough money or power can sit (if only for a moment) on the shoulder of a giant and wield those capabilities with insufficient wisdom.

When you work from the creative stance you will build a giant in both wisdom and capability.