A community of mushrooms If there’s one thing this Pandemic has taught us over the past year, it is this: rugged and exaggerated forms of individualism are dangerous. I’ve never been more aware of the strengths of community as I am now. George Bernard Shaw said, “I am of the opinion that my life belongs […]
Rugged Individualism — Snapshots Of My World
‘A teacher Yoda is’ – Yoda While his unorthodox use of syntax would have landed him in deep water during the English skills test, Grand Master Yoda demonstrates over the course of eight Star Wars films that he is an outstanding teacher. It’s no surprise. Having spent 800 years training almost every Jedi Master in […]
10 Things Yoda Helped Me Understand About Teaching — Tough to Teach
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2 old guys were playing tennis as I walked by the public tennis court. It was a beautiful fall day with the mid afternoon sun balancing out the autumn cool. In the park there were a few mothers and nannies caring for and playing with children. There was one empty court and the one in use by said men.
In their 70’s one fart was in very good shape and the belly of the other one had a nice round shape to it. I watched them for a few minutes from the park bench near the court. They played very well without physically challenging each other too much. I couldn’t hear everything they said but I did catch the guy with the belly say in a chipper voice as he approached the net to collect a ball ‘ Kids these days. They’re not careless’. It seemed he was defending the millenials for getting a bad reputation as being lazy and disrespectful. Perhaps he had some grandchildren that were really proactive at recycling and social responsibility.
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‘They are carefree.‘ The belly guy completed his thought and turned to walk back to the baseline.
What is that supposed to mean – ‘carefree’? That young people being smart phone savvy soothes all their problems. That because the retired generation receive their monthly pension then all must be good in the world. Or because the younger generations can’t afford a house that means they don’t have to worry about a mortgage. Or because they use Uber they don’t have to be concerned about car insurance rates. Or because they work from home they don’t have to stress about the price of gas and the pollution it causes.
Stress and depression and the temperature of the planet are all on the rise. Young people are worried. Sick. They are worried about the degradation of the planet and how to grow food on their balcony, their parents failing health and the quality of care in a seniors home, the job market and the cost of daycare, the widening gap between rich and poor and the deepening feeling in their gut of connecting with some higher purpose that surely there is in life.
Like me and you, they need help. Sure they are super agile on social media and pay for everything in the moment on an app. Still they don’t know what they want in life, how to be a good spouse, how to respond to the urge of their soul life. They may sound very confident because they have lots of sound bites in the moment at their finger tips. Yet self knowledge is still elusive.
They need challenges that help them elevate their mind just as much as to learn how to stretch their money. They need guidance of how to cultivate their soul. Who is going to be that guide? To let them know what is a good idea to repeat of the the preceding generations and what mistakes to avoid. To model understand humility, listening and patience.
Below is the link to a previous post entitled Rise Of The Elder Class petitioning adults to get over their feelings about their stage in life and see past the confident face of the young generation to engage them in conversations about meaning: https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/wild-coach.com/834
Nothing wrong with being an old guy. In fact it is a badge of honour. But it comes with the responsibility to turn around and offer wisdom. To take responsibility for their role in the state of the planet and the lack of devotion life that connects young people with themselves and can be applied to daily life.
Doing a bit of research I typed in the word hotel into my browser. Within minutes there are ads on my screen for rooms all over the world.
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Data is the new oil – they say. Businesses can always use more data to refine their algorithm results. Corporations pay big money for your data = big data. Or they just syphon it off other websites. But do you need more data or information? Or rather more inspiration; More passion?
Yes to inspiration. Yes to passion.
To resist the tyranny of big data we need references, resources, reasons and examples to educate ourselves about our sense of meaning. We all have a need for connection that runs 24/7 in each of us under the surface. Call it purpose, passion, meaning, calling, urge, mission – they are all asking you to connect what you encounter in daily life to what you are looking for on the inside. The inside is your devotional life – whether you think that is your thing or not. Since you have a soul your life is asking for some personal religion.
We need ways to elevate our source of references and reasons to get perception that make sense with daily life. We can read really old books or ask really old people a question and listen.
