Life is amazing, you just need to be present to notice and take action.
"Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values."
— (via skylor)
Where Excellent Lives: living in the now
Where does excellence live? Is it something we need to search for? Or is it something we already have in some way?
Excellence is a state of being, its something you can really feel when it’s there, and sense its absence when it’s not. But how do we find excellence in the everyday situations and circumstances that makes up our life?
“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
-Aristotle
At times even the best of us feel like we’re not performing at the top of our game; when our heart isn’t in what we’re doing it is clear what’s going on, at least in this case we know who to blame. However it gets more tricky when we go out into the world looking to cast blame.
Sacrifice the Scapegoat
The urge to find the villain who stole your best work, or robbed you of the opportunity to shine can be irresistible. In work situations the blame game can be quite toxic to productivity, let alone counterproductive to your career. Even if there is a real conflict at the office, your casting of the villain (your co-worker, manager, or even the entire company) damns you to a path of personal dissatisfaction, ostrification, and growing tension.
No matter how convincing or right you are in the story you’ve written about your situation (are you thinking of something in particular now?), notice that it has become difficult, if not impossible in this situation to focus on the task at hand let alone be inspired enough to want to give it your best effort and attention.
sometimes when we point the mirror on ourselves in this way and really reflect in an honest way, it makes sense that being the most right in the situation doesn’t make a bit of difference if we hate our situation either way.
Wanting excellence is one thing, being excellence is the key
The time to start giving your best is NOW. People come up with “perfect pictures” of what they would like to have in their lives, idealized notions that often focus on contrasting what is wrong about now, or about shortcomings that should be fixed
The reality is that we must focus on living our lives now rather than in our hopes and criticisms, or haves and have nots. The right motivation and aspiration is still key, however what really counts is being on the top of your game wherever you find yourself. This means giving up complaining about circumstances, your job, your co-worker, your family. All of these worries and complaints build up to become an invisible mountain in the way of directing our best efforts to where it counts in our lives.
The un-stuck pony
An example from my early career can be illuminating in this discussion. I once worked at a company where I was unhappy. People would ask me about my job, and I would quickly deliver my main complaint, “I don’t have any creative control, what I’m doing doesn’t matter.” And a funny thing occurred; the more I complained, the worse I felt, and the more I hoped for a better situation to arise, the more I felt stuck.
It is a ironic that the very complaint I had about the job not only blinded me to anything that wasn’t that complaint, but it started becoming a self fulfilling prophacy. At work, the complaint began to show up more than me, a usually energetic and happy person. Despite the fact that I thought I could “fake it,” I could not, and it was reflected in my lagging performance reviews and worsening dead-end (or so it felt) assignments.
One manager commented in a review that something seemed off, I asked for feedback, however he couldn’t really put his finger on any specific indicator; looking back it makes sense that my internal feelings were rubbing off and the result was that I was giving up. The whole situation bled other areas of my life, and my personal satisfaction took a big hit as a result.
Fire the critic
If the director of a movie felt the same lack of control that many of us feel in our lives, do you think a movie would ever be made? The director has the vision for the future, and he also has the plan of action. Whether it is perfect or flawed, the key is in tapping the focus necessary to getting the job at hand done.
In the situation I described about my career I felt trapped and unhappy. What I had forgotten was that not only was I the director in this story, I was the writer and lead actor. The reason I was so unhappy was I felt out of control, but in fact I had given my control over to my circumstances.
We may not have the luxury of a Hollywood budget, but if strive to build ourselves up to reach higher aspirations in our own lives then we must fire the critic. Our critic would rather complain about others, and second guess our own everyday actions rather than focus on making the best movie we can today with the budget and resources we have TODAY. The critic has a place, we can evaluate our results and apply lessons learned to future projects. The critic’s place, however, is not the director’s chair.
The elephant in the womb
So now we’ve arrived at the critical “what’s the point” moment.
It starts with being at the wheel, being responsible for your choices as well as your circumstances….
MORE to come!
The Point: Looking Forward & Looking Back
The other day I asked a friend a simple question: “What would you do if you were sent back to 1994? Not as a ‘do over,’ but at your current age and experience.” It turned out to be an intriguing question which brought up countless other questions and possibilities. The exercise also pointed to insights we can apply to our present lives.
What music would I listen to, and what concerts would I attend? What would I do for a living? Where would I live? What would I do without the Internet and technology of today?
Immediately the limitations of living 15 years in the past became apparent; our precious iPhones would loose luster without a network or charge cables to support them, most of our favorite bands would not exist yet, none of our current friends or family would join us for the journey. We’d probably have to fudge our resumes to restart our careers, and make up a story to explain our sudden appearance on the scene.
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.
Henry David Thoreau
After considering these hurdles and unknowns, something else became clear; with our knowledge of the world, where things were heading, and a ‘nothing to loose’ attitude, the world of 1994 really could be our oyster. There are of course the clichés of investing in Apple or Google, or making ourselves eye witnesses of history. But this exercise also points to something deeper about how we can live our lives today.
With the (past/present) history of the world largely ‘already written,’ and the great unknowns of current events ‘known’ (to us anyway), we would be free to focus on our own lives and futures with a much longer view. In some ways we would be limited by living in the past. At the same time knowing the ‘limits’ could actually open up the world of possibilities even more (see ‘cliché’ above). In a sense our lives would become simpler; with no past that’s known to others, we would be free to focus on the present and future with more clarity and vigor.
People tend to get caught up in a very short sited view of their lives. Daily emergencies override speculations about what we might make out of our time on earth. The little things we decide over time that we cannot or should not do become laws written in stone. Our lives become ‘complicated,’ and our struggles feed into self fulfilling prophecies in a never ending cycle. We tend to use the uncertainty of the outside world as an excuse to further limit ourselves. Even people who are successful and hard working can fall into this trap from time to time. In short: The ‘short view’ of life is exhausting, draining, and rarely keeps us ‘on track’ to what we really want.
Turning back to our 1994 time travel in the light of our current concerns, the questions and answers become more revealing: Will I live in the same city? (Where do I want to live now?) What will my job be? (What’s my dream career?) What kind of relationship will I have? (How do I relate to people?) What kind of family will I find? (Who is my family, who is not my family?) Who will I associate with? (Who do I want to have in my network?)
Outside forces still always come into play, and our own response to circumstances has an impact on our daily lives. However taking the longer view we can recognize what we are really about: Creation, commitment to what we want in our world, and having the people and accomplishments in our life match up with our dreams (our future).
As the time traveler we realize our own power to create the future of our lives, and to separate what is in our control versus what is not. In this experiment thinking of 1994 we sense curiosity, wonder, excitement, creation and uncertainty. We have an added vision of what is possible in our lives, despite knowing what will take place in a broader sense.
In contrast to the typical fantasy of winning the lotto, this time traveler scenario is less of an escape as it is an inquiry. It demonstrates the level of control we have over our own lives, stripping away some of the mystique and influence of outside events. Regardless we still need to DO something to create the lives we want, simply dreaming or knowing does not replace action.
The most successful and happy people share the long view of the time traveler. They are not impatient, they are diligent. They are not victims, they are champions. They are not an island, they are leaders. The key to success in your own life is to take the time to ‘try on’ the life that inspires you, and then use the tools available (in every sense) to lay the foundation for your best possible future.
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