Partnering Up With Problems

There's so much great literature about the power of partnership precisely because it's so important in life. In fact, Aristotle's implicit formula in his book "Politics" for the peak of human good is "People in partnership for a shared purpose" (my words but his ideas). So The Iliad is all about partnership. So is The Three Musketeers and Dracula, surprising as that might be. My new novels are the same. People together can solve problems that were impossible to solve alone.

Yesterday, while doing a LinkedIn Live interview on video with the great Jan Rutherford, I had an epiphany. Jan asked whether struggles and difficulties and sufferings can strengthen and improve us. I said yes but added that it's in large part up to us how we use them. My insight, an idea I'd never had before, is that to benefit from a difficulty, we have to partner up with it.

That's quite a different sort of idea. How do most of us deal with difficulties or struggles? We seek to avoid them and when we can't, we seek mostly to endure them, often with lots of inner negativity. But what if we leaned in to our difficulties, our challenges, and even our struggles? What if we partnered up with them in a positive way?

Partnership is all about something beyond cooperation. It's about creative collaboration. All members to a partnership have to bring the best of their minds and hearts, their thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and energies into service to some purpose. Many ancient philosophers clued us in that difficulties can be opportunities well disguised. They come to us, often unexpected. We need to meet them creatively, embrace them, and not just run and hide and hope for the best. What does that mean? In a struggle or challenge, get creative. Open yourself to what the difficulty is bringing you and showing you and perhaps hinting about new possibilities. You'll have to be very active in meeting the problem to ferret out such stuff. Often it will take a further form of partnership with another person, or with a group of people. But it can be done.

A famous parable in the New Testament is about a sower and seed. A farmer throws seed out onto the ground. Much falls on shallow dirt that won't support it, or into weeds, or gets eaten by birds. But some falls on fertile soil. I once asked a biologist what fertile soil is. He said, well, by contrast, sterile soil has no microbes, no bacteria, no worms, no life of any kind. Fertile soil is full of activity and life. When seed hits fertile soil, the soil partners with the seed for a great result, actively contributing to new growth. Consider that you are soil.

One of our most common tendencies when a big new problem arises is to try to evade it or squash it and get back to the way things were before it arrived. But that can be a big mistake. The new difficulty may be hiding a new path forward that won’t take us back to where we were but to where we need to be instead. Partner up with the problem to see how.

Are you in a time of challenge or difficulty? Lean in. Partner up with it. It's bringing you lots of clear negatives, so bring it some positives to balance the energy and break open new possibilities. New growth can result.

Goals and Problems

The secret connection of Goals and Problems don’t get talked about much.

The problems we face form us. Those that we choose define us.

Have you ever pondered the fact that when you set a new goal, you invite new problems into your life? Many situations around you and facts about the world that would have been of no special interest to you suddenly become problems when they stand between you and a goal you've chosen. Apart from that goal, they would not have counted as problems for you. Many of those situations you might never have noticed at all. Others would have come to your attention, but not as difficulties or hardships for you. They didn't impinge on you personally. Until you set the goal you wanted to pursue. And then suddenly, you begin to notice circumstances anew, as problematic, as obstacles, as irritations.

Other situations will develop as personal problems while you pursue your goal. You'll get yourself into hard places that you could have avoided. You'll face challenges that are of your own doing. But that's Ok. It's your goal, after all. And it's important to have goals, even though they bring problems. It's part of the package deal in this world. We'd have vastly fewer problems if we had no dreams, or aspirations, or goals. It's the purpose of our goals to stretch us and grow us. And they often do that through the problems they bring with them. And as the Roman poet Horace once said, we often find that, "The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory." We feel best about the success that comes out of challenge.

Therefore, hence, ergo. When you fall down, don't worry about it. Just pick yourself back up. Recall how the journey you're on may have brought you to this fall. You'd be back in your armchair without the goals you're pursuing. And you wouldn't be falling. But you wouldn't be going anywhere, either. And bouncing back from a fall may be just what you need.

