“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?

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?

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!

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?

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 to photograph a sene I could view from a book. Or I’d relentlessly network without hesitation or shame to gain access to a behind the scenes look at something I could read about. My theories for why I’d subject myself to this (and enjoy it) varied over the years… At first it was the novelty of learning a new skill. That soon wore off and so I assumed it was through critiquing and sharing of photographs amongst the photography community that was the big draw. However once I established myself and formed a core set of connections, I found my desires in this area waned. I checked things off the list one by one… Getting published – that was exciting at first but soon wore off. Access to interesting / unseen places – this remained interesting but not the reason itself. Shooting professionally – it turns out that getting paid for photography nearly made me quit it altogether. None of my ideas stuck.

I finally thought I’d landed on a theory when I wrote about how photography simply allowed me to create treasured memories of loved ones. This was and still is absolutely the case. But the inconvenient truth was that it was more a side effect than a reason in itself – and it never really explained to me why photography made me feel the way I did during a shoot. That feeling – calm, happy, connected to what I was doing – yet disconnected from life’s usual stresses and pressures that normally required great effort to keep at bay. I was without a good explanation so “treasured memories” sufficed.

Then around the same time I was starting Pathwise, I began reading a series of books on positive psychology. One of them, a book called Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, was particularly enlightening. After just the first chapter, the answer for why I loved photography so much became clear. In this book Mihaly writes:

“I developed a theory of optimal experience based on the concept of flow – the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

That described my situation perfectly. He goes on to write:

“First, the experience usually occurs when we confront tasks we have a chance of completing. Second, we must be able to concentrate on what we are doing. Third and fourth, the concentration is usually possible because the task undertaken has clear goals and provides immediate feedback. Fifth, one acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life. Sixth, enjoyable experiences allow people to exercise a sense of control over their actions. Seventh, concern for the self disappears, yet paradoxically the sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over. Finally, the sense of the duration of time is altered; hours pass by in minutes.”

It was clear to me – Mihaly was writing about me and how photography made me feel. A form of suspending attention that I’d stumbled upon without realizing. There is some irony in that I had been unsatisfied with the simplest explanation of all – that I  photographed because I enjoyed it. It turns out that the real answer was more complex but in many ways it was just as simple.

I’ll add one more quote that I think particularly relevant:

“The most important step in emancipating oneself from social controls is the ability to find rewards in the events of each moment. If a person learns to enjoy and find meaning in the ongoing stream of experience, in the process of living itself, the burden of social controls automatically falls from one’s shoulders. Power returns to the person when rewards are no longer relegated to outside forces. It is no longer necessary to struggle for goals that always seem to recede into the future, to end each boring day with the hope that tomorrow, perhaps, something good will happen.”

So the reason I’m sharing this is because through photography, through Flow, through Pathwise & suspending attention and through the discussions that have come out of all of these things, I’ve started to stitch together a framework for better understanding my life. I’m becoming minutely clearer of what drives me, what makes me happy and what I aim to seek more of in the future. Photography is part of that, but not all of it. We have all experienced flow, just as we’re all now beginning to experience being present and I hope by sharing this you’ll get a further sense of what drives and makes you happy also.

Lawrence Ripsher is a business leader, software developer, photographer, and dog lover. See Lawrence’s portfolio at http://lawrenceripsher.com.

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.

A four person team that manifested from Pathwise went on to do something simple.  One night, at the Ronald McDonald House, create a dinner for families that just spent the day at the hospital with their children.

After arriving at the RMH at 3pm, we were off to the races in creating our meals for the families.  Because of the many dangers with children having a low immunity, the cooking process had to have sanitization top of mind at all times.  In keeping in the rules of sanitization, gloves had to be switched out for almost every activity so as to not spread germs.  In essence, our experience was like cooking in an operating room.  The process was a bit of an inconvenience but not a bit of trouble when thinking of the “why”.

Our four person team never stressed and never became cross with one another – not for one minute.  The whole experience on a personal level was as smooth as pumpkin pie. It was never about us, it was all about the kids and families and serving that need.

The “why” – A testimonial in their own words that should move any soul to action:

“I would like to thank you all for your wonderful spirit of hospitality and love. This was our first stay at a Ronald McDonald House. You all made us feel so welcomed and loved. This is truly a home away from home for families with sick kids. Because of all of you and your generous spirits, my daughter was able to concentrate on healing and she didn’t have to worry about mom and if I was safe, warm, and fed.”

All that can be said is that it was a splendid time and we hope to do this again with our four-person Pathwise manifestation along with new comrades.

I was teaching a class in the boardroom of a publicly traded company the other day and I imagined all of these hardened and stressed out faces “recalling” and “I knowing” over strategic matters. Then I pictured all of these board members with puzzled yet curious looks on their faces. The second picture might just be of a board or leadership team that really could innovate instead of just talking about it.

I realize that I too have a boardroom in my head with a lot of recalling and “I knowing” going on, and that this keeps me just as stuck as those imagined board members in companies all over. I see that I am tempted to go with the loudest voice, and this keeps me from hearing the more tentative, and yet somehow more knowing voice beneath.

He was sharing what happens to scuba divers when they come upon an underwater precipice. Under the sea there are shelves or shallow areas that may only be a hundred feet deep or so and then there will all of the sudden be a drop off that could be 1 or 7 miles deep. He shared that even though, logically, the diver knows that he or she is at the same depth, when embarking out over a precipice, there is a sense of ones relative size and importance in the face of this great void. This causes them to be compelled to scurry back to where the bottom is again visible.

The anxiety is existential. In other words we lose the sense of who we are without the form we are used to seeing or using.

This is the same as when we find ourselves in a new difficult situation, we feel anxious, fall back on rely or justify the old way of doing things, even when it may not be working. This old “form” is no different psychologically than the form of seeing the shore again.

So to be able to work in ambiguity without holding on to old ways of doing things; or to be able to “not know” in a situation where one is accustomed to knowing, is very much like this going out into the abyss. Logically it may be no big deal; however we have difficulty because it is “existentially” hard to do.

So how to do this? More to follow. But first how does this idea strike you? Please share.