Let’s talk about this business of BEING or DOING for a moment.
When my psychologist/friend pointed out what I summarized as becoming “a human
being” whereas I had, previously, been a “human
doing,” I was immediately aware of a significant shift in my perspective on life. From that exact moment, my life embarked on a new path. I became determined to discover the exact clinical, spiritual, psychological, and emotional make-up of ME. This determination was founded on my conviction that I could only measure my state of being against my true potentials to "
be" if I had a clear and unambiguous definition of my natural, Life-given potentials.
I reflected back to the time when I discovered the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (a tool that has helped millions to evaluate their personal gifts and abilities) and the great help that it offered a friend in her determining options for a well-suited career choice. This was the starting place for my self-diagnostic journey… to pull back the curtain on the true nature of ME. Fortunately, I found a number of resource materials and guidance from a wide array of literature, tapes, seminars, tests, and counselors. All of this “input” was digested and clarified through the infinite guidance of my quiet, gentle, inner voice.
As my capacity to be became, gradually, clear to me, my ability to be
myself with confidence developed and I became more and more comfortable with myself. This was, and continues to be, huge in its overall life implications. I can now permit myself to be romantic without hearing the oft-repeated voices from my past with their belittling charges that I was being a “dreamer” or “unreal.” Well, guess what I discovered… the defined yearning of those of my temperament is for romance. How about that! It is perfectly normal and to be expected that I live with a constant yearning for romance. I further learned that of the sixteen specific temperament types, those of my type make up only one percent of the population. Wow! Now I know why so few people in my world are comfortable with the unique way that I see life. It is because we are different! I can, now, accept the perception of others that I am “weird” (inasmuch as the vast majority of the population sees life through a ‘lens’ altogether contrary to the ‘lenses’ that define my view) as well as salving my own frustrations with the parameters of my individuality. Not bad, huh? So, when I become aware of your responses to the elements in your life, I now recognize the reality that you, first, are “seeing” those elements differently from the way that I see them and, secondly, are dealing with them with your own set of individual talents and abilities. You are (in fact) being you. That is, of course, unless you are doing those things that define your outer behavior as a result of the pressures of illegitimate expectations. Herein lies the “doing trap.”
When an old high school girlfriend, who had become, in her adult life, a clinical psychologist visited me (to, as it turned out, tell me “Goodbye“ [she later succumbed to cancer]), she asked me a wonderful question. She wanted to know what it had cost me to transition from
doing to
being. The question gave me a moment of pause and reflection before I easily responded “Nothing.” Now I understand that you will see that response as improbable for a variety of reasons. Surely, you would offer, there were consequences, impacts created in lives and circumstances… costs of some sort. No, my friend, none at all… if you listen, again, to the question. What was the cost to ME? And you can see that my response had to be what it was. “It cost ME nothing inasmuch as I was not “BEing” involved in the “DOing” part of my life.” The person known to my world as me was merely on a variety of situational stages performing the roles dictated by the expectations of the audience in attendance as I hoped that my performance would satisfy the needs of those for whom I performed. I was the one who (when the audience was gone) sat alone in my office, or in the restaurant, or the car, or plane, or at night on the sofa after my children had been tucked in and jiggled to sleep, and wept the tears of aching loneliness. Lonely in the absence of anyone (including myself) who even knew who I was. I was in a state of doing all of the things expected of me, by me, and by everyone else in my world who had no clue as to who I might be.
I, therefore, write to you, dear Reader, to encourage you to begin to BE. To begin to know the satisfaction of being intimate as opposed to doing intimate things and being left, after the fact, with that hollow feeling of (as the old song said it so well) “Is that all there is?” To be accepting of and embrace those pesky particulars and circumstances all around you, as opposed to doing the things on your “to
do” list as you desensitize yourself to your environment in the never-realized hope of achieving some measure of control over that environment. Perhaps you might augment that list with a “to
be” list. Just consider listing: #1
be loving (first, of who you are); #2
be caring (first, for who you are); #3
be _________(fill in your desired quality or value.)
A handy checkpoint for perspective is the “Could I hire someone to do this…or can it be accomplished by only me?” question. The answer will tell me how replaceable I am in this circumstance. If automation or delegation can meet the “need” perhaps I can best be me in the application of myself somewhere else. And in that “some other place” fulfilling the honest role of ME, I can instant by instant, opportunity by opportunity, life moment by life moment, know the eternally and internally rewarding satisfaction of living out the promises inherent to the only ME to ever BE.
I bid you well in your BEing.
IMAGE Through the gracious courtesy of
Ian Britton, FreeFoto.com
