A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success: "Never leave that till tomorrow," he said, "which you can do today." This is the man who discovered electricity. You'd think more people would listen to what he had to say. I don't know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I'd have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you're wrong? What if you're making a mistake you can't undo? The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can't pretend we haven't been told. We've all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still, sometimes, we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today's possiblity under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying.
As you learn to leave alone the activity of unconsciously trying to be the mindbody that you think that you are - the mindbody that this "you" is currently flowing through - and you learn to move as this one that you truly are - this "you" of you; the very heart of existence - steadily, consciously and momentarily, the continuity of the ever deepening of this innermost as it keeps on entering its manifestation, through this mindbody that you find yourself flowing through, allows you to simply bubble in the sheer joy, pleasure, peace, delightfulness and stillness that this "you" of you is.
There are so many distractions today it is much easier to sleep; to hit the snooze button in our lives and simply roll over with the best of intentions to get started tomorrow.
Yet with the challenges of today's world, this behavior could be called emotional and spiritual truancy. It is characterized by "the evasion of one's own growth, the setting of low levels of aspiration, the fear of doing what one is capable of doing, voluntary self-crippling, pseudo-stupidity and mock humility." No matter how sophisticated or ingenious the avoidance, it is still a cheap adaptation to the implorings of personal evolution. It is clinging to the trivial, to cultivate our own little gardens. *
* - From Greg Levoy "Callings" excerpted from: http://www.ticl.org/
When you go back to your environment and you deal with employees... do you inspire people or do you make them feel fear? Do you make them feel confident or incompetent? I think that distinction really marks the leader.
“Adlai Stevenson, 1952, ‘The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the bill of rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-communism.’ Today it is the cloak for anti terrorism.” Adlai Stevenson also said, ‘It is far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.’ I know we are all afraid, but the bill of rights, we have to live up to that.”
My apprehensions come in crowds;/ I dread the rustling of the grass;/ The very shadows of the crowds/ Have power to shake me as they pass:/ I question things and do not find/ One that will answer to my mind;/ And all the world appears unkind.
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
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