This is because of our culture of ‘grin and bear it.’ People say ‘we need to be adults; enough of the child,’ so we need to grow up; we need to face the world, our responsibilities; we need to make this adult thing work. We can’t be children; we can’t say ‘I don’t want to.’
But we have forgotten that the child is an integral part of us. Growing up doesn’t mean discarding the child. It can mean having it all: the magical child AND the able adult.
But the magical child comes also with their dose of pain and needs, so we give up the magic in the hope of giving up the pain and needs. It doesn’t really work like that. We end up feeling rather cut off.
It is time we let ourselves say ‘I don’t want to’ and make some space for that Magical Child. Their pain is only there because people haven’t listened to them. So, are you going to do the same? Not listen? They are you. And when you stop ignoring them, you realize that there’s a whole world of self-love, self-respect, wonder and magic, intuition and introspection, which you’d forgotten because you believed you couldn’t say ‘I don’t want to.’
WHEN YOU GET HIT
There are going to be times, of course, when what other people are thinking and saying gets to you (you might wonder how you’d know what people are thinking if they’re not saying it, but you do, you know you do), especially, if you love them and value their opinion. Just like getting hit in your figurative prison escape, there’s a variety of things you can do:
RETREAT OR TAKE COVER
You understand what’s not working for you, you’ve made your escape plan, and you’ve started to enact it. And everyone around you thinks you’re potty. And that bothers you. Well, pause for a while. Don’t jump yet. Give it some time. Think things through some more. You’ve got all the time in the world and there may well be more than one way of skinning a cat, not putting all your eggs in the same basket, not burning bridges, etc., etc. After all, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, the early bird catches the worm, and you can’t teach an old dog new tricks (those last three were randomly included when I realized all those tasked with translating this new book will recoil in horror when they see I’ve used some idiosyncratic idioms that have little relevance to the original point). Google them!
The process of pushing out and then retreating back a little is very natural. So use it. It’s how we make progress in most areas of our lives. It’s what TV and delivery pizzas were made for. You need the yin of retreat to balance the yang of the breakout.
GET MEDICAL ATTENTION
Your break for freedom can often feel very lonely. So get some help. Find a guide – someone who understands what you’re going through and what you’re trying to do, and can help you from an objective standpoint (i.e., someone who’s not invested in you staying exactly where and who you are). There are also many ‘guides’ available on the bookshelves and internet – teachers (like us) who can help you in a variety of ways at different stages of your journey to freedom. And what you need from a teacher and guide may well change as you progress. Open to the idea that the help you need will appear when you need it. Just remembering that you could do with some help (the medical attention) at times is usually enough to attract that help into your life.
PERSEVERE AND HOPE YOU DON’T BLEED TO DEATH
Keep at it. No one said it was going to be easy. Keep trusting yourself. This is the road less travelled, and because of that it’s not perfectly surfaced and maintained. It can be bumpy, rutted, and difficult to keep to. At times you can’t even see which way the road goes. You even forget why you took this road in the first place. But it’s hard to go back. In fact, going back is just as bumpy and rutted. Take a rest occasionally, but if you’re using your heart and your gut as your compass, keep sticking to your chosen direction and, in the end, you can’t go wrong.
LIE DOWN AND PRETEND TO BE DEAD
Do you know anyone who does this: you ask them to do something that would help you and improve the relationship, and they reply that of course they will and they completely understand, and they’re sorry if their behavior has caused difficulty… then they go away and don’t change a thing. You talk to them again. And they reply in exactly the same positive way. But they go away and, again, nothing changes. It’s confusing to deal with.
And it’s the equivalent of playing dead. When you talk to the person, there’s no resistance, just complete agreement. But when you walk away, they carry on as they were. Just like when you approach the prone body, there’s no movement, no breathing, but when you turn your back and walk away, they start dancing a jig – until you turn and look at them and they drop to the floor, ‘dead’ again.
It’s confusing, but it can be very effective. So this is what you could try. When anyone comes to you expressing their concern or disagreement, you sit there calmly and agree with everything they’re saying, and you completely understand what they’re saying. But you don’t add the ‘but’ that normally comes next. You offer no resistance. You make it look as if they’ve helped you to see the error of your ways, and you’ll walk away from that helpful conversation and change everything (back).
But you change nothing. You carry on as you were. When they come to you again, somewhat baffled that you haven’t changed a thing, use the same tactic and agree with them entirely but do nothing.
After a few rounds of this, they’ll leave you alone. It hasn’t been unpleasant for you or them. But you’ve achieved what you wanted (which was to be left alone). In fact, ironically enough, what you’ll most likely elicit in them is a gentle ‘Oh, F**k It.’ They’ll feel they tried, that they did their duty, but it’s just not worth it. They’ll leave you alone, but then be happy for you when it all works out. In fact, peculiarly enough, they might well feel part of it. Nice.