So when you're facing a new problem, obstacle, or difficulty, ponder how your dreams and aspirations and goals may have brought it into your life. Embrace it with cheerfulness as a part of the process. Solving it may just give you the wisdom you need down the road. Even the sheer process of struggling with it might accomplish that same end. We're always becoming, never just doing. With the right attitude and practice, we can become great, falls and all.

Dare Greatly

In a Cadillac advertisement on the back page of the new edition of Esquire, we find this:

It is not the critic who counts: The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again; who knows great enthusiasms; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

It's an inspiring, shortened version of a famous statement by Theodore Roosevelt, worth representing in its entirety, because it's worthwhile to read and ponder the words again, and the additional thoughts and images that we all need to keep in view:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote vividly about a boxer who was bruised and bloodied in the ring, knocked down, but not knocked out, as being the only one who could bring to the next contest the deep confidence that never comes until you've had your teeth rattled and had the breath pounded out of you and outlasted the onslaught. The challenges, bumps, and bruises of life are to be used by us to strengthen our souls, and they alone prepare us for becoming and being the best we're capable of being. So, when they come, use them well, and proudly. 

In the end, it's not the critics, but the struggling creators, who prevail.

What's Holding You Back?

People often find themselves in activities, jobs, and even relationships of various kinds that seem to do nothing but dissipate their energies and drag them down. And even when the negativity is subtle, it can be draining. Life is too short for that, and too important an opportunity. We're here to grow and soar. Struggle is certainly a part of life, as well. And it's often necessary for deep growth. But nothing's worse than unnecessary struggle or a situation that simply confines your spirit and dampens your fire.

If there's something in your life that often brings you down, or that seems like an uphill struggle, or clearly holds you back, it could be a problem you need to tackle and work through. It might indeed be a source for positive growth. Or at some point, you may just have to ask:

Does it feed my spirit?

Does it touch my soul?

Is it an important part of why I'm here?

And:

Can I do some good in this and still be fully who I am?

If the answer in each question isn't a resounding yes, then that might be a touchstone for change, a sign that you need to rethink what you're doing. The world benefits most from flourishing people, and not so much from individuals who are living at odds with who they really are. Sometimes, you need to rethink what you're doing, and shed what holds you back, in order to move closer to the light.

The Storms of Life

What can we learn from the storms of life?

I've mentioned before that over the past four years, I've been on an unexpected and unplanned adventure of writing a series of novels set in Egypt in 1934 and 1935, a time and place about which I knew little, when on a cloudy day in February of 2011, a movie began playing in my head and I rushed to write down all that I saw and heard. 

This morning, as I edited a passage, I came across a statement on learning from life's storms that I wanted to share. An older man crossing the desert says this to his nephew, right after they've survived a big desert windstorm and the boy thanks his uncle for a lesson he just taught him:

The world teaches me something every day. When you pay attention to life, truly pay attention, many good lessons come your way. Some arise out of darkness and wind. A mighty tempest can teach us in unforgettable ways. I wager that you’ll never forget this brief and violent storm today, and what you learned about how to act quickly, to protect yourself, to stay calm, and endure. The most tempestuous things in life often carry with them the deepest and most useful lessons about our actions, and our abilities. If we use our minds well, we can learn from even the most fearful and difficult things. Often, we gain the best insights from precisely those events.

I hope this statement resonates with you like it does with me. We can't keep the storms from coming, but we can learn from them if we pay attention and use our minds well.

Procrastination: No, Don't Read This Later

"Tear yourself from delay." Horace.

Haste makes waste, right? Yeah, often. So care, deliberation, and preparation are the proper precursors of effective action. But procrastination is their unhelpful first cousin. And it’s procrastination that may just be the most common source of deferred dreams in the world.

Eastern philosophers tell us that it’s important in life to know when to act and when to refrain from acting. In some situations, patient non-action is exactly what’s called for. But where non-action is most needed, it's also most difficult. And where it’s easiest, it’s most often not advisable.

