Populating the Ark

I heard a story from a friend the other day that illustrates the difference between indifference, compassion, and love. The punchline: love means seeing someone for who they really are, and loving the whole package.

A drunk beggar sits on a street corner, asking for spare change. One person walks by and ignores him. That is indifference. Another person walks by and asks the beggar if he has eaten, gives him money, and says "please buy something nutritious for yourself with this." That is compassion. A final person walks by, gives the beggar some money, and says "enjoy the drink." That is love.

This story hit home for me. Something that I am constantly working on is loving people for everything they are, even the things that might seem annoying or undesirable to me. A concept that I have found useful is that of "the ark," taught to me by Lauren Zander, founder of the Handel Group. The idea behind the ark is that, like Noah, we each have an ark that we are populating with a select group of people whom we love and care for. A person can't have one foot on the ark and one foot off (the equivalent of loving their "good" qualities, but despising their "bad" ones). They are either on or off.

Being "on" means a commitment to loving the person, sharing your whole self with them, and cultivating a beautiful, intimate relationship with them. It means not complaining behind their back about how annoying it is that they are always late or disrespect their spouse or need to lose some weight, or what have you. Instead, it means taking on discussing these issues with the person, and coming to peace with them. Accepting everything about them as part of the whole. They are on your ark, and aren't going anywhere.

Image courtesy of http://greenleafreport.com/

Looking for answers

We're all in a process of looking for answers: what career is right for me, how should I be raising my child, why aren't I making more money? The answers really are out there, all around us, showing up in little and big incidents here and there. There are signs that we can choose to see and understand, if only we take the time. Most of us are so busy planning, controlling, and doing that we don't allow time for observing.

For example, take my friend Ella. Ella worked for non-for-profits, both as an employee and consultant, for several years. The whole time, she thought that her dream was to work in sustainability. She traveled to sustainability conferences, taught herself about sustainability, and built herself a sustainability network. She was a sustainability machine. She finally took a leap and transitioned to a job in sustainability, and guess what? It felt kinda hollow. She realized that she wasn't as passionate about a job in sustainability as she had originally thought. As a hobbie, maybe, but not as a job.

She returned home discouraged and directionless. And for the first time in a long time, she wasn't doing, but motionless. And then it came. Business colleagues started consulting her on how to structure their businesses. She realized that this came easily to her, she was good at it, and she enjoyed it. In fact, when she looked back on her years working in the non-for-profit sector, her favorite aspect of every role she had held had been structuring teams and companies, and helping other people structure theirs. She had never really noticed this while chasing the sustainability dream. But when she took a moment to observe, it seemed glaringly obvious that company structuring was her thing. Now she is consulting full-time, and loving it.

Sometimes, the path to success is not in doing, but in not doing and just listening. We make it all seem so complicated, but what if it all were that obvious?

Getting off the hook

We all have dreams and goals; we make some, and don't make others. In the case of the ones we don't make, odds are that we have found an ironclad excuse about why we can't have it.

"I want to start a company, but the economy is bad"
"I want to tell my sister that she hurt my feelings over Christmas, but she takes this sort of thing very personally."
"I want to meet the woman of my dreams, but there are no good women in Boston."

As I discussed in my January 27 blog, these excuses are sneaky inventions of the mind. Although we pretend that these excuses are working against us, we actually are getting something from them.

What could we possibly be getting from believing that the economy is bad? Well, we are getting a "get out of scary situation free" card. Because starting a company, having a touchy conversation, or putting yourself on the dating scene are all very scary. We know we should do them, that deep down we want to do them and will find happiness when we do do them. But heck, that's in the future and it feels scary right now. So finding the perfect excuse gets us off the hook.

I'd like to share with you an example of how I used an excuse to get myself out of a scary dream. I'm first going to share with you the old story, in which I twisted the truth of the whole situation to make it all "not my fault." And then I'm going to tell you what really happened.

