"The pathway to having isn't wanting. If you want something, you
need to have a different relationship with it other than wanting
it, in order to have it."
...
"Make promises you don't know how to
keep,
then alter yourself to
keep
them."
"The
Vedic pundits
of
India
of five thousand years ago noted that when the naming word for an
object was uttered in the Sanskrit language by a saint, that object
would manifest and materialize out of nothing."
... Laurence Platt paraphrasing
Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi
sharing an ancient Hindu legend circa 3000 BC
This essay,
Promising Is
Transformative,
is the companion piece to
Given the way I ordinarily (used to) live my life, I've
discovered
a new, novel way to live it, a way that actually creates
it rather than merely responds to it. No, it's not a
better way to live it. Indeed, it may not even really be a
new way to live it either (new, as in it wasn't available
until now). Rather, it's a way that's always been available, yet one I
didn't get
wind
of until I started listening
Werner
distinguish it like a possibility. And as I looked at it deeper
and with more focus on it, I got clear that this novel way to live it
is really more than just a new
code of conduct
ie more than yet another set of hopeful strategies for living it: it's
actually a way to generate it ie cause it to happen in a
particular way ie in a way I promise it will happen. I say I
"promise it will happen". I mean it's a way for me to say (declare /
stand for) what I want my life to be then have it be that way, a
way that's my word given to what my life will be.
What this new way of living my life brings, is a new dimension to the
idea of being a
person of word
(as in "He's a
man of his
word!").
In the ordinary way of being a
person of word,
we mean someone who can be depended on to do what they say they'll do,
someone whose word can be trusted, someone who can be counted on to
honor their word
and
keep their promises
(and in the event of being unable to
keep their promises,
someone who cleans up whatever incompletions not
keeping their promises
cause). In the extraordinary way of being a
person of word,
we mean someone who lives their life as their word, rather than
simply in response to (ie as a reaction to) its
circumstances.
When they speak, they're not speaking about their life:
they're speaking their life.
Wait a minute, Laurence: are you suggesting you can say what life you
want, and then have it - just because you want it? Don't you first have
to have the skills / be in the
circumstances
that are conducive to living the life you want, and when you have them
/ are in them, then you can have the life you want?
No, none of the above. That's not what I'm suggesting. As useful (and
as pragmatic) as that sounds, it doesn't touch on (or equate to) living
a transformed life. A transformed life (and living a transformed life)
is a function of speaking the life you want to live, whether or not the
skills and
circumstances
which promote (and allow for living) it are present, then altering
yourself to presence them just because you said you would.
That's how you live a transformed life. That's how being a
person of word
is
transformative,
how promising is
transformative.
That's how a
person of word
transforms their life and
Life itself.
And look: neither does it equate to saying "The kind of life I want to
live, is a life in which I win the
megamillions lottery.".
This is not a "thing" oriented life that's on offer here - and indeed,
riches may be one possible outcome of living such a life, just as it
may be one possible outcome of living any un-promised life. Rather,
it's a "being" oriented life that's on offer here, a "possibility"
oriented life. Spoken (ie promised), it's the way I promise my life
will be ie it's the way I promise I'll be being as I live
my life, and what I declare will be possible for my life. It will be
that way because I said so, just because I promised so.
If you try to explain to someone why promising is
transformative
to support them living a transformed life, that's about as helpful as
trying to explain what orange juice tastes like, to quench their
thirst. They get it by watching you
demonstrate
it. Then all explanations are moot. What you've got, they'll want.