We need good reasons, enduring intentions and guiding sentiments to help in locating ourselves on our ongoing soul trajectory.
Crucial resources include maintaining a healthy foundation in the body, mind and emotions: find a moment of peace to couple with a moving meditation. Regularly distinguish between habit, routine and ritual – and use them for your growth or phase them out. Wonder about a higher purpose, be of service, teach, mentor and be mentored, tell stories, volunteer…
Because the younger have more knowledge in our wired world we are seeing an ancient template for wisdom resurge.
It can be seen when ‘young earth mama’ Greta Thunberg is begging adults to be elders. To have more than just harvested money and ridden the emotional roller coaster of society’s whims.
Thunberg is highlighting that adults have a distinct role in using wisdom from their life experience to be responsible. Some of us are responsible in our smaller communities like marriage, family, industry, and that internal community of inner lives (think of the soul and spirit). Other’s lack of respondability will reveal them to be a toxic disaster even at the personal level.
Nowadays we are seeing that what we want at the community level has wide and long lasting impact on a much larger scale. Adults need to be proactive in the larger community because it seems to the planet Earth and the current youth that we don’t care.
To some extent that is true. It might be explained by seeking the missing education. The education of a journey of development whether that be human or planetary. We are designed as humans to want a spiritualized life yet we end up with monetized lives as are inspiration of success.
The wisdom of a vision quest or way of the ancients is missing. And leaves us wanting.
Leaves our soul longing.
Perception is a residue of higher connection. It’s like a second education. In cultural terms this urge to keep learning in each different stage of life gets labeled and monetized as ‘Self Help’. With a plethora of far fetched ideas for personal development from instant gurus combined with easy to publish e-books the natural urge to grow has become a joke. Yet it is exactly Self Help that will attract the perception that Ms. Thunberg expects.
Help yourself to books that have bits of wisdom hidden in the stories, quotes, photos, poems. Help yourself to a retreat where you meet your pathway to eldership. Help yourself to the well-being and peace that nature effuses and where perception abounds.
It’s natural for children and adults to have elders in their lives. It’s not a given that you or I do the work to rise into elderness. I’m not about to tell Ms. Thunberg I’m not going to apply myself. Are you?
Rise up old man!
Be the elder you were born to be. Offer the next generation guidance and resilience. Hope and finesse.
A former manager once dropped into my office and quickly put a gift bag between the wall and my computer terminal. He timed it well so I was busy with someone so he just smiled, nodded and left. It was mid December and so he was receiving lots of Christmas gifts from every direction. I didn’t expect anything from him and I am pretty sure he had no intention of getting me anything. For me the company wasn’t a place I belonged and for him I didn’t solve his problems with his bosses. And then appeared a bottle of scotch in my office in a gift bag lacking the colourful tissue paper. I can’t remember the last time I drank scotch. Which means that I either binge drink it or never drink it. I had never talked about scotch at work. So obviously he was regifting the bottle.
Regifting is a useful practice. Re-gifting means more people get gifts which means more happy people and less consumerism and waste of wrapping paper. It’s logical and heartwarming. It works. I drank the scotch.
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Regifting and repurposing could both be seen as changing the direction of the same thing. You can repurpose tires into jewelry, plastic into a fleece pullover, a boyfriend into a husband, an old silver fork into a bracelet, a pop bottle into a flower pot, a stump into a stool and on and on.
Life stages thrust this reality of ‘the new you’ unto us. Our curious child repurposes into a rebellious youth into the sceptical young adult into that focused adult who grows into an elderly sage. In the beautifully painful transition known as death, the sage repurposes into spirit.
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There is some art to repurposing. Simply said – don’t change too much. Change as much as you have to while staying loyal to what you know is real. What is true about you is the eternal you. This is what anchors the local you through the bumpy transition from one stage to the next. Your eternal you, your higher self, loves to elevate on the journey your soul is opening up for you.
10 things a young man needs to to hear from a man. Always Be growing. Be curious about how to combine these 10 things to make you a generator of confidence and humility.
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The Wild Coach 