How can we die yet live?

Filed Under Analysis, Connecting Dots, Guest Writer, Inside-Out Thinking, Motivation/Inspiration, Outside the Box, Successful Blog, The Big Idea | 5 Comments

Join death
to your life and you will live
as if there were no drum to march to.

There is no march at all.

You’re done. All will be well for all.” – from All That’s Left, Jack Hirschman

This blogpost is pretty “woo woo” and “out there,” and so my apologies for those of you who are reading Independent Ideas for the first time. I write most of my blogposts in my head as I drive hither and yon throughout my days. Over the past week, the idea of surrender as liberation has been bouncing around my head and I don’t know where this blogpost is going to end up. So if you’ll bear with me, let’s take a trip down the rabbit hole together.

Paradox is one of my life lessons that I’m supposed to “get” as I navigate my journey. It took me about 37 years to realize that fact, but since then, I’ve been practicing awareness of paradox for a few years, so it has become easier to recognize when I encounter it. Most of the time, paradox is one of those ‘hmroo?’ concepts – the truth of which is tucked in so deeply to the problem that the solution (or resolution) dangles *just* out of reach of our consciousness.

The really frustrating part is that once the tumblers do click and you understand the inherent paradox of whatever specific problem with which you are dealing, it is maddeningly difficult to explain to someone else. It’s usually a lesson that is intensely personal. You just *know.*

How can we die yet live?

In the case of the poem’s excerpt above, how does dying to our life free us? Is it freedom from expectations? Is it freedom from earthly concerns? Is it allowing us to focus on eternal matters?

Most people (including Yours Truly) are more comfortable with clear cut beginnings and ends. For example: Articulate goal. Write it down. Take steps to achieve it. Achieve stated goal… and finally (in football parlance), move the chains. Repeat as necessary.

What if linear and nonlinear paths coexist simultaneously? What if the linear model of goal achieving outlined in the previous paragraph is absolutely correct? What if a random pathway would bring you to the same end? Is one more “real” or “correct” than the other? What if your path is at once independent and interrelated to every other path? What if all of the above are true? Would it matter?

As I see it, our responsibility to ourselves and each other is to tend our own garden. Set our own goals. Discern our own truths and live them out as best we can with what we have at any given time, reaching out to others who are able and willing to help us grow. In so doing, the betterment of the Whole is advanced.

When we focus on our own skills, talents and the expression of same, we find that our lives are like an instrument playing within a symphony of humanity. Each life has a different tone, frequency, vibrancy and melody and yet each blends with the others when lived in an authentic manner.

There is no march at all.

This sentiment is inherently annoying, because it is the opposite of all we hold dear: there must be some meaning to this, right? Because if there’s not, then why are we here?

It doesn’t matter.

Perhaps the scale is so big that it’s beyond our comprehension. Perhaps the realization of our ability and capacity to opt out of expectations is, in and of itself, the goal. Perhaps that’s an enlightenment of sorts.

I *do* know that embracing the paradox of surrender is liberating. There is a subtle difference between surrender and “giving up.” Surrender is an acknowledgement that you’ve reached the limits of your comprehension. Giving up is not looking any farther. Once we surrender, we are open to new horizons; and that’s where our independence lies.

Thanks for sticking with me, and please share your thoughts below.

——-
Molly Cantrell-Kraig is a woman with drive. Possessing an innate sense of purpose and a pragmatic, solution-based approach to empowering people, she fused these two traits in order to establish Women With Drive Foundation. Based upon its founder’s personal history, Women With Drive Foundation is a means through which Cantrell-Kraig may effect change on both a micro and macro level. By providing women with something as essential as personal transportation in order to transition them from poverty to prosperity, she, through Women With Drive Foundation, seeks to empower women to help them help themselves. Through this action, the individual applicant benefits, as does society as a whole. Follow Molly on twitter as @mckra1g or @WWDr1ve (Women With Drive Foundation)

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

What inspires you?

Filed Under Basics, Blog Review, Bloggy Questions, Community, Connecting Dots, Guest Writer, Inside-Out Thinking, Links, Motivation/Inspiration, Strategy, Successful Blog, Writing | 5 Comments

One of the best features of twitter is the opportunity to connect with other people around a specific topic each week or month via online chats using a hashtag (#) to “sort” the conversation stream apart from the rest of the flow of general tweets. These twitter chats expand my horizons, introduce me to other minds and concepts and also gives me an opportunity to refine my thoughts about any given topic.

If you are interested in knowing more about the online conversation about any number of industries or ideas, here is the link for an evolving twitter chat directory.

This past week, I had a chance to participate in a chat for the #SOBCon community. Having attended last year’s conference, it’s a great chance for me to not only re-connect with some of the the folks I met there, but I’m also able to chime in/learn from new folks. This week’s topic was about blogging; specifically, what inspires us to write.

There are as many ways to be inspired as there are ways to write. Some write each day, training The Muse to show up whether She wants to or not (ie. The Artist’s Way). Some feel as though they can’t write unless they have anything of interest to say and are moved to commit bytes to the ether.

