Inner Work and the Move to Service

We are in the midst of a dissonance that goes unspoken.  In our moral lives, we are told to give all we can and take only what we must.  In our commercial lives, we are instructed to take all we can and give only what we must.  The result is the sort of stasis that we see all around...uneasy feelings about our role in the global marketplace, mounting frustration with systems and traditional higherarchies.  We acknowledge that there must be a better way, and still we wait in line and fill out our paperwork and use our credit cards, because, hey, that's life.

 What has been lost in our rampant pursuit? If we represent the healthiest, most well-off portion of the planet, why are our minds lost to speed and the degradation of thought?  If we are so rich, can't we buy some time to find our peace? 

Maybe we are running from stillness itself.  Maybe it holds a truth that scares us:  that all ages must come to a close.  It requires discipline to sit with your own mortality, to acknowledge that you have no control.

Surrender.  Allow yourself a respiratory lapse of rush and sit, just for a moment, with the pain of this daunting machine, let its flare be a call for evolution.  There is a reason why you were born to feel the things that you do.  Why you could not look the other way when democracy was stolen, when nature was eaten up out and made into artifact, as stale and obtrusive as the dreams we are still telling one another to dream--more, faster, better, safe and secure and on sale for a limited time only?  We desire certainty, and so we cling to our illusions.  

You were born this way because you cannot ignore the choice handed down by those underdogs that have had it all along:  The choice to do things that reflect what you actually believe.

At some point our experience shows us that we need to evolve our way of understanding.  The hardest part is when an experiment tells us things we are resistant to admit.   But, rather than shaking our heads and turning the other way, if we sit with that heartbreaking truth and and try to establish a new framework to accept it, we will be able to cultivate the courage to act in accordance with what we believe.  

It is the inside of our own heads that we need to fix.  Not the world.  And only when we cultivate our listening to be strong enough, when we admit the truth of our role in all this, will we be able to become once again willing participants in this beautiful game.

Except one thing will be different:  This time we get to define the rules.