vignettes

Split

I once knew a man who claimed he was in love with two different women. Equally. One was his wife, and the other, his soul mate.

Each day that would pass, he held this conflict inside of him. I watched as it ate through him from the inside out. Every morning he would leave his first love at home (his wife) to spend the day at the office with his second love (his colleague). And at the end of each day he would do everything in reverse.

The next day he would start all over again.

He asked me once to tell him what to do. But I wouldn't. Because I couldn't. My heart just doesn't work that way. I have never been so fortunate (or perhaps, cursed) to have two "equal" loves. One always feels a bit closer to the Truth. One always feels a bit closer, a bit more true, to me.

It took me a while to see that his heart didn't actually work the way he thought it did, either. The conflict that tormented him was not the conflict between two "equal" loves. The conflict was between the man he thought he was (a man of duty) and the man he wanted to be (a man of will).

I find that when I am having to make a (seemingly) difficult decision, I am always best served by consulting the feelings in my heart. In the quietest moments, I know they will guide me in the direction that best serves the person I am becoming. The person I want to be.

When deciding how to live, how much of you is shaped by duty and how much by will?

True nature

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." —The Hobbit

I live between worlds: the artistic and the analytical, the rich and the poor, the old and the young. I am, and always have been, somewhere in between. Which means I am much more comfortable living on the edges of society, than living in its center. I find comfort and safety in the unknown, rather than the assumed, conventional, or expected.

I am more comfortable here. In this space that relies on self recognition and self worth, rather than the often biased judgment of others. This is how I create safe space. This is how I honor who I am.

When you know your true nature, life gets a lot easier. Everything is a little bit simpler, a little more clear. We are better able to draw boundaries, inviting the right people in, and keeping the not-so-right people out. Because life is just too short to compromise.

What stands between who you are, and who you could be?

The metronome

"Life is long if you know how to use it." —Seneca

I have always held other people's expectations for me a bit suspect.

While I believe that others have the best intentions for me, I think that our hopes and fears for each other are often colored by our hopes and fears for ourselves. This makes the task of finding our own way much more difficult and complex because, in the process of making ourselves happy, we run the risk of making those around us unhappy. Once-beloved relationships become the unintended casualties of our need to find harmony in ourselves.

In writing the soundtrack of our lives, we must decide how fast or how slow we want it to go, when we seek to create harmony, and when we don't, when we borrow influences from others, and when we invent a whole new rhythm or chord. But the one thing we cannot decide is how long it will play.

Time is the only resource in each of our lives that is truly finite, and with each day that passes, we have even less to work with. It quietly slips away, measured by this silent metronome that keeps ticking in the background even while we sleep. And yet we live as though we were unaware.

We spend our time doing things that do not make us happy and we don't make enough time to embrace the things that do. Until something happens that startles us awake—a tragedy of our own, or a tragedy of someone else's—that restores our sense of urgency to do the things that make this life worth living, and make us worth remembering.

Where is the music in your life?

 

Why we love the underdog

"It's only after we've lost everything, that we're free to do anything." —Tyler Durden, Fight Club

I love the underdog. And I know I'm not alone.

Some of the most famous and beloved stories are based on the triumphs and tragedies of the outranked, the disenfranchised, the social misfits: David and Goliath, Oliver Twist, Rudolph. These stories are translated and shared around the world, and passed from generation to generation, because they hold in them a universal desire—we all want to believe that good will ultimately win, no matter the odds.

And while the made-up stories entertain and inspire us, it is the true story that actually gives us hope, for it provides evidence of something that feels very much like a miracle, telling us that we, too, can author our own possibilities: James J. Braddock (The Cinderella Man). Robert Kearns (Flash of Genius). Ernest Shackleton (The Endurance). Susan Boyle (Britain's Got Talent). Barack Obama (President of the United States).

We love the underdog because they take the risks that we won't. Inspired from within, they demonstrate extreme levels of courage, braving the unexpected and making themselves vulnerable to other people's judgment and ridicule. They fight the good fight, and they will continue fighting long after we've all gone home. They do this because they believe that what they have to gain is far greater than what they have to lose.

Security can be a double-edged sword. The more we have, it seems, the more we're afraid to lose. Whereas the underdog is motivated by love (of an idea), the rest of us are motivated by fear (of failure).

What motivates you?