Comments on: Being, Doing, …

By: Even Dads Need to Defrag | Freaked-Out Fathers

Even Dads Need to Defrag | Freaked-Out Fathers — Sat, 12 May 2007 23:23:56 +0000

[...] and Being Doing [...]

By: Amanda

Amanda — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 07:01:51 +0000

Great blog and post. I really needed that. Thanks

Amanda

http://thetimemastery.com

By: Pete

Pete — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:26:26 +0000

Thanks Warren, you’ve taken the conversation and thinking even deeper for me there. I love the concept of interruptions. Some of us need to be interrupted (by crisis or by God or by setbacks) before we start to move into deeper contemplation. You articulated that beautifully.

Thanks for visiting, Warren.

By: Warren

Warren — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 08:54:29 +0000

I can second that men tend to see verbs as action, and that seems to contradict the the concept of not doing anything… but I think the concept of “being” is simply so abstract, it is enough to stop us in our tracks, confuse our reality, give us pause long enough to check ourselves… It opens up a way for us to see what we’ve gotten caught up in doing, and face what is defective in our logic.

As a person of faith, I think that sometimes, we need to get interrupted by God to get a glimpse of Him and His way for us to find true life, but this practice of “being” before God puts us in the company of things like “receiving” and “letting go” and “resting”–all very abstract concepts, yet they put us directly on the path of accepting our limitations, recognizing our brokenness and cultivating our desperation to live well. And all of that leaves us in humility, which God says is our pathyway to being lifted up.

So to make a long story short, “being” is something we can do (rather than God sovereignly interrupting us) to open ourselves up to an uplifted way of living, and from there we find a new way of doing we never would have found otherwise.

By: Pete

Pete — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 10:01:19 +0000

Oh, and Troy: that’s very kind of you, my friend. Thanks for visiting!

By: Pete

Pete — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 10:00:40 +0000

Folks, want a terrific set of questions to balance being/doing in the 5 year outlook and goal-setting? Check out Curt’s post at http://curtrosengren.typepad.com/occupationaladventure/2007/04/who_do_you_want.html

By: Troy Worman

Troy Worman — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 04:10:30 +0000

Great post. And great pic.

By: Pete

Pete — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 00:46:00 +0000

I like your thoughts on this in your own post, Rosa:

The pragmatic truth of this is that you will do both, you will DO and you will BE.

The doing keeps you in action; a very good thing in my way of thinking.
The being gives you nānā i ke kumu, looking to your sense of self; it’s the self-actualization stuff.

It seems to me that when we take time to ask ourselves questions like “Who are you when you’re under pressure?” “What kind of leader or writer do you want to be?” etc., the action that follows the answers is indeed self-actualising and transforming.

By: Rosa Say

Rosa Say — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 15:50:27 +0000

Reading both your posts Pete, causes me to reflect (yet again!) on why I prefer business coaching over life coaching (although every business coach will tell you we end up blending both things if we are to focus well on the whole person coached)- that was my long sentence, whew! Reason being that using action, coaching people on what they DO, create better habits that keep them out of perpetual laziness so that they CAN then get to the “real” stuff of BEing. As for the biz coaching, it lends so much context!

By: Pete

Pete — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 01:12:07 +0000

William, I love the scene in the Simpsons where the whole town attends a motivational seminar. The speaker uses the “Human Being, Human Doing” line whereupon Bart (who’s bored stiff) gets up and leaves saying “Human going“.

I’ll add here that I’ve had quite a few “being” moments just staring into the photos you post on Wordless Wednesdays…

Mat, I like that differentiation: to pick up valued traits rather than find things to do which may not be meaningful once you get to do them.