The truth of the light and the light of the truth
I knew Steve Griggs was ripe for adventure when I met him onsite at Lightning in a Bottle 2018. It was my first time working a music festival of that size and it was our job to herd 10,000 cats (people) into their camping spots for the weekend. Mini-bikes are the cavalry and scouts in […]
Highlining the Record Books in Yosemite: Steve Griggs —
“Hey”
Turning left out of the restaurant, MJ and I walk south along John Street. I know I hear some running footsteps but, so what. You never know who is asking for something so I put my arm around MJ’s shoulder and keep walking.
“Excuse me”
I look over my shoulder between me and MJ and see this guy waving his hand and running towards us. The guy was wearing black pants, a white shirt and a knee length white apron. It’s our waiter from the restaurant. Maximum 25 years old as he ran with ease towards us.
“Crazy” the waiter says, landing a few slow down steps as he reaches us.
“Look.” He only takes two breaths to speak normally after a 2 block sprint.
“I think the bills stuck together. I don’t think you meant to leave a $40 tip on a $29 tab.” The waiter tentatively offers two twenty dollar bills. The bills were probably just printed and put into circulation. I had just got them out of the bank machine earlier in the day.
“I thought they felt funny.” I say putting my hand out tentatively as the waiter goes about half way.
“Thank you very much.” I extend my appreciation and my hand to receive my overpayment.
“Right on.” Waiter says. There is a brief gap in the moment; and then he spins to jog back to the restaurant. MJ and I look at each other.
“Wow. You don’t see that too often. Someone running 2 blocks to give you money you didn’t know was yours. Actually, in the moment I thought to give him 1 of the twenties.”
MJ says “I could tell you hesitated. You could’ve.”
Standing in the same place, slowly folding the 2 twenties, I look at MJ and declare “That’s honesty”. Feeling proud to have been a part of that street vignette, I almost feel I deserve some of the credit.
MJ holds my gaze for a moment, then she says “That’s tidy.”
—
TIDY
Tidy is living life with minimal loose ends.
Tidy is not military. It is clarity of scope of any intention.
Scope refers to what you are going to do when and how.
How refers to the quality of your work and ‘the 2-stage hand off’.
The first stage of the ‘hand off’ is you receiving from the previous person what you said you needed in order to get started. The second stage is you delivering what you said you would. That way the next person knows what to expect when you are finished with your part. Essentially ensuring the next stage 1 for the next person includes what said they needed to get started.
So if the person before or after you is not tidy, life now has drama that we aren’t paid for.
Being tidy is a reflection of self respect; It is an expression of understanding others and having the arts and skills to be understood.
Tidy is a great way to run your life.
Like someone runs their business.
You do what you say you are going to do.
You make commitments, make a plan and invest in the project. Then people quit, get fired or screw up. So being tidy can be a great hypothetical ideal but the daily reality can make your work anything but tidy. Because someone on your team quit means now you can’t deliver your products on time. So you have to advise others that your delivery is going to change. That’s business. That’s life.
Sometimes there is a pandemic and materials or staff are scarce or expensive and your price changes and the customer isn’t happy or wants to cancel all together. These are some of those changes that fit into the ‘you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up’ category.
So many obstacles can get thrown your way making your work, and life, untidy. You can’t control others. You can manage yourself. Your work is subject to outside influences. When everything is going sideways, that is when you need to insist on being tidy in your mind. Meaning understanding who is responsible, or to blame, but with an eye to moving forward.
The New You Profile is:
The man a young man strives to be;
The gentleman a man can feel he is becoming.
The scope of that gentleman’s life is: deep, expansive, growing, challenging, intriguing.
check it out
Challenge of Silence : In this week , I am taking challenge of not speaking any word whole week , if their any important communication and emergency then I’ll contact or communicate only using what’s app and email.
Wise men speak when they have something to say. Fools speak because they have to say something — Plato.
When we’re unconscious of what we’re saying , these repetitive and negative thoughts become the main ingredients that comprise our speech, what we have to say.
Because most of what we think isn’t worth thinking , let alone speaking.
We might depend on communication , but talking isn’t always communication.
“It’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than a speak and remove all doubt” — Abraham Lincoln.
Speaking less doesn’t necessarily mean thinking less , but it can lead to better quality thoughts.
These are…
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She doesn’t say i love you like a normal person but instead she will laugh shake her head
And give you a little smile, and say….. ” you are an idiot”.
If she tells you” you are an idiot” then you are a lucky man.
a real connection with nature …
there is wisdom around us …
What does it mean to raise your frequency? It’s the same thing as raising your vibration. Still confused? In a nutshell when we keep our emotions in check, ensuring that we will do anything we can to experience the emotions of happiness, joy, and satisfaction right now– then we are being mindful about how we feel regardless of our situation. Therefore, we are being mindful of raising our frequency or vibration in a positive way.
Many spiritual teachers of our time are expressing the importance of being in observance of ourselves. This means to recognize when you’re feeling emotions (especially negative ones that don’t serve you), and to transmute them instantly, before you can attach a “story” to them.
