A Choice of Living Fully
Living fully on our the trek is what we have a choice to consider and it’s not for everyone. What I learned is that no one is an expert on our lives; not even us. Every day we have choices to make when we are fully awake and conscious. And allow ourselves to experience an abundance of opportunities.
What are we willing to face courageously with an open heart? In a divided world, by design, we get many chances to practice and play. Maybe we are here to create a love story with the ebb and flow of life itself?
Perhaps we are breathing life into our corner of the world for the purpose of deepening this relationship at every moment?
Is it time to consider that living fully is messy and there is no one who knows what we need more than us?
Living Fully from the Heart
Over the past few years, I have engaged in experiments and learned that I am not for everyone and everyone is not for me. And that’s ok.
Being liked is a false story that begins in childhood and now we have created the same delusion on social media. The person with the most likes rarely “wins” anything. Superficiality is unnatural. And no layers of makeup or likes can cover up who we are the core. Isn’t it time to let our inner beauty shine through in full force?
So many of us want to live a natural and healthy life now. But it takes practice and here are some observations from my trek. I can only speak for myself as each one of us has an opportunity to be real and raw at our own pace.
The Seduction of Money
In a world where everything is about money from GDP to the stock market to consumer confidence indices and the lifestyle we can or cannot afford, money has become a belief system. Even clean air and water—natural resources—come with a price tag. And we created both money and the beliefs around them. That’s how powerful we are.
I remember sitting on the bus from Quito with Lynne Twist and talking about life and also money. Some of her wisdom is captured in her book. “Money itself isn’t the problem. [It] isn’t bad or good. Money itself doesn’t have power or not have power. It is our interpretation of money, our interaction with it, where the real mischief is and where we find the real opportunity for self-discovery and personal transformation.”
Money changes people and we get to truly see who people are when it comes to relationships with money. This is mostly unspoken as there is still great discomfort about monetary exchanges between people.
But people will show us exactly who we are when money enters the picture. And we get to experiment. Moving forward for me, money is a creation tool that is based on a pure value exchange.
Healthy Constructs on the Trek
Magatte Wade shared with me years ago that any society that has made it from poverty to prosperity had to rely on small and medium enterprises to get there. They are what create the jobs. She reminds us in the documentary film Poverty Inc. that the main reason many Africans are poor is because they lack the institutions of justice that would enable them to create prosperity for themselves.
Charity, in its current formulation, is part of the past and has no room where we are headed because charity is a broken system that is collapsing right now. Because no one wants to be fixed or saved, the future is about exchanging value between people and practicing radical honesty when it comes to everything, including Money.
When people don’t live up to their side of a value exchanges, we talk about it openly. And if we can’t, we need to question whether the foundation of our relationships is healthy or not.
This doesn’t mean we live on spreadsheets and practice the old balance sheet model. Instead we give and receive openly. But we no longer try to save anyone with money or do things philanthropically. Because we all have what to share when it comes to our value. And we get to create instead of inherit systems and beliefs that no longer serve us.
Living Fully is A Conscious Choice
In the emerging world, there is no longer discomfort when it comes to talking about our value and ensuring there is balance in our exchanges. This is another opportunity to discern whether people walk their talk or are full of it. And things do fall apart and we often understand why only later.
And I have to say, I am slowly connecting with truly authentic people who are generous with their soul. Many are pioneers who are exploring possibilities and building communities. Some are facing tough physical realities and yet they are genuine and generous; not needing to be perfect or follow someone else’s drum beat. They are open to letting the world feel their heartbeat.
There is something magical when we allow ourselves, and each other, to simply be. And we support each other in ways we never imagined possible.
When we experiment, there are a few options. One is things break apart and there is pain to experience. Another possibility is that doors and windows open to allow us to bring to life the unexpected. And the rest is yet to be written.
To be continued …