To answer the question as it relates to me? I draw inspiration from other bloggers, quotes, songs, my children, interactions with people in my daily life and seemingly random coincidence. But that’s not really what this week’s blogpost is about, actually.

After talking about it with others during our chat, I started to become more aware of being inspired and looking for inspiration in everything. This twist on the concept of “breaking the fourth wall” and being a dispassionate observer of my life helped me to learn more about how I interact with others.

Which leads me to the overarching concept of this blog and Independent Ideas. In order to be independent, one must be apart from the pack, so to speak. Having an awareness of one’s actions, how those interactions affect others and being mindful of our choices leads to a different way of Being by default. One cannot be aware and remain unaffected by the consequences of one’s actions. It’s impossible.

Writer/poet Paulo Coelho’s blog about the archer and the Zen Master underscored this concept for me when I read:

“You may have great skill with the instrument you choose for your livelihood, but it is useless, if you cannot command the mind which uses that instrument.”

It really is mind over matter. Thinking makes it so. We each have the capacity of conquering our own minds. We decide what is important to us. We decide what inspires us and we decide what drives us. Our choices are how those decisions are made manifest.

One of my best friends was an 80-something jazz pianist, now deceased. About 14 years ago, over coffee, Bob shared with me a nugget of wisdom he had collected over his decades of living. “Molly,” he told me, “everything is cumulative.”

Our independence is built moment by moment, day by day, choice by choice. What inspires you? What is your vision? What are you willing to decide in order to make it happen? It is ultimately up to you.

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

What do Shakespeare and The Matrix Share?

Filed Under Connecting Dots, Guest Writer, Inside-Out Thinking, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog, leadership | 1 Comment

As I sat down to peck out this week’s blogpost, two concepts/quotes kept swimming to the fore:

“To thine own self be true.” – Wm. Shakespeare from Hamlet

and

“I wanna tell you a little secret, being ‘The One’ is just like being in love. No one needs to tell you you are in love, you just know it, through and through.”- The Oracle from The Matrix

From this, I draw a couple of conclusions. The first is that we cannot be something we do not recognize or honor within ourselves. We are but one Being in a sea of Others. Spending our days immersed in the stream of life, we must operate within society as a moving, living, breathing component. That said, we MUST retain our autonomy and sense of self in order to contribute fully to society.

In an analogy I use quite often with myself when presented with a choice, I ask myself, “Can you live with yourself if you make this decision?” Because it’s true: of the billions of people now walking the planet, you are the only person who is going to be with you for the rest of your life. Can you sleep at night after making your decisions? Can you look yourself in the mirror?

If you can’t, you are not independent. You are tethered to regret or some other emotion that keeps you from it. Do the work to figure out why (ie. make amends, release a debt, forgive someone) and take another look in the mirror. Repeat as necessary.

Secondly, being independent just ‘is.’ You either are or you’re not. I can’t tell you if you are; you just are. As we discussed in an earlier post, ‘Are You Exposed?’ the degree to which you are independent is simply a matter of scale.

Continuing, to use Morpheus’ quote from the Matrix, “There is a difference between knowing The Path and walking The Path.” What’s really going to bake your noodle is that it’s difficult to discern just exactly when you move from one plane to another.

You go from stocking up on self-help books, collecting quotes on your bathroom mirror and affirmations to one day just *doing.* At the risk of using just one more movie reference, if you’ve seen Forrest Gump’s face as he realizes that he’s running without his braces on? THAT’S what being independent is. You are trucking along, when all of a sudden you look down and realize, “Holy crap! I’m doing this!”

Trust yourself. Move from faith to action. It will happen.

——-
Molly Cantrell-Kraig is a woman with drive. Possessing an innate sense of purpose and a pragmatic, solution-based approach to empowering people, she fused these two traits in order to establish the Women With Drive Foundation. Based upon its founder’s personal history, Women With Drive Foundation is a means through which Cantrell-Kraig may effect change on both a micro and macro level. By providing women with something as essential as personal transportation in order to transition them from poverty to prosperity, she, through Women With Drive Foundation, seeks to empower women to help them help themselves. Through this action, the individual applicant benefits, as does society as a whole. Follow Molly on twitter as @mckra1g or @WWDr1ve (Women With Drive)

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

How to fly without wings

Filed Under Connecting Dots, Guest Writer, Inside-Out Thinking, Strategy, Successful Blog, Survival Kit, Tips, leadership | 8 Comments

“Look before you leap,” says conventional wisdom, But if you have an iota of entrepreneurial essence to your soul, part of you inherently rejects this “wisdom.” Entrepreneurs, by and large, operate outside conventions. These are they who see what doesn’t exist, march to different drummers and chart their own courses.

But as we’ve also established through previous posts, there’s a difference between risk and folly. An entrepreneur takes calculated risks and is also comfortable with flux and the unknown. That said, part of any “risky” action is performing due diligence, whether that is researching your chosen industry; reaching out to others in related fields or drafting a business plan.