Negative emotions tend to spiral out of control–that whole “hamster on a wheel” analogy. If we can learn to transmute our negative feelings to positive ones as soon as we start…
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Yesterday, I put you to the saw, sawed you limb from limb and cut your trunk to six inch slices. Today, I axed those slices, soft as cheese, splitting them along the clean fine grain. Alien, they call you but you grow fast and well with aphids for the wrens and pollen for the bees. […]
Sycamore — Johnthebarman’s Blog
In the northern hemisphere we will soon be entering a quarter of harvests and waning light, starting with Lughnasadh/Lammas. In the south there will be the energy of rising light and growth. In the manner of the yin/yang symbol. a taste of that energy is present here too. As I approach Lughnasadh/Lammas this year, I […]
TOWARDS THE SEASON OF HARVESTS: 2021 — contemplativeinquiry
The following is an excerpt from my new book Satisfaction: How A Man Elevates His Skills And Qualities To Generate What He Wants. The book highlights men’s Emotional Agility. Emotional Agility here refers to a person’s capacity to synthesize daily and devotion emotion. This is the degree to which a person can cultivate their own sense of meaning while integrating the sense of peace this brings into their daily life. Emotional Agility is the way a person is able to rise up above the grind of daily life to recognize higher realms of awareness.
Pioneering implies going into the unknown. That is scary and can cause us to retreat into our habits when we actually can feel a need to grow. Pioneering the New You requires us to be brave and creative, perseverant and sensitive.
From page 108 … “The New You doesn’t exist without the old you. Yet the New You uses the past and resists being used by it. By standing firmly on your past with eyes into the future you invoke perception about what to do now. Each day, for each of us there is always a New You available. A version of you that comes with a higher level of intention.
Your New You grasps that a man changes as he is processed through the succession of Life Stages. He also realizes his spouse will experience a corresponding change thus the New You is nimble in the moment to update himself with the intricacies of her growth. the New you isn’t scared of the moment because he has no need to control it. the moment is free to flow into the future. So is the New You. Free to stop, smile and tell your wife she looks great.
The New You accesses his agility to get satisfaction. He is tune to his finesse to facilitate Fulfillment in others. He declares what he wants and has the humility to do the work to make it a reality.
Tallahassee, Little Rock, Wichita, Madison, Columbus and to a lesser extent Albuquerque and Berkeley.
Said in a Canadian way: Point Pelee, Flin Flon, Moose Jaw, Sault Ste. Marie, Calgary and to a lesser extent Charlevoix and Tofino.
The American locales are the names taken by the characters in the violent and witty post-apocalyptic movies Zombieland and Zombieland: Double Tap starring good old Woody Harrelson. The Canadian names are perhaps the names of the characters for Zombieland 3! Regardless they might be places worth a visit for some fabulous wine, awesome skiing or dinosaur bone hunting.
So Tallahassee, played with gusto by W. Harrelson, and his fellow small U.S. city companions are fighting a daily battle to be normal as they stay alive despite the persistent zombies with a thirst for their brains. Frighteningly similar to our Covid covered daily lives!
You too can star in your own post apocalyptic film too. Actually you probably already have. It is the fall out from any big argument you have with anyone, usually family – especially your wife. We all argue and disagree.
The idea here is to plan for the apocalypse. It’s not so much to be a prepper who has all their tins of chicken soup and bags of lentils stacked nicely in some pantry. Or to be a ready survivalist with their mental checklist and go bag with: knife, beef jerky, water filter, compass, rechargeable headlamp, small tarp and wire (to trap small animals).
The thinking is to have something to think about after the Big Bang of a heated emotional argument. Because if you yell and scream, shout and stamp and bang then once you calm down you will be emotionally emptied out. This can feel quite good actually. To have cleaned yourself out of that backed- up stress and nagging frustration. However it is a wise one who curates what fills their empty emotional bucket. Because either way it is going to get filled zip-zoom fast.
We have to know we are going to have disagreements. That’s not bad. it’s that some of those disagreements turn to arguments. Some of those moments of poor understanding we reduce to fights. So prepare. Yes avoid the arguments you can avoid. But fights seem to come out of nowhere. Like a tax bill, or a hernia, a mother-in-law.
Have your formula for instantly, cleverly creating your own life line out of the confusion of anger and pettiness that pollute the planet during and after a fight. To do this, you sincerely want to have a good relationship with the other person as a foundation. Then write the phrase you want to mentally/vocally be saying to your wife in the wake of the anger and frustration. Maybe you are with her – both quiet, tired and hurt. Or maybe you have jumped in your car and have tunes cranked as swear words and insults are swirling in the ether ready for you to launch them in your wife’s general direction.
The suggestion here is to substitute something like the following:
“I am your man, forever and always. I know it. You know it.”
“The moment was a blackhole for my patience but I know I love you.”
Phrases like these can slow and reverse the downward spiral that is so darkly magnetic.
“I seek to be understood by you, at the same time I seek to understand you”
That was not what I want. I want us to fight together for something; not fight against each other.”
I need some help. I need some wisdom. I need to improve my elder arts of sharing life wisdom. Or at least living according to some earned wisdom.
The Wild Coach 