“While my achievements can be measured by that which I have taken on during my life, my satisfaction can be measured by that which I have let go.”
Every life has an arc filled with circumstance, our associated experiences, and our choices in the face of them. Upon reflection, where and what I am today is a directly linked outcome of all of my circumstance generated experiences and my subsequent choices I made. Let’s say for argument’s sake I have no control over the circumstance that arises around me. (This construct is fodder for another lengthy post.) Even if I was without choice concerning my circumstance I do have complete control over the choices I make in how I react, behave, take action, and plan for future steps. As it turns out we have a fair degree of control over our experience as well. But I’ll get to that later. For now let’s get back to the more obviously controllable piece – choice.
If I can make planning choices then I do have at least modest control over our future circumstance. Those plans that I can and do make change my course, directly influencing my future circumstance. For instance, if I inattentively find myself in the middle of a crosswalk when the light changes and am suddenly confronted by a multi-ton vehicle hurtling toward me I will likely respond with the instant choice of getting the heck out of the crosswalk. If, in addition to my immediate response, I choose to be more mindful of and responsive to the crosswalk status and traffic conditions I am far less likely to have to react to hurtling cars in my future. In that way the current state of my life, as an outcome of my choices, is no accident figuratively or literally.
If my choices are the fastest and most powerful way to change my life trajectory then it follows that, given my commitment to living a life of continuous satisfaction, I need to make choices that form and keep me on a satisfying path (1). Sounds easy enough and pretty straight forward. However, if it were that easy most people would figure out the trick early on in life and be busy living their satisfied lives. Additionally, my commitment eight years ago to live a satisfied life would not have been so completely life altering.
Although I had now established a far more powerful relationship with my choices I still had my experience to contend with. Once I made that satisfaction commitment I immediately heard from my internal committee of a thousand and one irritations. The internal voices that had previously been the wall paper of my mind suddenly leaped to the foreground. In the face of a commitment to ongoing satisfaction the chorus continuously rang through my head voicing ALL of the nagging irritations that kept me from experiencing that highly sought satisfaction. Most of the irritations were petty. Some were life consuming. Regardless, they popped up relentlessly in the form of “shouldn’t” statements. “It shouldn’t be this way.” “She shouldn’t feel that way.” “I shouldn’t have this disadvantage.” “It shouldn’t be this hard.” “I shouldn’t have made that decision.” “I shouldn’t have been passed over for that honor.” The list of “shouldn’ts” was endless. My favorite spoiler is the insidiously self-referential and self-damning. “I shouldn’t feel this way.” Talk about a no win thought.
As soon as I committed to a life of satisfaction the volume cranked up on the “shouldn’t” statements causing my experience in the moment to get worse instead of better. I most often found it easiest to lodge my “shouldn’t” against a circumstance or situation that was “out of my control.” That way I could keep my accusing forefinger pointing anywhere but at me. This basket full of “shouldn’ts” locked me into dissatisfaction, the very state that I wanted to flee. I have coached enough people – clients, peers, employees, friends, and of course my daughter – that I believe this struggle between actual circumstance and expectations to be a common experience. It is this struggle that hinders all of us from living a life of satisfaction at any one moment. The instant that my expectation varies from emerging reality, satisfaction eludes me. Since, my reality in any particular moment is my only available reality, I have had to learn how to continuously adjust my expectations to the reality I am facing. This willingness to accept my current situation in the “as is” state covers all aspects of the current conditions including my triggered emotions. While my achievements can be measured by that which I have taken on during my life, my satisfaction can be measured by that which I have let go.
Now, expecting my current circumstance to be exactly as it has unfolded is not exactly a new concept. Buddhism and Sufism make both a religion and a lifestyle of that idea. Unfortunately in western culture we have been so trained to change our situation to our desired state that we fuel our pursuit with our discontent. The lack of acceptance engenders dissatisfaction.
Acceptance of circumstance as they are in the moment in no way suggests that we should be complacent. Complacency hearkens the image of a frog sitting in slowly heating water. Eventually that frog is consumed by the circumstance that it endures. Rather, I am a fan of contentment. My contentment assumes that the current circumstance is exactly as it should be, even as I act to change it. That perspective provides a radical change in one’s experience of the immediate situation. I call it a profound relationship with “what is.” This relationship with a situation as it stands provides a powerful tool for understanding the gap between current circumstance and that which you want to create. Conversely, a relationship focusing on “what it should be” tends to cloud gap understanding. Having a crisp understanding of that gap allows me to careful choose my commitments and associated path so to substantially reduce disharmony between current circumstance and expectations. Thus I am more likely to experience satisfaction in future circumstance.
