Riding a Bigger Wave

Today, I sat down at the Maitland River and just watched the water. The water is quite a bit higher than normal, so it was really flying over the rocks and crevices of a normally pretty quiet river. The water was flying over the rocks at such a rate that it was creating white caps and serious current.

What struck me was how the force of the river made sure that the water didn't get stopped by the rocks in its way. The water just went over them effortlessly. If the river had been lower, the water would have had to take a different course. It would have had to go around the obstacles. But with such a volume of water going through, the water just flowed over those rocks... Hmmm...

In our lives, there are many obstacles that it seems we are constantly working around. Some big, some small. We are mature people that know we have to "go with the flow". But sometimes we are truly disappointed that we have to change our course even if slightly because these things come up. And hey, if it's a big enough obstacle, we get stopped right in our path!

So comparing this to our river... When there is very little flow, it is easy for the water to become stuck in small cesspools behind big rocks... Hmmm... stagnant cesspools... we know what that feels like.

When there is average flow - adequate to get done what we need to do - when we come across an obstacle, we can change our course and flow around it. Sometimes a bummer. But it's possible. We soldier on.

But what if there is high flow? What if there is all kinds of water? Then the power of the river simply takes us right over top of the obstacle.... No changing direction... Just up and over. So, you know where I'm going with this...

In our lives, what is the high flow? What is the energy that we can flow in that will just bring us up and over the obstacles in our lives?

I definitely don't have an answer for everyone. On a spiritual level, it would be whatever faith means to you. For me, it's believing in something bigger than me that I can tap in to (and when I do, life is so much more interesting).

In meditation, we often feel a beautiful stillness inside that strangely enough makes us feel connected to the whole. I think that the "bigger wave" is connected to this stillness.

The truth is that the more I describe what the "bigger wave" is, the further I will get from the truth. We each have to sit quietly and feel what that big wave would feel like. What is it for me? What can I do in my life to make sure I stay tapped in to that "greater flow"? How do I just be a water drop riding that wave?

This is what all the great religions say... That all we have to do is relax, have faith, enjoy ourselves.

That there are no obstacles we can't rise above.

That we just have to enjoy the ride.

Finding Meaningful Work - Or Not?

I have been thinking about the number of people I know who have been laid off from work and are struggling to find meaningful employment. We want something that fits our passions and joys - something that really makes us want to get up and get out there each day.

But what if 're looking too hard? What if there is work all around us.. but it's up to us to make it meaningful?

I'm all about finding your ideal job that perfectly matches your gifts and strengths. This is the ideal situation. But what if that job isn't out there right now? What if you can't make enough money at your passion to pay the bills? What then?

The funny thing is that there are dangers to making your job the compilation of your passions. We love the idea of taking what you love to do and spending all day working at it and making money - "being paid to do what you love" - it's the big dream. But this puts tremendous pressure on your passions. Suddenly you can't do the things that you love to do with the same carefree joy and creativity because you always have to be considering "Will they buy it?", "Is it consumable to the public?", "Is it good enough?", etc. Often, the focus of putting food on the table completely squelches the creative process that we enjoy about it in the first place.

So what do we do? Do we just get any old job and make the best of it?

Perhaps the answer is YES.

We often focus on the external aspects of our lives and work. We look at the people around us, where we live, where we work, who our relatives are, what our education is, how much money we have, etc. But what if the most interesting thing going on is actually deep inside of us? What if it is the inner journey that is the most exciting regardless of what is going on on the outside?

What if we brought our personality, joy and sense of abundance to ANY job that we had. What if those things were what we were growing and working on each moment of our day? Suddenly it wouldn't matter whether we were driving a taxi cab, teaching grade 6, or being a rocket scientist. We would still be bringing OURSELVES to each moment of the job. We would still be finding joy (or not) in each new experience.

Regardless of where we work, our experience is simply OUR experience. The actual job has very little to do with how much we enjoy it. Whether we want to enjoy it is what defines our experience of it. It's all up to us.

