Hardly Waking up
The challenge of being at ease with ourselves at work; what about this? So very often we can’t control work. It is chaotic, fickle, messy and often really nerve-wracking. We can have our passion for work and work hard at it, yet complications always come up …. rebellious students, bad hours, long days and weeks, tired bodies and minds, ignorant or hard to get along with co-workers and clients …. it’s never what we expect and often never simple. Untidy complications get distressing and alarming with so many uncertainties. We get upset, stressed out and even under siege at times.
And me, personally? What do have I felt over the years “really matters” at work? Paychecks, promotions, profits? And all the demands on this path which I have wanted to be so smooth. Yes, success is elusive and our work, by its’ very nature, is unruly and unfair and we know it. Don’t we just keep regarding stubborn personalities, unrealistic goals and poor decisions just something we call bothersome detours and unwelcome intrusions? How, I am asking, do we keep successfully and spiritually engaged at work? I say we all need to pause and examine our work attitude. Could interruptions and intrusions really be invitations to gain real wisdom? Aren’t the complications maybe exactly what we are looking for and we don’t know it? I know this may sound strange but think about this. Don’t difficulties and messy situations tend to be the very things which demand that we slow down and pay attention? Don’t these difficulties often go to the front of the line, so to speak, stare us right in the face and make us respond with resourceful attention, so that we have to dig in and resist? This “resistance” can be a, “Hmm, here comes that knuckle head again.” It becomes a recoil which sends us into hostile territory where we feel lonely, confused, at battle and even depressed at times. Then we end up in a protective mode instead of achieving our work objectives. The sober reality I am exposing here is that resisting work difficulties and hoping for smooth sailing is pointless. It is futile, I posit here, to expect work to be other than disappointing and often uncertain, and that we end up in a war with ourselves by amplifying our discomforts and end up arguing with our lives rather than living them.
Take moments now and then, more often than not, and acknowledge work as an invitation to wake the hell up instead of reflecting works difficulties as bothersome. Can we shape our attitudes to consider these speed bumps or demoralizing battles as being, instead, valuable experiences worthy of our wise attention? Can we really learn from what faces us and actually discover something that’s been inviting us to stop and listen openly, to connect and not detach, to perfect skillfulness instead of putting things into question? Can’t we maybe realize that our problems and pressures are what we’ve really wanted all along … to simply be awake at work? I’m talking about redefining our entire approach to our livelihood and engage our job sanely and openly without giving up on success or disregarding our feelings or ambitions. Can we just require something from ourselves which is really quite ordinary, like simply being what we are instead of getting somewhere fast or being somewhere completely?
Can we start taking a larger view of work and a very basic truth about us humans … We can just be ourselves in the present moment and be alert, open and skillful.
Yes, my online friends, whether rich or poor, Christian or Sufi, CEO or hairstylist, we can accept works invitations to wake the hell up! We CAN learn to engage a few or many or all aspects of our lives as spiritual practice and in turn live life more confidently without so much fear and anxiety!
But, in order for our lives and jobs to be a spiritual path we must be willing to set ourselves deliberately on a journey. We need to work with our minds by making firm yet gentle and utterly powerful gestures toward ourselves … not just once but habitually every day … a gesture that cultivates sanity and well-being. Yes, a gesture of mindfulness and availability in the present moment and face the ordinary, fresh immediacy of our experiences to discover that simply being human is profound much further than our hopes, fears, dreams and preconceptions. We just need to learn to trust ourselves more, don’t you think? What I mean is, is to drop our resistances and be intellectually and energetically alert to our lives at work. And I even put candles on this wonderful cake by making this personal and demanding process a lesson in nobility …. A truth in coming down to earth and into direct contact with our experience … a task which demands effort and discipline. And by “discipline” I refer not to denying oneself your favorite stuff or running long distances or saluting your superiors … it is not punishment or obligations but, rather, the discipline required to be completely honest with ourselves and overcoming pretenses or deception about our work circumstances.
I speak of an honesty here that requires a sharp and clear-minded intelligence that is neither gullible or hard-headed. Yes, my friends, I ask myself to stop kidding myself, stop defending my job or prestige or smooth path and commit to being attentive to and honest about my actual experience, whether work-related or not.
Yes, to be willing to set the stage for engaging work skillfully as it unfolds without trying to always secure my well-being or gather false guarantees. This honest discipline is the essence of mindfulness which just doesn’t up and appear out of thin air …. It must be cultivated over time. Of course, this mindfulness doesn’t make my job any less messy … cranky truck drivers and supervisors, screw-off team members, mindless directives, purposeless paperwork, lazy department chiefs and just some basic knuckleheads floating around … these things don’t disappear because I am mindful and alert … I am still annoyed at times. Being mindful will never eliminate works’ real and never-ending concerns, or even all my resistance to them.. But my mindfulness DOES keep me increasingly curious about my predicament. It keeps me separated, to a large degree, from the constant undertones of discontentment that often seem to lurk behind every fourth or fifth person I encounter each hectic day. I stay haunted, if you don’t mind my dramatics here, by my heightened awareness. I am constantly noticing more, pausing amidst the bedlam, opening to the rawness of my daily work experiences and finding myself being much, much more candid with myself.
Developing mindfulness, thusly, is really now becoming my central task at work (and as I teach all the newbies on our teams) because I want to do the job properly and completely. In fact, such mindfulness has drifted steadily into my entire life over the years because finally I am beginning to live well at 60, without near as much anxiety. Yes, my controlled attitude has splashed onto my daily routines. Whether preparing a meal or washing the dishes, taking a shower or a crap, tinkering in the shed or filling the bird feeders, rocking in my studio slider or strolling the 3 blocks to work ……….. I am more at peace with myself because my life is no longer a predicament. I no longer “just survive” until a wheelchair arrests me. I am content but busy each moment with grasping what is at my next footstep. Do you see what I mean? I have hypnotized myself to keep my awareness trapped within my attention ……. i.e., I practice full-blown self-stalking.
It’s THAT hard.
Can you, THE VERY NEXT TIME you step into your work environment and throw a switch? The switch you have promised yourself to remind yourself every frigging work day to throw on. Yes, THAT one. Can you? And WILL you? SHOULD you start getting more control of your life RIGHT NOW?
Yes, it’s THAT hard.
Tommy Two Feathers, 12/24/06