The concept may sound a bit circular so let me rephrase it. If I accept current circumstance as it is, I can both experience satisfaction in the moment and clearly understand what lies between it and the circumstance I desire. If I clearly understand that gap I am enabled to choose a path that limits the the difference between evolving circumstance and my expectations. Thus increasing the likelihood of future satisfaction. It is a satisfaction two-fer. Sounds good. But how does it work in real life?
About six months after I made my satisfaction commitment I was assigned to a new boss. My previous boss had been a predictable, inclusive, collaborative, respectful, and caring manager. He was someone with whom I have stayed in touch and maintained as a personal friend over the years. It was easy to be satisfied in his employ. My expectations for my work environment matched my reality. With him all was well on my career front.
My new boss was an extraordinarily ambitious and brilliant senior director. He was also manipulative, insecure, prone to wild mood swings, and opportunistic to the point of continuous distraction. Our objectives continuously changed. He would be overbearing in meetings and often dress down subordinates in public forums. All things considered he was my version of the boss from hell. Not withstanding my satisfaction commitment I developed a pretty deep resentment and fair degree of self righteous indignation for his poor management methods. I was responsible for the execution arm of the organization managing the lion’s share of our staff. The execution staff tended to bear the brunt of his frequent changes in direction regularly having to scrap weeks or months of work. He had told me privately that he expected push back during meetings in the spirit of constructive dissension. So I took him up on that expectation regularly pushing back on his direction during weekly meeting. In my self righteousness I felt that I was doing a service for our organization and being an example of how to deal with a bully. I felt fairly safe in that I was responsible for the most visible part of our organization driving most of its large budget. As it turned out I was wrong.
Six months into his tenure the senior director shelved my initiative and reallocated all of my staff. He relegated me to menial projects and left me to my own devices. As I saw it I had three choices – find a new job, sit on my hands and do as little as possible, or make lemonade out of lemons. Previous to my satisfaction commitment I would have sat on my hands for a bit then found a new job cursing my crappy boss over my shoulder. However, being satisfied means traveling light. Carrying past resentments simply burdens us and gets in the way of our performance. (Yet, another topic for a future post.)
After spending several weeks processing my self righteous rage and thinking through the events that put me in that situation, I considered that an opportunity might be available for me and my boss. If I could learn to work with him I could probably work with anyone. I started focusing on his positive attributes rather than the negative ones I had previously stressed. I studied the behaviors and message framing styles that caused him to respond positively and began emulating them. I became a voice of reason rather than dissent in staff meetings. I looked for ways to make him look good and win committed to create a productive working relationship. Given my commitment rebellion and dissent was no longer appropriate.
After about four months in the dog house he let me out reactivating our big initiative and puttinng me back in charge. At the end of the year he gave me the highest performance rating possible and ended my performance review by saying that he thought we had learned how to work with each other. It was a big win for both of us in the short run. But, the gift of my choice to stick with it and learn the lessons did not end there. Eventually, he left the organization and I was promoted to director in another area of the company. In medium to large sized companies that are experiencing little to mediocre growth the executive ranks are a scrappy place to be. Each executive is continually required to make large personal bets on what they can accomplish with too few resources and too little time, depending on their influencing capability to win the day. There is constant competition for visibility and plum assignments. In that situation your peers can be both collaborative friends and stiff adversaries. In that climate “nice has elbows.” It is a situation in which dealing with cranky people can be a good thing because at least they are paying attention. My time spent learning to work with that difficult boss paid hugh dividends when I became an executive.
Earlier I said that we can not change the circumstance in which we find ourselves in that unfolding moment. However, we can plan for and make choices toward future circumstance that more closely emulates the life desired. Life is made up of a infinite string of current moments. These are the only moments that we have. These moments comprise the particles of our life. We cannot replace them with the moments we wished we could have. We cannot replace our life with another more desirable life. To live a satisfied life we have to find the satisfaction in each of those moments accepting the current circumstance and making choices from that place. Living satisfied requires choosing the life you have.
Footnote:
(1) Refers to my thesis drawn in my webpage article “Dying Satisfied” that sustainable satisfaction if found on one’s path vs. at any particular destination.
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