A daisy was meant to be a daisy

I read an inspiring quote by Einstein today:

“Everything is determined…by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust—we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”

This made me think about what is Destiny and what is Fate. I think of Destiny as the path we are called to follow. It’s kind of like a light comes on in the maze of life, and if we follow it, we feel meaning. Yet our self-consciousness tells us “no we should go this way” or “what will people think.”

The path we ultimately take is our Fate.

Imagine a Daisy as it takes in the sun’s warmth and then dies in the winter to be reborn again. This is its Destiny. If the Daisy were self-conscious, as we are, it might think it would rather be a Rose. The Rose smells better, thinks the Daisy, and then it tries with all its might and half uproots itself to go over and pretend to be a Rose. Not so good for the Daisy. The Rose meanwhile, also blessed with self-consciousness, feels jealous that the Daisy does not get cut or picked as much, and wishes it were a Daisy. Instead of fulfilling what was destined for them, they both pursue a Fate that leaves them unfulfilled. So I think that meaning and a good life might be measured by how close our destiny and our fate align.

How does this relate to you?

Simple Inner Effort

With this simple inner effort of suspending attention and listening I can drop all of the boundaries that protect and imprison my mind.  Instantly, I don’t exist except as attention, and everything becomes much more real and undifferentiated.  I don’t encroach on anyone’s isolated attention, but instead leave my own open, vulnerable, and relatable.  Through this effort another level of communication occurs and I am completely conscious of it.  This begins to include the real experiences of the people and things that are around me.

Presence is a place

What if being in the present moment… being in this moment right now, was experienced as more of a place than a “short swath of time”?  What would this be like and how would it impact the moments i have today relating to others and making decisions?  It may require that I explore a little more what I mean by the present moment and relating to others.  Maurice Nicoll, in the book Living Time, shares the thought that different states of mind are like different places we can live in. For example, we can live in the nice part of Paris or in a run down neighborhood inside ourselves.  We can also live in the place of right now.  It is interesting to me how trying this does makes some sort of immediate change.

This opens, for me, the question of what it would be like to be in the present moment with another person.  Can I find this place while interacting with others at work or home?  Does this  impact our interaction?  And, most importantly, do I know when I am not in this place and pretending to myself or assuming that I am?

Pathwise expands to the San Francisco Bay Area

Hello Pathwise Community -

Happy New Year!  We hope your January is off to a great start.  2012 is going to be a year of growth for Pathwise and we wanted to share some exciting news.

Thanks to the positive feedback and encouragement from our Seattle Area Pathwise members, we are formally announcing our expansion into the San Francisco Bay Area, effective immediately.

We are also very pleased to announce that Mary Stephenson has joined the Pathwise Leadership team as the Bay Area Director. She brings a mix of high tech leadership experiences and a deep understanding of the Pathwise principles. Mary first joined Pathwise as a member in 2007 and in 2008 stepped into the roles of co-teaching and member advisement. She’ll be splitting her time between Seattle and the Bay Area.  Please join us in welcoming Mary to the team!

Bay Area Cohorts Launch:  Our first few cohorts will launch in mid to late March, giving us some lead time to build a strong “founders groups” of new Bay Area members, actual location TBD.  Each of the early cohorts will be co-taught by both Todd Hollow-Bist and Chad Hattrup.  Todd and Chad will also interview all prospective members prior to acceptance into the program.

We are committed to expanding our collective ability to help leaders learn how to perceive and manage the powerful and underlying dynamics occurring within organizations.

Thank you for your continued efforts in building out a powerful community of leaders!

Knowing without words

I am very interested to see if anyone else wants to experiment with this for a couple of hours after reading this and then sharing their experience.

Today I set the aim of trying to visually see people without the type of thinking that uses words. Can I simply see them and let the visual impression of them have an impact upon me? Where there is knowing without words. Can I then relate to them directly from this knowing?

Photography and Flow

This gallery contains 3 photos.

Editor’s note: This a guest post from a Pathwise member, Lawrence Ripsher. For years, I’ve loved photography, but I never really knew why. I’d go to great lengths and expense to research and purchase equipment. I’d drive or travel hundreds of miles … Continue reading →

Timing the Jump

I received this question from a Pathwise member after the Cognitive Development class where we talk about Levels of Leadership. Here is the question and my response.

Question from member:

We discussed in class today that an increase in stress and anxiety may result in a leader operating at Level IV to drop down to Level II. So let’s say I am in a certain position and operating as a Level IV leader. I then get promoted into a position with greater responsibility. I see myself go down to level II as I try to cope with the increased stress and ambiguity. Would I be better off not accepting the promotion (or whatever change resulted in the increased ambiguity), since my net positive impact may have been higher as a Level IV leader?

My response:

I am naturally pulled to live an easier life in direct proportion to how asleep I am to my life. This is not to say that we should always avoid resting.

If we want to grow as people we need to go in the direction of authentic challenge. You know… the road less travelled, the Zen monk who is advised to take the harder of two choices when given the chance, or Victor Frankl’s thesis that “real meaning” only comes out of accepting an existential challenge when it is presented.

This is a rough rule stick to live by. Also, to make things worse, there is a real sense of timing that is necessary. We can jump into a difficult situation, because we saw where we needed to go, out of our ego’s lack of patience, and a dislike of holding discomfort. We fail before we get started. Or, we can wait too long, miss the boat, and fall into the ocean.

So… going to another level of challenge is good if we are in the ball park on the timing.

As for greater net effect, how do you know what will have a greater affect? It is interesting to see how boldly we trick ourselves into a connection between helping others and promoting our own escape from growth. It may be that leadership is the holding of this tension. And that this process is what affects everything.