Tuesday, April 17, 2007

The Tao of Spork.

The Titanium Spork came to mind when I was planning the galley aboard In A Mist, my Cape Dory 28. 

A little later, I was talking about the spork with my friend Emily, who is wise beyond her years, and she responded that the spork ends up being neither a very good fork nor a very good spoon.

I was struck that Emily's First Law of the Spork goes double for people. Anyone trying to be more than one thing will be good at neither. This is especially true of people who are trying to acheive goals that are mutually exclusive. You cannot simultaneously devote more time to your career and more time to a hobby. You cannot save up for a sailboat and go out partying every weekend (ask me how I know). 

Working with my coach Kathy, one of the most valuable lessons I learned was to cast a hard, uncompromising look at my goals and my thoughts about my situation. This is to evaluate all goals in a holistic way, to judge if they complement or compete with each other. Once my goals were aligned, I could finally make valid decisions about moving forward. Once I stopped listening to the constant clanging of misaligned priorities, I could begin to hear the soft whispers of the real person I'd been ignoring for so long.

You must do this now. Your real self is not going to survive forever without nourishment. You may have just enough positivity in your life to keep your real self alive, but it must be actively nurtured. If you slap it down every time it rises to the top of your mind, it will find some other way to die.

I had gotten so low that I didn't have much to lose. Divorced for a second time and stuck in a job that was stifling the very creativity that had led to my major contributions there. I was really lucky to have met a Life Coach along the way. We did some hard work and she helped me develop the tools to uncover my real self. Almost as soon as I realized I was on the wrong path, I was able, and willing, to turn abruptly, and start heading the way I should have been going all along.

I am finally headed in the right direction. I have a few details to clean up, but I am back. This is the real me. I am doing, almost exclusively, exactly what I want to be doing. It was some work to get here but you can do it too.

It takes a real hard eye and a sharp internal ear. It is not unlike what I've been going through the last couple weeks. I am a natural born pack rat. While packing to go from a small apartment to a smaller boat, I was making decisions about stuff. Man, that's hard. There are things, and boxes of things, that I have been carrying around for years and many many moves. These things are excess baggage; sheer dead weight. I have had to go through some boxes three or four times. Each time I managed to sever a few more emotional attachments and let a few more things go. I have done the same thing with clothes, knick knacks, books, and two portfolios full of drawings from junior high and high school.

None of that was easy, but I recently did the same thing with my life. Go back through several times, examine each idea or pick each thing up, and ask: does this contribute to my happiness? If the answer is not an unqualified yes, it needs to go. Of course, you have different considerations and commitments than I do. Nevertheless, the process and its benefits are the same regardless of how deep you go. If you are carrying around more than you need, that is too much weight. If you are trying to be someone you are not, you can't possibly be happy no matter what you tell yourself. Go through your life's boxes. Ask the hard questions. Throw shit out. 

You can't get rid of it all, but you can make your life easier, better and happier.


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Thoroughly revised 06/26/2021

1 comment:

  1. Very in keeping with the Feng Shui Philosophy of no clutter making our lifes more harmonious. As far as the CD's , you might give some thought to an mp3 player

    ReplyDelete

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