Flow: same activities, different order
Why do little things bother me sometimes, and not others?
I had postponed packing my camping supplies for Burning Man until the last minute. As I was rummaging through my camping supplies to find a fork, I noticed myself get agitated when I couldn't get a lid off of a plastic storage box.
The agitation gave me pause, because it's a feeling I don't really experience at Burning Man. So why was I feeling it in the preparation for Burning Man?
Why agitation?
Frustrating things happen at Burning Man all the time, but I think the difference is I’m not trying to be somewhere else when I'm at Burning Man.
Today, standing in my garage at home, there were other things I felt like I needed to get to. But if a storage box lid was stuck while I'm camping, well that's just what I'm doing in that moment. There's nowhere else to be. I'm more present to it, and less agitated.
Maybe part of the difference between Burning Man tasks and home tasks is in the promised outcome.
At Burning Man, there's a very humble promise of outcome, but it's immediate. Finding a fork allows me to eat dinner. At home, the stakes are much higher. Every choice seems tied into my future. How will each decision affect my career/family/health?
On this path into the future there's a heaviness, as I wonder how I am going to do all the things I have to do to keep my life running.
So maybe I'm agitated doing tasks at home because everyday life feels so urgent but without immediate reward.
Unique over predictable
I have mixed feelings about Burning Man. Escaping is not the answer.
What I'm really thinking about now is that I like the mundane home life sometimes, and I like adventuring sometimes. I like planning for the future and I like living in the moment.
For instance, I loved watching the new Indiana Jones movie with my family. And I was delighted when our neighbor invited my daughter to usher at her favorite theater.
I also got a lot out of being stuck in the mud at Burning Man (much more than I got out of the free alcohol and endless dancing!)
It is the uniqueness of these opportunities that makes them special. When synchronicity is directing the schedule, rather than an agenda set by my own expectations, I feel lit up!
Same things, different order
This is the essence of living in flow. You do all the same things, but in a different order!
The movies may sound fun now, but suddenly you realize you need to plan meals for the week. That's fun too, and then--surprise!--a friend invites you to the movies tomorrow. You get both!
Many spiritual traditions talk about the importance of letting go. Today I'm seeing it less as letting go of what you think you want, and being adaptable for what you don't even know you want yet!
Happiness is a gift of flow. It's not always what we think we want, but it may be even more special.
Welcome to a Leap to Wholeness
We are starting a new series of social media posts around my second book, Leap to Wholeness, How the World is Programmed to Help Us Grow, Heal, and Adapt. One of the big themes in the book is identifying the filters that color the way we look at the world and ourselves. When we can identify a filter or belief we have, without trying to change it, we naturally start to see it better and it's easier to see beyond it. I offer this as a way of healing our old patterns of behavior.