How to have your cake and eat it too? The secret skill

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I am an avid reader. Of novels. Of fiction.

What you don’t know, and I didn’t know it until I did, is that

…unless I care about the main character, unless I care how things turn out for them, I don’t want to read the book.

It is at best boring, at worst it’s drudgery.

I hadn’t realized the importance of liking until just recently.

A writer whose first 10 or 20 books I enjoyed, suddenly I didn’t like what he wrote. I struggled through his 21st. And then his 22nd novel. I was, by that point, curious…

I started to look why I was even finishing those books.

He populated many of his books with the same characters. I started to see that I hoped something good was going to happen to a previous book’s hero, and when nothing happened, no wrong was made right, I was very disappointed.

But I didn’t like all his characters. I didn’t resonate with them. Or I liked them when they were a kid, but not as an adult.

I remember thinking: I don’t care if this dude is happy or not. I don’t care if he finds love. Hell, I just don’t care.

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I have most nights three fans going in my bedroom. And each fan plays music, but together they are like an orchestra. And I hear the music.

I have always heard the music in the wind, in the noise. So I re-watched the movie August Rush. And cried. I LIKED all three characters, father, mother, child, equally. I wanted for them what they wanted for themselves. And I was happy when they found it.

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So what makes me care about one thing, one person and not about another person, another thing?

Caring is a lot like liking. You can’t force yourself to care, you can’t force yourself to like, Not a thing, not a story, not a person, not an idea.

You like what you like and that is that.

Now, why am I sharing this with you?

Because it is important FOR YOU to know.

You see being likable is a winning trait.

When I watch my clients, my students, I rarely see anyone who is likable.

They do ‘likable’ like a campaign. Like an agenda. Like a trick. Surface.

They are so hellbent at their self-concern, that they forget to be on their own side…

(( An aside: this may be another word-cage. In the center there is the vague ‘positive’ notion of being liked, being given everything you need and want. And the boundaries of the cage, the bars of the cage are the ‘rules’ you violate: care, be nice, share, etc. If you look carefully, the ITCH is the fundamental word-cage… and we are all in it. Why? Because the ITCH is that undefined positive vague notion… No one can fulfill an undefined positive vague notion. No clarity. If and when there is clarity, then it is fulfillable.))

So back to being likable…

And because everything you ever wanted comes to you through other people, being liked is probably the number one SKILL that makes other people bring you what you want.

And while you are trying to get from people what you said was missing, your ITCH, you are VERY unlikable. Or somewhat unlikable. But not really likable.

You are IMPOSING on them, you demand of them, you extort, you force them, and they don’t like it.

When forced, few gives you what you are trying to force.

It is like rape. You don’t get sex. You don’t get intimacy, togetherness… It is not satisfying. Unless you are, of course, a psychopath. And all that while it probably wouldn’t take much effort from you to create the conditions, with the same person, to get that satisfaction.

I just went through all my current and previous clients. Fount one person I like. One person of really many. I served them all equally, but this one I liked. And still like. I check every week if he is still reading my articles. I check what he writes on his Facebook.

Why do I like him?

There is not telling why you like someone and don’t like another. You like them because you like them. Despite them, despite of the many things you don’t like about them.

It’s a lot like food. You may even buy food that you don’t like. I definitely do. Like humus. I don’t like it. Or pistachio.

It is not distaste… it is just meh.

Liking is active. You actively like it.

I eat humus because it reminds me of the time I spent in Israel. I buy pistachio because I want to re-experience the delight I felt in 1974 in the south of France, Aix en Province, eating green ice cream. For years I was searching for what gave that ice cream that lovely taste.

I found it, but then it went away, and left me with the salty burned taste of that lovely nut poorly processed. Processed without respect.

And my and to everyone’s dismay: you can’t buy likes… unless it is like-click on Facebook… lol.

Do they like me?

I went over that list again, asking a different question. Muscletested who likes me. I found two people who like me.

The rest like (or used to like) what they got from me, but never liked me.

Or liked what they hope to get from me. The fulfillment of that vague concept in the middle of the cage. Without any work, without giving anything up.

After looking at life, mine and yours through this filter of liking: I can see clearly why, all my life, I’ve barely made a living: I have not been very likable…

I’ll let you sit with that.

Maybe, until and unless you lose the ITCH chip from your shoulder, you can’t become likable.

You can try to be likable, buy likes, flatter people, compliment them. But that won’t make people like you.

((My hunch is that unless you first resonate with them, they can’t resonate with you. And to resonate with them, you need to give up being the needy one, and be available to resonate.

As a ‘teacher’ of sorts I would need to let go of my desire to teach long enough that I can resonate with a student. I admit that it’s very hard, even though when I think about it, it’s not that difficult. It can take an hour, two, to allow myself to just BE with them. Feel their pain and not resist it.))

On another note: you can love someone and not really like them.

So there you have it. Liking, being likable. A major key to getting in life what you want.

And like with anything you want to resonate, a musical instrument, for example, you need to remove the parts, at least temporarily, that make the instrument, you, rigid. Not able to resonate. Your AGENDA. Your ITCH.

In the ITCH Live this coming Thursday we’ll find and attempt to remove the chip from your shoulder.

And locating and removing will be like a spiritual practice. Something that you can get good at, so good that no one will even notice that you had an ITCH.

Like the Buddha in the story where seemingly he didn’t get upset when a dude was insulting him. He was able to turn it around, release it so fast that none of his disciples noticed the blip of anger, it was gone so fast.

Will we succeed in finding and devising a way for you to remove the ITCH?

Consider that the rest of your life depends on whether we succeed or not.

Any concern you have for yourself is, in essence that ITCH. And any concern will prevent you from being likable. Any concern.

If you have a concern to be considered a nice person, or a smart person, or important, above you, a winner, etc. it sits as a chip on your shoulder and renders you unlikable.

My concern is that you learn from me. That prevents me from resonating with you. And thus I violate your concern all day long… It prevents me from being likable…

When I, accidentally, let go of that concern in a call and allow instead curiosity to be there, suddenly you like me… at least temporarily.

So I am in this quest right there with you.

But remember: it is a skill.

It is something you learn, practice, and perfect, so it is fast and smooth. Not something I can give you…

I can imagine my last years being likable and liked. Not merely tolerated for the goodies. Weep weep.

Let’s see if we can make you likablePS: One of the secrets of being likable is being authentic, and loving yourself.

A closeness of the two selves.

Your ITCH does its darned best to pull you out of that state. So learning to HAVE your ITCH, but not be run by it, learning to let go of the urge, the agenda, allows YOU to resonate with yourself, and allows you to resonate with others. And allows the others to resonate with you.

Inner peace. Cease-fire in a constant war.

All is quiet on the Western front… 🙂

Respite from all that struggle.