What owns you?
Filed Under Business Life, Comments, Guest Writer, Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog, Survival Kit | 2 Comments
I’ve done more travel lately over the past few weeks than I normally do and the concept of ‘things as tether’ has floated across my consciousness more than once as a result. Earlier in this series, I wrote a blog about envy as it relates to acquisition/status and how it keeps us from being independent. This week’s installment is a variation on that theme.
Lugging your possessions through lobbies, airport terminals and along sidewalks gives you ample time to contemplate the usefulness and true value of what you are carrying. Two Georges help me illustrate my point: If you’ve ever watched George Carlin’s comedy routine on “Stuff,” or watched George Clooney in the film, Up in the Air and his ‘backpack analogy,’ then you’ll understand where I’m coming from with this post.
On a very personal note, I filed for divorce about two and a half years ago and have spent the time since literally giving away most of my stuff. A five bedroom house. Gone. Most of the stuff that furnished it. Gone. Thousands of dollars of blankets, decor, candlesticks, …stuff. Gone. Donated to Goodwill.
Clearing my life of extraneous clutter and stuff helped, but this post is also about why we accumulate things in the first place and how that compulsion to do so keeps us from our independence. I am not a monk and I’m not suggesting that you become one; rather, I would encourage you to take a look around your house. Take a quick inventory of the things you purchased either for status or because it was something that society said that you needed to own in order to ‘qualify’ for the role you wish to represent.
What things do you really LOVE? What things express your individuality or add joy to your life? What things reflect your true values? How many of them are duplicates? When I was lugging things hither and yon this past month and a half, I carried with me the essential, yes, but also things that made my travel a joy.
“Simplify. Simplify.” – Henry David Thoreau
When we take a moment to cull our possessions to the essential, authentic items that combine elements of utility and beauty, you will find that you need fewer of them. You will be packing lighter, so to speak, and anyway, you can’t take nothin’ with you but your soul (to paraphrase John Lennon). When you have fewer dust catchers, you have more time to devote to other things: your studies, your vocation, a hobby…other people. You’ll have more time to evolve into the person you would like to become, perhaps.
One of the best books about the exchange of energy for stuff I’ve read is Your Money or Your Life. For me, it distilled my focus into realizing what truly was important to me and gave me a guideline to achieve my goals. (NOTE: I do not benefit financially from this link. It’s simply a recommendation).
Stuff is wonderful; stuff is beautiful and having the right stuff when you need it is priceless. Understanding our relationship to Stuff is essential to claiming our independence, however. What owns whom? What has been your experience?
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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)
Will you live in fear or in faith?
Filed Under Connecting Dots, Guest Writer, Inside-Out Thinking, Motivation/Inspiration, Outside the Box, Successful Blog, Survival Kit, The Big Idea, leadership | 5 Comments
Faith isn’t faith if you know the outcome. We’ve discussed in previous posts the importance faith has when living an independent life. Whether expressed as comfort with flux; or taking a managed risk, entrepreneurs have to take a leap of faith in order to reach their goals. And, in a brief reference to even last week’s post, it’s a leap that we must each ultimately make alone.
Many times, my point of reference is the movies. When I think of ‘leaps of faith,’ one of my most vivid examples I can think of is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In order to save his father’s life, Indy must recover the Holy Grail by deciphering riddles – clues to avoiding the deadly devices designed to prevent seekers from finding the Grail.
After successfully clearing two devices, Indy finds himself facing a chasm, across which their appears to be no bridge for him to safely cross. Reading from his father’s notes, Indy says to himself, “Last is the breath of God: Only a leap from the lion’s head, shall he prove his worth.” He then steps into nothingness and is rewarded by stepping onto an invisible, narrow span which allows him to cross.
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Action. Action begets opportunity. Opportunity begins with taking a step.
Key to independence is taking that first step. The staircase is there; but even if we COULD see each step leading to the doorway at its zenith, we can physically only take one step at a time. Our job is to take the step immediately before us. Our responsibility is to step.
Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.-Gail Devers
This is the hardest part. Another blogger called this time between steps “The Middle.” I truly wish that I could remember which one wrote it for proper attribution. However, it’s true: The Middle is where we are tested.
While we are taking our steps toward our goals, The Middle is the part where our friends and family may doubt our sanity. Leads may not pan out. Financing may dry up. We may even begin to doubt ourselves and our ability to reach our goal. When we are feeling unsure, we must revisit our plans, focus on what it is we hope to achieve and examine our motivations. Once you have had a chance to take this time to review, and all your instincts affirm your actions, press forward.