In so doing, you begin to form a network (some call it your tribe). These are the folks you turn to as mentors, guides and other resources as you move forward toward independence and fulfilling your dream – launching from the cliff, as it were.

Your network is your wings.

Your wings actually form themselves – triggered by your action.

Once you step out in faith, your network activates in an effort to help you. If you’ve cultivated your network properly, the anchors within will enable you to move upward more easily (see my previous post, “How Anchors Free Us). These people have probably achieved a level of success that enables them to operate from a position of stability and strength. They *want* you to succeed as well.

Choosing and nurturing a strong network is critical to achieving your independence.

Abundance begets abundance. A strong network comprised of secure people will want you to achieve (or even exceed) their levels of achievement because they are not threatened by your success. Rather, they understand that abundance magnifies itself. The Whole is elevated by your success, rather than diminished by it.

Your responsibility is to determine what you can offer, focus on it, develop it and implement your idea through consistent action. Leap.

——-
Molly Cantrell-Kraig is a woman with drive. Possessing an innate sense of purpose and a pragmatic, solution-based approach to empowering people, she fused these two traits in order to establish the Women With Drive Foundation. Based upon its founder’s personal history, Women With Drive Foundation is a means through which Cantrell-Kraig may effect change on both a micro and macro level. By providing women with something as essential as personal transportation in order to transition them from poverty to prosperity, she, through the Women With Drive Foundation, seeks to empower women to help them help themselves. Through this action, the individual applicant benefits, as does society as a whole. Follow Molly on twitter as @mckra1g or @WWDr1ve (Women With Drive)

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

What do chaos and rocketship underpants have in common?

Filed Under Connecting Dots, Inside-Out Thinking, Motivation/Inspiration, Outside the Box, Successful Blog, Tips, ZZZ-FUN, leadership | 2 Comments

“From now on, I’ll connect the dots my own way.” – Calvin and Hobbes

In a rare allusion to the number, quantity, interactivity or any other reference to my followers on twitter, faithful followers will notice periodic tweets from me titled simply, “Why I miss Calvin & Hobbes,” including a link with a random panel from Bill Watterson’s masterwork.

I have loved the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip ever since I can remember. Not only is the humor therein wry, cynical-yet-laced-with-hopefulness and warped, but Watterson manages to convey elemental, essential lessons through the alchemy of ink and paper.

Calvin: – “I’ve been thinking Hobbes –”
Hobbes: – “On a weekend?”
Calvin: – “Well, it wasn’t on purpose…”

Calvin is bombastic, self-centered, short-sighted, delightful – an imaginative imp with a tenuous, but intact moral core. His stuffed tiger, Hobbes, serves as his foil, counsel and ballast. Calvin is NOT a literal six-year old, but rather, a composite of the human race, our collective Inner Child. He is a loner by nature, being an only child, but more than the familial construct into which he has been drawn, Calvin operates outside the norm in other ways.

He’s not a big “joiner,” preferring instead to create his own worlds within his own mind. Spaceman Spiff, Tracer Bullet and Stupendous Man (the arch enemy of Babysitter Girl/Rosalyn) are a few of the alter egos that help him escape the confines of his two-dimensional plane.

Calvin also thrives on mayhem and chaos, oftentimes oblivious to the fact that he himself has created most of it. He is also a big fan of “winging it” and improvises his solutions on the fly, with mixed results. His wagon and sled often provide the means for us to follow his “logic” as he ponders matters both large and small.

Calvinball is a great example of making things up as he goes along. The Rules always change; there is no predestined means of playing the game itself; no special equipment, and quite frankly, I don’t know that Watterson ever drew a panel explaining the terms of “winning.” I’m not sure when (or if) the game actually ends.

“Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine, and valleys of frustration and failure.”- Calvin

And so, on this weekend of new beginnings, I ask you to join with me in taking stock of our choices. What can we do this year that brings us more independence? How can we chart our own course? When can we do to incorporate fun and “managed chaos” into our lives? How do we connect the dots in our own lives and what is the picture we hope to create?

We always have control over our choices. I hope you all have a wonderful, productive, satisfying and joyous New Year. I recommend buying a pair of rocketship underpants.

——-
Molly Cantrell-Kraig is a woman with drive. Possessing an innate sense of purpose and a pragmatic, solution-based approach to empowering people, she fused these two traits in order to establish the Women With Drive Foundation. Based upon its founder’s personal history, Women With Drive Foundation is a means through which Cantrell-Kraig may effect change on both a micro and macro level. By providing women with something as essential as personal transportation in order to transition them from poverty to prosperity, she, through the Women With Drive Foundation, seeks to empower women to help them help themselves. Through this action, the individual applicant benefits, as does society as a whole. Follow Molly on twitter as @mckra1g or @WWDr1ve (Women With Drive)

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

« go back — keep looking »