Ideals in Motion

It's the conversation stupid...

I am my conversation.

My conversations determine my actions in the world. They are the catalyst; they are the filter; they are the raw ingredients of all I have in my life and of all that I do in and with my life. My conversation shows up in my body, shows up in my emotions, shows up in my spirit. My conversation gives me access to life and aliveness...it also ages me and jaundices my view of the wonders of the world. My conversation connects or, more likely, it separates...it has the power to be inclusive and it is often exclusive.

How often have I really stepped back and listened to the conversation(s) that are my life? To the conversation that is me? How do I move through the world as a conversation? What is the story my conversation generates in others? What are the implications when I start looking at and for the core conversation that lives within? What is the 3:00 a.m. conversation I hold with myself that no one else listens in on? It's the one that everyone in my life runs into.

Think of idealism as the abandonment of practicality...

Descartes got it partially right when he said “I think therefore I am.” I've written in a couple of other postings that what limits me is not who I think I am but who I think I am not. This notion can be taken as a practical way of exploring and understanding the power of containment.

When explaining what I mean by containment I’ve also used the word boundary. I can also use the word context. With either of these synonyms – containment, boundary or context – I’m describing a framework or container that holds the content of my life. This “content” includes not only the physical or material content. It also includes the content of my being…such things as my behavior, my language patterns, my way of viewing the world, my beliefs, and my values and mores. These “things” are highly personal and their meaning, definition and power are determined by the frame in which they reside. It is the frame – the containment field, the boundary or the context – that is of interest for our growth and for our capacity for keeping our ideals in motion. My ideals are made up of a lot of content. Viewed from the vantage point of today, my ideals may seem impractical or even impossible. For them to become part of my reality something has to change.

I’ll give you a simple example of why paying attention to our containment fields are so crucial. About 14 years ago my wife and I were in the market for a new house. We’d recently been married and the houses we each owned weren’t suitable, for a variety of reasons, for the life we were creating together. Being prudent and fiscally responsible we (read “I”) quickly established the maximum price we could afford to pay and we (read "she") set out searching. That’s when reality reared its head. What our ideal was and what our budget was were seemingly as much of a mismatch as oil and water. The easy and practical thing to do was lower our expectations. Interestingly, for both of us that option wasn’t acceptable. This resulted in a bit of a dilemma and set in motion a fascinating process that resulted in me shifting my sense of identity.

Identity is one of the major containment fields for human beings. It is my sense of who I am and it's that sense that determines what content is practical and “appropriate” for me. By not giving up on our ideal I forced a change in my sense of who I am. I expanded; I stretched the containment boundary of my identity. Up to that point a portion of my identity was defined by me as including a certain income level. It was a comfortable level but it didn’t allow for the experience I desired to create with this new house. Buying the house wasn't practical. It was a huge stretch. I had no idea how we were going to pay for it - I just knew that it wouldn't be a problem. Expanding the boundary of my identity allowed me to include more of what my ideal represented. I challenged who I thought I wasn't.

Here's our challenge as a society: shift the question we've all lived with - "who do we think we are?"

The question we need to be asking is "who do we think we're not?"