BEING FREE AND ARRIVING IN A TOWN WHERE YOU FORGET WHAT YOU CAME FOR
An abiding memory from my childhood is of my mother arriving in a room with a sense of purpose, then stopping and saying, ‘Now what did I come in here for?’ It happens to us all, especially as we get older. I was about to write ‘sadly’ after ‘it happens to us all’ there. But then forgot what I’d come to write. No. No. Actually I don’t find it that sad. It just means a little more walking around the house, and that’s not a bad thing. I sometimes descend the two staircases between my office and the ground floor to pick up something I need, then get back to my desk and realize I’ve returned with something I didn’t go for (usually food) and entirely forgotten what I intended to go for (something non-food). It just means I have to get a bit more exercise (which helps burn the calories off the unintended food pickups).
It’s not sad either because it reminds me of a beautiful universal truth: we all arrive in this thing called life and, at some point, we say, ‘Now what did I come in here for?’ We assume, you see, that we’ve all come here for something, but just can’t remember what it is. We then wander, slowly, but still desperately, around the room, trying to work out what the f**k it was. Some of us persuade ourselves that we’ve remembered (‘ah, yes, I came in for the scissors, yes, that was it, I definitely came in here to pick up the scissors, because, yes, I have to cut some paper downstairs, that’s it’). Some of us think we’ve remembered, but then are unsure, and keep wandering and looking (‘Ah, but was it really the scissors I came for?… I know I need to cut some paper downstairs, but that can’t have been the only reason I came up here, there must be something else, something more important, surely’). Some of us have no idea what we came in for, and don’t really care anyway, it’s cool just to be in the room, and we’ll see what turns up in the room.
Now, of course, it could well be that you did come in for something, but have simply forgotten it. In that case, if it was actually the scissors, well done. Well, well done for remembering the scissors, but maybe there were plenty of other things in the room you missed by grabbing the scissors and rushing off back downstairs. If you did definitely come in for something, but really don’t know what it is, and you’re c
onstantly wondering, and you’re not really going to be happy in the room until you’ve worked out what it is, even though you’ve got those scissors in your hands, then your life is probably quite tiring. But you could argue that, given that you did come in for something, you could never be happy anyway until you’ve worked out what it was.
Contrary to Pascal, though, who asserted that, logically speaking, it’s better to believe in God because if you believe in God and it turns out there is a God, then you’re saved, rather than not believing and risking the chance that, if there is a God, you’d be damned. It’s a kind of cosmic hedging of bets. Contrary to Pascal, I’d prefer to take the risk – not live a lie for the sake of a ‘possible’ future salvation, but open to the possibility that, just because I’ve forgotten what I came in for, I might not have actually come in for anything in the first place and I’m curious as to what’s in here anyway, maybe I will realize that I came in for something specific, maybe not; or maybe I’ll realize that, but then change my mind, then realize I was wrong all along, but nevertheless enjoy the whole process of not knowing, of wondering, of being there. Of being here.
So here’s the happy ending. Mom used to arrive in that room with a sense of purpose, then stop, and say, ‘Now what did I come in here for?’ Then she’d pause and say, ‘Oh, I don’t know. Oh, hello, John, why don’t we play a game?’ And we did. And I carried on playing, forever and ever. Amen.
BEING FREE IN WORK TOWN
What do you imagine when you read those words ‘Work Town’? Do you see an industrial town, all factories, grime, and smoke, with exhausted waif-like people shuffling to grinding dirty jobs that pay little but take too much? Do you see a town full of offices, with commuters squeezed together at the same time each morning to arrive for a 9 a.m. start to a day that will consist of tapping away at a keyboard or yapping away in meetings? Do you see a town full of home-workers, flexi-workers, sitting over laptops in Starbucks, having Skype meetings over their smart phones with other teleworkers in different time zones, fitting work around their lives, not the other way round, dropping in and out of work clubs, private clubs, health clubs, club lounges, creating passive incomes from e-businesses and smart investments?
Do you see work as something unpleasant, which you have to do and tolerate so that you can earn money to pay for your life? Do you long for clocking off and the weekend and payday and vacations?
Or do you love your work? Does your work give you so much satisfaction, so much meaning, that you’re happy to work into the evening, through the weekends, and skip the vacations?
Do you want me to stop asking so many questions, given I can’t hear what you’re replying? Yes? Oh, go on, just a couple more…
Do you need to continue to earn money to live?
Do you need to earn as much as you do to live?
There are some people who can answer ‘no’ to the first question; the lucky few who can sustain their lifestyles (higher or lower) without ever earning another dime. There are not many of you, but you’re out there, and working out what you want to do with your time and your life is as potent a question for you as it will be for the other 99 percent.
And of the 99 percent, I’m pretty sure that many of you could downsize if you really wanted to, or had to.
So this is where we start with work: examine your approach to work, your assumptions about work, and all your ideas about money and lifestyle. Just a small task.
Or you could start here:
What do you LOVE doing?
If you didn’t have to earn any money to live, what would you do? How would you spend your time?
If you won the jackpot, say enough money to keep you going at your current lifestyle level for two years, what would you do with your time?