When you have come to the edge of all light that you know and are about to drop off into the darkness of the unknown, Faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly.-Patrick Overton
This is what it all comes down to, doesn’t it? Do you trust yourself? Everyone who lives life on his or her own terms has come to this crossroads. Is it fair? Absolutely. We are each the product of our choices and convictions. Making choices like this one is the price of admission to a full and rewarding life.
I usually refer to this moment as the ‘put up or shut up’ moment. We are called to live out our values. Again, faith is not faith if it’s based on the known, no matter how much we may wish for guarantees. In order to achieve independence, we must step out in faith. When I’m feeling small and more than a little crazy, I am encouraged by the words of a pioneer in her field:
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.-Marie Curie
It is worth it. You are worth it. Decide. And then take that step.
——-
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)
How do you harness fear?
Filed Under Connecting Dots, Guest Writer, Idea Bank, Inside-Out Thinking, Motivation/Inspiration, Outside the Box, Strategy, Successful Blog, Survival Kit, The Big Idea, leadership | 8 Comments
Alone. That’s a state of being we must learn to identify, accept – even embrace if we are to move forward as individuals. If you’ve been reading my previous blog entries in this series, my comprehension and interpretation of paradox is a common thread that runs through most of them. In order to be a strong partner; one must be able to function alone.
In order to contribute unselfishly and totally to a team or an effort, one must do the work to identify one’s strengths apart from the group. There’s only one way to fully and thoroughly develop one’s autonomy – to be brought to the point where one is separated from all other illusions of community.
That said, none of us is ever really separate. Life really is like Obi Wan says: we are a collective Force. Alter one, affect the whole. However, each of us has the capacity to opt out of the stream of The Whole and to do some individual work in order to become a stronger component of it.
This matter of altering the plane under which one operates is optional. Lots of people elect to operate within the confines of security; the Known. Theirs is an existence that recalls to me the world of The Matrix. A churning pool of folks who eat noodles and pay their taxes. …Which is good, fine and “normal.”
But within this collective are those for whom this level of existence isn’t enough. But how does one break free? How does one become ‘independent?’
These are the sorts of theoretical mental calisthenics that keep me awake at night (and fuel coffee shop discussions – perhaps the two are related <g>).
“Although to be driven back upon oneself is an uneasy affair at best, rather like trying to cross a border with borrowed credentials, it seems to me now the one condition necessary to the beginnings of real self-respect.”-Joan Didion
One must go within to change what is without. Much as a seed has all the genetic wisdom contained within itself to become the mighty tree, you have within yourself everything you need to reach your goals. To reach your goals is hard work. Messy work. Usually painful work. But in order to live the authentic life, it is mandatory work.
We learn about ourselves in number of ways. Our first clue is our surroundings and our friends. We draw unto ourselves that which we believe we deserve; that which reflects who we perceive ourselves to be. Our friends are also an indications of our self esteem – in what relation do we place ourselves with our friends? Are we the ringleader? The learner? Until we can recognize not only where we’ve placed ourselves but our intent in so doing, we’re kinda just floating along, cosmically-wise.
Until we can live with ourselves, AS ourselves, we do not have the foundations of self-respect.
…A man goes far to find out what he is–
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.”
-excerpt from the poem In a Dark Time, Theodore Roethke
Here we return to paradox: death of the self begets freedom through itself and God (which can be interpreted by some as Source). But if you’ll notice, the author is able to recognize fear in this process. He notices and discards/rejects it in order to articulate his freedom.
If you’ve ever worked with metal, you know that heat purifies. It burns away dross and leaves the essential elements. Heat, in our lives can be literal, but most of the time, it’s figurative. I heard the quote, “if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen” from early childhood. By way of comparison, in this particular instance of Roethke’s poem, fear is ‘the heat.’
When it comes to the purifying nature of fear, I don’t know of a better example of a linear, step-by-step explanation of how fear can be harnessed and overcome than the following excerpt from Frank Herbert’s 1965 speculative fiction book, Dune:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” - Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
So you’ve gone through the fire. You’ve faced your yourself and your fears. Now you can, with a clear-eyed perspective, take responsibility for your life and move forward. What’s neat is how your perspective has shifted. If you’ve been paying attention throughout your journey, you’ll note that your path has incorporated all of the elements you wanted to avoid in your life, but, like the elements of the seed, were necessary to your growth.
“…but Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man That he didn’t, didn’t already have.” – America
By striking out on your path alone (but still in concert with others), you have developed your individuality. You are stronger than you were before your journey. Just like Dorothy (whose courage was manifested as a lion; bravery as a tin man and heart as a scarecrow), you have within you the keys to your own freedom. The power is within you, and has been all along.
LizStrauss 
Liz.Strauss