And that's the sure sign of procrastination. It's easy. It's effortless. And that's funny, because when you're procrastinating from what you know you should be doing, you often put monumental effort into doing things that don't need to be done.

I used to be like that. If I had a writing deadline, that would be the only time I would thoroughly clean my office, at a ridiculous level of clean that laboratory scientists could admire. And then I'd start washing cars. And walking dogs. Everything but writing.

It's easy not to do what you need to do because the world is full of other things you can do instead. Like reading blogs. But of course, I'd never want to discourage you from reading the right blogs! Just don't let your online life keep you from having an offline one and getting the right things, the real things, the necessary things done!

Are you putting off something that you really know you need to do? Don’t take any comfort from the philosophy of non-action. Take action instead. Overcome the inertia that's holding you back. Defeat the powers of procrastination. Tear yourself from delay. And do something, however small, toward your postponed goal.

Today. Yeah. Today

Seneca on Difficulties and Confidence

Difficulties and confidence: On a superficial consideration, they might seem to be inversely related - the more you have of one, the less you'll have of the other. But allow me to quote one of my favorite philosophers, the prominent first century Roman lawyer, and advisor to very successful people, Seneca. These are his thoughts, in my own translation from The Stoic Art of Living:

"The powers we have can never inspire in us a genuine inner self-confidence until we have confronted many difficulties along the way, and even now and then have had to struggle fiercely with them. This is the only way our true spirit can ever really be tested - the inner spirit we have that will never consent to be ruled by outer forces. The nature of such a spirit can be seen in the fact that no prizefighter can go into a contest with high spirits if he has never been beaten black and blue. The only man who can enter the ring with confidence is one who has seen his own blood, had felt his teeth rattled by an opponent's fist, has been tripped up and has experienced the full force of an adversary's charge, who has been knocked down in body, but not in spirit - one who, as often as he falls, gets up again with greater determination than ever." (Epistulae Morales, I.75)

In another place, Seneca goes so far as to say:

"Disaster is virtue's opportunity."

Disaster. Catastrophe. Failure. Disappointment. It's all about how we react to difficulties. Do they weaken us and take us down, or strengthen us and build us up? To an amazing extent, and within an extraordinarily wide range of circumstances, that's largely up to us. And in responding well to the trouble we face in our own lives, we can be an example to others of what it's like to be knocked down, but not knocked out.

The Very Short Tale of the Hare on the Chair

“Where is the hare?”

“Oh, no! On the chair!”

“You swear?”

“Over there!”

“With his nails and his bunny tail bare?”

“You care?”

“Oh yes! Beware! An Impending Nightmare!”

“A rip or a tear?”

“Or worse! We need some small underwear!”

“I’m afraid, alas, there is none to spare!”

“The things that I bear!”

“But this is so rare!”

“It’s just not fair!”

“Should I chase him away, and right down the stair?”

“Oh me! Oh my! Do you really dare?”

“There’s no other choice of which I’m aware!”

“But, this is a job that we should both share.”

“Yes! First, you stand right over here,

and shout and wave your arms in the air.”

“I will! I’ll give him a jolly good scare!”

And they did, with really no further fanfare,

Which took all their brains, with none left to spare.

And, when it was done, the new fabric would wear,

not one single stain, but truly, a pair.

It looked like two bits of chocolate éclair

had dropped on the cloth and, in the sun’s glare,

had melted and soiled it beyond any repair.

And now, when guests are told, "Sit anywhere,"

they tarry a bit and try not to stare.

The use of this seat is, sadly, too rare,

which leads to the lesson we need to declare:

Never to scare a hare on a chair.

© 2014, TomVMorris.

A cautionary tale, of course, on how we deal with challenges. Did you ever dare to scare a hare on a chair?

*First comment, from a little child: "Berry Bunny."

shhhhh