This is the problem with always trying to find the PERFECT job. Underlying this goal is the belief that "once we find the perfect job, we will be happy." This statement is just as false as "Once I find the right man, I will be happy" and "Once I have a child, I will be happy", or the infamous "Once I lose 30 pounds, I will be happy." None of these statements are true. And their belief will lead you down a perpetual road of always longing for things to be different.

Being happy is a state of being. Being happy is a choice.

I'm always entertained by the stories of sages who work at menial jobs. They always have a sparkle of youth and joy in their eyes - like they know something that we don't - like they are a little entertained by the idea that we think that we will find happiness somewhere outside of ourselves - that we think that what we do for a living matters SO MUCH...

Being happy doesn't come from finding the perfect job. It comes from choosing to be entertained by whatever life throws at us. Could be drama, could be hard work, could be a low paycheque. Or it could be learning, growth, and great friendships.

What we do with it is entirely up to us. :)

The Joys of the Six O’Clock News

I don’t normally watch the news.

It was probably twenty years ago that I decided that a daily update of the number of homicides, rapes and car accidents in Toronto just didn’t seem to be adding much to my life. My opinion of the Six O’clock News became quite cynical. I felt it was “too sensational”. It seemed like they only reported the bad stuff and therefore, we were given an overly negative, inaccurate and incomplete portrayal of what was going on in the world.

And so, my news updates have tended to consist of whatever I hear in the car on my way to work in the morning and that has been fine with me.

But a few weeks ago, I was at my dad’s place and the Six O’Clock News appeared before my eyes. As I watched stories of the men who drowned in Toronto and the young boy who was killed in a drive-by shooting and the solders who had been killed overseas, a great new realization hit me: “Thank God this is what they’re reporting on the Six o’clock news!!”

How lucky are we that we live in a country where we still think that someone being killed is newsworthy? There are many places in the world where people of all ages are killed every day and it is simply considered a part of life.

There was a clip about the rescue attempts of a man in Toronto who had been fishing and fell into the river. Divers worked all day trying to find him. Paramedics were on hand in the hopes that they found him alive. In the end, they just worked hard to find the body so that there could be a proper burial. How many places in the world wouldn’t or couldn’t go to such lengths for a single man’s life?

There were stories of assault, robbery, illegal drug operations, car accidents and violence in the schools. In a world that we are led to believe is going down the tubes, that these things are still newsworthy says that they still shock and upset us. This is a good sign.

And what about the traffic? Lots of news about commuters stuck in traffic jams each morning and evening. Terrible, eh? Just think of all these industrious people in their cars going to and from their jobs each day making a living so that they can raise families, pay taxes and have financial independence. Hmm, not the worst problem to have to deal with.

And think of the great lengths we go to in order to find missing children. And what about all the magazines covered with stories about Brittany Spears and whether or not she is a fit mother for her two little boys? Is it ridiculous and sensational to follow around this poor woman with binoculars and dissect her life with a microscope? Yes. But the fact that her fitness for motherhood is so phenomenally newsworthy, tells us that as a society, we still believe that the welfare of children is important.

And then we get to hear about relationships like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. We hear about their fights (real or not), their break-ups (true or not) and their angry ex-girlfriends (angry or not). Apparently we find couples having issues worth reading about. Or maybe we just like that fact that extremely beautiful, successful people have the same problems that we do. In the end, the fact remains that we still think that relationships matter. Otherwise, no one would care. The general public would just say, “Oh, just break up already and spend your life alone. It’s better that way!”. But we don’t. We want the relationships to work. We want people to be happy. This is a good thing.

It would seem that watching the Six O’clock News shows us that, as a society, we still believe that being good to others, caring for our children, education, peace-keeping, relationships, working hard, and preserving life is important to us.

I think that this is a good sign.

(This column was originally published in the Goderich Signal Star in September, 2008)