Write the answers down. You could even buy a little notebook, or open a page on your smartphone notebook app and call it ‘WHAT I LOVE DOING.’ Don’t censor yourself. You’re not trying to work out if you can make any money from this. Not yet. You’re just writing everything down.
I do it all the time. And I’ll do it now. I will make some notes LIVE, publicly, of WHAT I LOVE DOING:
I love listening to music on my own in the car, really loud.
I love waking our boys up in the morning with the same line ‘Good morning, beautiful boys!’ to hear them moaning in complaint (at being woken up and my repetitive line).
I love having ideas for new projects.
I love Qigong.
I love having meals out in Urbino with Gaia.
I love making music then playing it to people in groups without them knowing it’s mine.
I love walking.
I love it when I work something out about myself or life or how things are.
I love writing stuff down for people to read.
I love making people laugh.
I love making people think.
I love swimming in a warm sea.
I love the winter and always mourn its passing.
I love the summer and always mourn its passing.
I love eating Chinese food with my sister and our folks.
I love my trips to London, staying in hotels and absorbing the buzz.
I love you.
I love me.
I love being well, feeling fully alive.
I love feeling tired and climbing into bed.
I love to see the meaning of things become clear over time.
I love to fall back into the randomness of it all.
I love playing football with the boys.
I love doing radio interviews.
I love to be paid for doing what I love.
Okay, I haven’t censored or edited it.
Don’t censor or edit your list (even if ‘I love masturbating’ is up there at the top). Don’t get upset that you didn’t put apparently worthwhile stuff (or people) closest to the top. If you spent some time dreaming up all the ways you’d love to spend your time in Breaking Through the Wall of Lack of Imagination, now is the time to just write down what comes to mind as it comes to mind. Do it quickly.
You can spend a couple of weeks doing this if you fancy. Carry your notebook/smartphone around with you so that you can add things as you go. I’ve done this many times. I end up adding lots of stuff. Because I realize, in the course of actually living, that I’ve forgotten some important things that I really love.
And by doing this you create a comprehensive idea of what you love doing in life. You’ll probably, too, remember things that you used to love doing that you don’t do anymore. I did this exercise a few years ago and realized that what I used to REALLY love doing when I was younger was making music (on a guitar). I realized in that moment that I could make music again, not on the guitar this time, but digitally – I could create the music I love to listen to (electronica) myself. Awesome. It took me a while to learn the required bits of software. But I figured it out. I loved it. I love it. And I’ll soon be earning some moolah1 from doing it, too2.
And thus we move on to the next question: can you earn any money from any of the things you love doing? If you reply that you don’t want to earn money from what you love doing because it would ruin the thing you so love doing then please go back to the beginning of this chapter and examine your relationship with work and money.
The idea here, in case you haven’t spotted it, is to make money (small or large amounts depending on the desired lifestyle) from doing what you love.
And it takes some F**k It. It takes some ‘F**k It, I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life.’ And it takes some ‘F**k It, yes I can make this work.’ And it takes some ‘F**k It, I don’t care what you lot say, I’m going to do this.’
Yes, I know, you’re looking at your list thinking ‘how can I make money from ‘arranging flowers in a Zen way?’ or ‘making models of watering cans out of matchsticks?’
But it’s possible to make money out of just about anything, especially if you love doing it.
The second point first: whe
n you love doing something, you put everything you have into it; you’re happy to be doing it, and people pick up on that. You make money when other people want what you’ve got to give. And they’re more likely to want what you’ve got to give when they feel that it comes from your heart and your passion.
Simple example: you go into a hardware store to buy fork handles. There’s a slovenly youth behind the counter listening to some dub-hop on his iThing. You ask him ‘Excuse me, do you have fork handles for me to purchase, perchance?’
He suddenly realizes you’re there. He pulls out his earphones and asks you, ‘What?’ So you repeat your question. He replies, ‘Dunno, probably not, try the candle store, mate.’ You don’t understand, but are too irritated, especially by his overfamiliar use of the word ‘mate,’ and leave.
Compare that to the experience you would have had with the chap who worked in a factory most of his adult life, but always dreamed of owning a hardware store. He just loved hardware stores – oh, to have one store that could stock so many useful items for people! He just loved the idea of rows and rows of tools, screws, tapes, key copies, handles, etc. So when he was made redundant from the factory, he used the money to open his own hardware store.
And there he is behind the counter, polishing his old-fashioned cash till when you come in:
‘Excuse me, do you have fork handles for me to purchase, perchance?’
‘Of course, sir. Can I ask you what size you’re thinking of?’
‘Why, I’m imagining just a usual size, I suppose.’
‘What, tall and thin, or short and stubby, white or a color, we have so many, sir. Would you like me to show you some, and you can take your pick?’
‘Why, thank you, that would be marvelous.’
You are delighted with this chap and his open, friendly manner. You will, of course, buy the fork handles he brings out for you to view.
F**k It Therapy Page 20
