His remark made me grin as I puzzled over how he distinguished between what was boring, and what he didn’t understand.
And I loved the candor of his comment, especially given the sophisticated venue.
When we don’t understand, it’s easy to self-consciously retreat rather than risk looking stupid. (When we’re bored, we’ve already stopped looking.)
But the man behind us didn’t take the easy way out. He expressed himself.
Maybe it was too late for him to enjoy the performance; he could still intrepidly engage.
And help a stranger see that reality is a dance in which the audience moves.
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“Uh, umm, hmm…who is this? Is this the person in charge?” the caller asked, perhaps flummoxed to reach a human breathing rather than a recording.
“I’m Pamela,” I said, “and yes, I am in charge of Pamela.”
We laughed.
Putting yourself in charge
That simple truth was funny at the time, but it’s no joke.
Daily spiritual practice puts you in charge of yourself. Any spiritual practice will do. Practicing consistently — every day — makes the difference.
Consistent spiritual practice opens the moment so you can see the choices you can make right now. You know, those choices, the ones that make it more likely what you want will actually come to pass.
Those choices are how we co-create our lives, how we build our happiness and health. When we don’t make those choices, we default to whatever is already in motion, whether we’re aware of it, or not.
Response-ability
No, we’re not in charge of the universe. I for one am grateful for that.
Being in charge of myself is a good fit, something I can actually do. It’s inspiring, empowering and enlivening, a responsibility I can live up to.
]]>“You’d think the dreamers would find the dreamers and the realists would find the realists, but more often than not, the opposite is true.
“You see, the dreamers need the realists to keep them from soaring too close to the sun.
“And the realists? Well, without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground.”
This bit of wisdom from the popular television comedy Modern Family set me thinking. I got the drift, and agree completely, but the language seemed a bit polarizing.
In that scenario, the realists are the debunkers, the naysayers. But what makes their rebuttal more real than what the dreamers see? It didn’t seem fair, or accurate, to put reality solely in their domain.
Visionaries and Builders
What if the dreamers were “visionaries,” and the realists were “builders?” While we each have some of both (switching sides as we please), these two functional categories of people truly need one another. Reality — making the dream happen — requires input from both sides. The vision needs a form where the world can participate.
Visionaries see the long term while builders focus on a more immediate future. Builders gather the temporal power needed to make something happen; visionaries see a subtle, transcendent power at play.
Visionaries warn builders of the unwanted side effects of what they are building; builders fashion visionaries’ dreams into a shared reality.
What ultimately comes into form is a co-creation of visionaries and builders, and it needs constant tweaking.
What’s Your Vision?
As more people hold a vision, the likelihood of the vision being built increases.
Spiritual practice of any form — meditation, Reiki, yoga, etc. — makes us both visionary and builder. As we practice, we give form to our vision in the world, as ourselves.
Actually being our vision (with thankfulness, work diligently) makes it more likely that our vision will show up in the world around us.
What’s your vision, for yourself and for the world?
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