Being, Doing, …
A couple o’ days ago, I wrote a post about the question that (10 years ago) moved me out of mediocrity, irresponsibility, sameness, The Rut, purposelessness - and onto the huge Learning Curve, adventure and sense of purpose I’ve operated out of since attempting to answer that question. (Phew! Could I have made that sentence any longer??)
My good friend Leah Maclean made the following comments on that post (abridged):
As you have found Pete, life changes so quickly and randomly that I found whenever I set “what will I be doing in 5 years type” goals they were either done in 2 or completely different to what I had intended.
These days I work towards “who do I want to be” type goals (being vs doing). I find these more fulfilling and less effected by the change in what it is possible to do…
I’d still go with the “who do I want to be” instead of the “what do I want to have” when it comes to relationships, attitudes etc…
I’m probably being nit-picky over language but have always found that I can go deeper with a being statement rather than a having or doing one.
My initial response to this was that I understand the being stuff and the way we coaches move people towards a focus on that rather than on doing. At the same time, maybe because I’m male and we are a restless gender, I still see doing as a fundamental/crucial area for goal-setting, measurement and learning.
I’d be interested on anyone’s thoughts on this (it’s an idea, not a deeply held “belief”), but I think men see almost everything in terms of activity. We see verbs truly as doing-words: verbs about being are still verbs to us, resting is still something we do, paying attention to others is an action, letting go of agendas and distractions is active. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.
In the midst of my (perhaps trivial) ruminations about this idea this morning, I opened the book I’m reading at the moment: The Way of the Wild Heart, by John Eldredge - a book about masculinity - and I read this:
Exhausted from months of battle and hard labor, I needed to get away, knew that I needed to get away [ie., take a break, short sabbatical], yet somehow could not bring myself to do it. You know how that is - you find yourself on the treadmill, hating it, but accustomed, even addicted to it, and getting off seems like an inconvenience, even if it will save your live…
It reminded me again that there is a deep (often ignored) need in us blokes to clear our heads, clear our schedules, clear away our stimulations and just … be.
Call it getting centred, call it shabbat, call it detoxing - whatever. Getting away from the trappings, the goals, the checklists and then “going” somewhere where we can truly face ourselves in the context of an infinite universe we have very little control over and effect on - well, it’s transformational, refreshing, humbling, even confronting … and it can reorient us more toward who we truly are and who we yet want to become. As Eldredge said, it can even “save” us…
Eldredge did it by getting out into the mountains and fly-fishing for a couple of days. Not by just switching off his brain - that’s not being, other than being comatose. However you and I do it, when we make adjustments to and refuel our being, the quality of our outward actions (our doing) is deeply transformed.
Interested in your thoughts…
This is a dangerous article for those battling with laziness .. such as me! I’m great at getting away from it all!
On the being v doing topic I gave up setting long term ‘doing’ goals as life circumstances change so quickly. In terms of being I simply want to apply myself to pick up traits of the people who I admire.