Real Royals… Like Muhammad Ali…
Real Royals take it on the chin… If you were really a princ(ess), you would too.
Disappointments, slights… yeah, those are what I am talking about.
I read every book some writers write. Or have ever written.
One of these is Neal Stephenson.
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There is pretense gratitude… just like there is pretense humility. Ultimately your actions tell the real story.
I have been having shorter or longer conversations with people who ask for their Starting Point Measurements.
It’s, as it is usual with me, an experiment. I ask for my time at $200-$250 an hour, and I give away 3-4 hours a week in strategy sessions. I am starting to feel the tiredness… in fact this morning I woke up exhausted.
For most people time is just time… not any currency… but for me it is the most valuable non-renewable resource. It is not just time, it is all I have… And it is hard on my brain, hard on my body, hard on my nervous system as I am giving all I have to a client.
Normally, when I talk to someone, they politely thank me for my time. Each time I get a stab of pain, sadness, when someone thanks me for my time.
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One of the common characteristics of people I meet is that they have no skills, no tool box, they are waiting for the right opportunity to do anything. They will start to learn the right skills when they need them, when they’ll know what they want to do. And, of course, it is too late to dig a well when you are thirsty… they languish of thirst…
I am a lot like Bob in the movie “Bob The Butler”.
I am inspired by that movie to do even more skill building to fill my tool box.
I am 70 years old. I have 27 skill sets, 27 ways to make a living. I am an architect. I am a brick mason. I can lay wooden floor, I can lay tiles both on the floor and on the wall. I can hang wallpaper. I am a plumber. etc. etc. etc. One time I counted. I have forgotten more professions than you know how to do.
What did this do to me? What did this do to Bob, the butler?
We are judged all the time. Justly, unjustly, the feeling of being judged is familiar to all of us… and some of us is bothered and paralyzed by it more than others.
What’s painful in being judged is that the judgment contains a kernel of truth (or more) and the other part is the judging themselves: in judging they place themselves above us… simply unbearable to the sensitive Precious “I”.
This story is about my very recent “bout” with being judged… and shows what is on the other side of judgment… how to free yourself from it so it doesn’t sting quite that much… maybe not even at all.
OK, here we go:
If you’ve known me for a while, you know that I don’t do housework, or really shamefully little.
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Generosity was one of the distinctions I spent years researching and trying to BE…
It is a tricky way to be, the full meaning of generosity, because almost no one ever is really generous.
We normally equate giving with generosity. Some give stuff, others give praise, some give of themselves.
Most generosity makes the recipient suspicious: what is the ulterior motive?
And rightly so: culturally, human culture, I mean, generosity doesn’t make sense… only trade does. “I give you this, so you’ll give me that.”
And yet, there are a very few people who are actually generous, and they are happy. WTF, right?
Here is another important question: just like with love, whose experience matters, the giver or the receiver?
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