EVERYTHING | What we need, right now.
Here we are, sailing into the second month of 2021, the year ought to be post-pandemic ….relief, reconciliation...resurrection?
The word that comes forward for me is renewal.
Whilst renewal is a noun, the process is an active one. In the Oxford dictionary it is described as “make like new; restore to freshness, vigor; to make extensive changes”; and my personal favorite,“to begin again.”
That’s what I feel we need right now. It’s definitely what I’ve been needing: Shoshin, the beginner’s mind. In Zen Buddhism, where the concept of Shoshin originates from, the term isn’t reserved for starters only — in fact, it is emphasized in particular as a beneficial attitude for somebody at an advanced level.
It also alludes to another Zen idea: having had an experience, however significant, impactful, hard (2020) or even happy it was, creates no point of reliable reference. We humans are, at all times, incredibly bias, constantly under- and overestimating ourselves. I do it more than I like to think (see the bias?!): “Next year I’m going to create video-content for my website,” I said two years ago. And, not so long ago (but feeling extra long ago) in late January of 2020, I left New York for an extended work trip. The trip coincided with my lease being up, and I decided to postpone looking for a new home till my return. I packed up my belongings and put them into storage. As you might expect, the return never happened. Instead I was thrust into a journey (my own) within a journey (our shared one; navigating a pandemic) and various quarantine stages in the UK, Germany and Mexico. I could have not imagined this — not what it would do to me, nor for me. That I would make wonderful new friends, be blessed working with remarkable private clients and businesses, and fall in love with a new country. It required a lot of Shoshin of all of us; people who’d welcome a stranger in times of isolation, who were willing to put trust forward, invest into the(ir) future when uncertainty, and the kind of hesitance it invokes was the predominant modus operandi.
One part of my journey has come to an end, for now. But the other, far more important is just beginning, again, and again. (Re-)Designing the space I want to inhabit in a world that is forever changed. Sometimes I wish this process of renewal was more smooth sailing. But mostly, and I should add - to my own surprise - even amidst rough waters I’m finding myself filled with the sense of delight that comes from starting a novel thing. Living in a state of child-like inquiry, where curiosity is the driver, not the need for a perfect answer.
Of course I don’t know where this journey - pandemic/post-pandemic - is going to take you, me, us.
The only certainty I do feel is this one: As far as off the grid our final destination may be, our voyage into uncharted territory begins right here.
Here, on the very ground our feet are standing, walking on. Right now, sowing the seed of potential of what can be, the ineffable we have yet to grow into.
Which also means: The waiting game, underpinned by our collective mantra “when things get back to normal” is over. It’s time to roll up the sleeves of our wfh-hoodies and get moving.
Face up to what deep down we already knew. “Things going back to normal” is not going to take us anywhere, ever. Make-believe has great powers to be sure, but in this case, we weren’t dealing with an imaginative mind, but band-aiding a feeling called fear.
Fear of the uncertain, unplannable, unprecedented...in an attempt to self-soothe, masked (!) as hope. What we need right now, is distancing ourselves from false hope. In doing so, we unlock our time's grand opportunity:
We can learn to walk (perhaps, it isn’t coincidental all of us started walking so. much. more. in 2020) with a lighter, gentler step. Towards ourselves and, others. With each other.
Maybe introduce a little skipping. For fun, and also, to shed the last layers of pandemic lethargy; likely a mix of both.
Definitely go off trail — play outside of the sandbox, envision with unlimited vision.
Weave a new collective mantra by living our values, wholeheartedly. As leaders, as members of our communities.
That’s what gives me hope. Real hope. It’s everything what can be.
Here’s to Shoshin, to everything in 2021.
“Believe in life! Always human beings will progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois American sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist
“Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.”
― Shunryu Suzuki Japanese Sōtō Zen monk, teacher, author