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The idea that I should drag people to heaven, people who kick and scream ‘no’ does not appeal to me.
So I do best with people who can and want to do the work.
Just so you know, it takes an inordinate amount of work to turn oneself from a homo sapiens, living in the culture of homo sapiens into a human being.
To do it, in spite of the environment, in spite of your upbringing, in spite of what everybody teaches, church, school, parents, open your eyes to how reality works, how life works best, and do that. Do what Life wants you to do, and not resist. Or not resist so much that you won’t do it.
- It’s like sex. Forced it is not real joy… for the rapist it is sick joy. I am no rapist…
- It is like sex: because if you don’t know what you are doing, it doesn’t work.
- If you are forcing your own rhythm or ideas… it doesn’t work.
- And if you are not willing to do what there is to do, it doesn’t work.
You can be a newbie, and you can be a master. The experience is very different.
Not that I have managed to master it all… although some of it I have. Mastered. Not the words. The rhythm, the dance, the allowing.
Judging from your potential has been a mistake.
What is a potential? It is what you COULD do with what you have, if you applied yourself, diligently, consistently, ACCURATELY to do what is yours to do.
Even if you have a very accurate picture of yourself, the chances of that are slim. About 7%.
Why? Because you live in a world of shoulds, and shoulds MUST BE resisted.
Shoulds are the sign that you have no say, or not much say in the matter of your life.
Shoulds are the visible parts of the machine, the human machine that we all live in.
I did an experiment earlier today. My Reality Challenge students email me the new shoulds they find daily.
So I looked what would happen if a person changed all the shoulds to coulds…
Should —> Could
Here are a few examples:
-‘I should say something more elaborate then just happy birthday to her‘ is changed to ‘I could say something more eleaborate than just happy birthday to her‘
-‘I should share that insight, say my bit‘ is changed to ‘I could share that insight, say my bit‘. Feel the difference?
-‘I should ask that question now‘ is changed to ‘I could ask that question now‘.
You see that the could is an invitation, while the should is forceful, pushy, and violent… MUST RESIST IT!
The goal of this work is to give you choices… whereas resistance is not a choice. Choice is never forceful. Choice is always lighthearted…
In the ‘famous’ chocolate or vanilla exercise, unless you can choose either, even though you like one more than the other, it is not a choice. YOU didn’t choose, your preference chose, or some other should.
I have very strong likes and dislikes. For everything.
My job, if I want my life to work, if I want to enjoy my life, if I want my life to matter, my job is to cause myself to choose, instead of allowing my dislikes to choose. Or allowing my needs, allowing my wants of any sort to choose.
Wants like: Wanting to be nice… wanting to look good, wanting to make money, or make a difference.
Your integrity is low, because you hardly ever choose. Your concerns, your wants, your needs, your have-to, your shoulds choose, not you.
And, of course, you hate yourself.
The key to loving yourself is integrity. Or loving anyone… by the way.
By the way, when I say your wants choose for you… it also applies to your ‘I don’t wanna!’
The biggest difference between you and me is that I have only one should left I have to deal with. And that is that ‘I should take my time to look before I jump…‘ Before I put my foot in my mouth. Before I start something. Really, before I do anything.
I really can… but the machine, so far, is winning 8 times out of 10..
And I have a lot of coulds on the other hand…
I could do this and I could do that. And then I either do it or not… who cares. There is nothing to resist.
Werner Erhard said it best in his famous having message to staff:
You’ll do what you’ll do. And the rest: you’ll just HAVE it.
Unfortunately, he didn’t see that people considered what was on their todo list a list of shoulds, not coulds.
So all that wisdom in that message was talking to the wall… except for me. I heard it and it set me free. When? I think in 1988…
That is when my shoulds disappeared.
PS: I found an excellent test item… that, maybe, reliably diagnoses people if they are willing and likely do the work that is necessary.
A Roosevelt quote… the famous ‘the man in the arena’ quote.
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, (because there is no effort without error or shortcoming,)
but (the man) who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
~ Theodore Roosevelt
