Coincidentally, although I don’t believe in coincidences, what my son was learning in math was applicable to what I happened to be learning—unrelated to math, thankfully. The path reveals itself in the strangest places, like math homework. He was working on plotting points on a graph, horizontally then vertically. I was reading Martha Beck’s most recent book, The Way ofIntegrity, and I was learning about joy vs. hustle, true self vs. falseself—two plots on a graph.
Like any good business operator, I created a line graph so I could plot where things fell. Further to the left, joy. Further to the right, hustle. For any activity I’m engaged in, I can mentally plot where I am on the graph. This becomes a reference point to quickly help me assess whether I’m moving towards my true self or towards my false self.
But how do we define true self (joy) vs. false self (hustle)? Great question. For me, my body tells me. As an example, if I’m moving towards my false self, I get a twitch in my eye. No joke. It’s unnoticeable to anyone but me, but it’s super annoying, and I know it’s there. It’s only there when I’m doing things that are misaligned with who I think of myself as, or who I want to become.
Regarding my true self, my body is relaxed, calm, attentive, and fully engaged in the moment. It primarily happens when I’m having meaningful conversations with others, reading something interesting (to me), or noticing something I deem to be beautiful (can be as simple as a setting sun).
In her book, Martha suggests anything we do that is solely to influence others, rather than to express our true nature, is a hustle. Damn. What don’t we do to solely influence others? Cultural programming runs very deep, and it makes sense why moving towards joy on the line graph can be such a challenge.
Now, where it gets tricky is how to align obligations, responsibilities, paying bills, saving money, and living a human life in the American 21st century with being content, at peace, engaged, and attentive. I wish I did, but I don’t have a specific playbook to follow. However, that’s why I’m on the journey and taking the time to learn how others have navigated this process.
“It requires nothing of you except to recognize when you’re doing something because it’s prescribed by culture, and when an action arises from your true nature.” A passage from the above-referenced book. Sounds easy, right? But wha tif our cultural indoctrination is so all-encompassing it’s nearly impossible to tell when something is “prescribed by culture”?
That’s the trick. For me, it showed up as an eye twitch and a constant consumption of coffee to help me feel “alive” and “awake”. For others, it’s likely something else. The idea, though, is to just notice it. My next step was selling a business and giving myself the time and space to do things like this; read, write, and share. It took me five years to get to that point, but once I knew what was going on, I knew I had to consciously uncouple myself from thesituation so I could create space for new things to show themselves.
Do I have this all figured out? Absolutely not. Am I more aware of how the activities I’m in are impacting me internally and where they are moving me on the line graph? Yes. Short term, will I get to a point where all plots are on the “joy” side of the graph? No. But that’s not the goal. The goal is to notice where the plots are and consciously decide if what I’m doing is moving closer or further from my true self.
By doing this, I realize I’m now controlling the direction by which I move vs. the invisible hand of cultural indoctrination making those decisions for me because I had been convinced that’s what I wanted.