The old story
I wanted to apply for the Peace Corps after college. I loved languages, and helping people, had great transferable technical skills, and wanted to see a bit of the world. But then I went to an engineering panel discussion, and the panelists there told me that if I took 2 years off to join the Peace Corps, I would have a hard time finding a job when I returned because my skills would be obsolete. Oh, I see, I said. I can't do the Peace Corps because that would be career suicide. So I didn't apply for the Peace Corps. Years later, I realized that joining the Peace Corps was not career suicide for many people... in fact, it seemed to bolster their resume, not hurt it. If only I had never gone to that stupid engineering panel discussion! Those panelists should be ashamed of themselves.

So that's the old story. But the thing is, that story haunted me. I regretted not joining the Peace Corps, and would get myself all worked up about what a mistake it was, and how stupid those panelists were. Until one day I realized that the reason the story bothered me was because it was not a fair telling. Here is the truth:

The truth
I wanted to apply for the Peace Corps, but was afraid that I wouldn't get in. I was afraid that I didn't have enough volunteer experience, which meant that I would have to quickly join a local volunteer project, which I didn't want to do. I was afraid that my letters of recommendation wouldn't be good enough, because deep down I didn't think I was as great as my professors seemed to think I was. Surely the mighty Peace Corps admission committee would be able to see this. And then the game would be up, and my mediocrity would be revealed. Scary stuff. So while yes, I wanted to join the Peace Corps, I was scared of the admissions process. Enter my savior, the engineering panel discussion. The panelists gave me the perfect excuse to never have to face that fear of rejection: that the Peace Corps would be career suicide. The perfect "get out of fear free" card. Because who wants to commit career suicide? So I was perfectly justified in not applying for the Peace Corps, not having to face my fear, and not living my dream.

So you can see how the second story makes a lot more sense. I mean, really, at the age of 21, would I really have been so naive as to give up a beloved dream based on a random comment from a panelist? Doubtful. Especially considering how many times I had defied my parents, friends, and teachers over the years. I chose to believe the panelist for a reason. Once I realized this truth, the whole thing stopped tormenting me. I was just being a chicken. I can work with that.

So I'd like to challenge all of you to take a look at a story from the past the haunts you, or a dream that you haven't yet realized. Where is the excuse? And how is it working for you? What are you avoiding? What does your chicken look like?

Image courtesy of www.germes-online.com

Love as a Verb

Hello again! I decided to take a break from blogging for the past few weeks to focus on weddings, marathons, and coaching, but after a fantastic April, I'm back!

Today, I would like to talk about a concept that is exemplified by my best friend, Sandra, who got married this weekend to a great guy, Tim. Their relationship embodies a simple concept: that love is a verb, and not a noun. You don't find or lose love, as one would find or lose a quarter on the ground. You love or don't love, and the choice really is yours.

When you first start dating someone, and getting to know them, you love automatically. You are naturally curious about this person, exploring a brand new world that they represent. You focus on the greatness of this person and relay it to your friends. You put out your best self, both physically, emotionally, and mentally.

But then after being together for a while, many of us don't automatically love anymore. We stop being curious about the other person, and taking the time to understand what is really going on in their world. We think we know them and instead of having conversations with them in person, we have conversations with them in our head, and call it a wrap. "If I say I want to go to Florida on our vacation, she'll complain that it's too buggy and accuse me of never taking her feelings into account...". Many of us take for granted all of those good characteristics that so fascinated us at the beginning, and think about the ones that annoy us instead. "He laughs too loudly at his own jokes." And we don't put out our best self. We don't make time for as many romantic dates. We can be jealous, judgmental, critical, or angry, and let those traits run rampant.

So, then, there is no big mystery why many relationships "fade" over time. We have stopped loving the way we did in the beginning. The two people involved are no different, but what they are doing is. But we deny the power we have over love by treating it like a noun. "We fell out of love," or "our love turned sour," or "where is the love?" It becomes an entirely different ballgame when you instead frame it as "I chose to stop loving him." Because it really is a choice.

Sandra and Tim exemplify the use of love as a verb. Two years into their relationship, Sandra and Tim still carve out time each evening to share and understand what is happening in each other's worlds. Sandra does not lose sight of the fact that her relationship with Tim is the most important thing in her life, and treats him with respect, compassion, and patience. She is the same girl that she was on their third date, with the possible exception that she now shares more of herself with him. But she is just as curious and appreciative of his good qualities as she was years ago. She actively loves him.