The “change” fallacy

I got a big kick out of an acquaintance’s Facebook post yesterday (he’s created a virtual Facebook fortune cookie where each day brings a new one line pearl of wisdom guaranteed to make your business succeed).  Yesterday’s was:  ”To make a change, clients must believe they’re getting something greater than what they’re giving up.”

Now that’s a very logical statement…if it were true.  If we actually got to choose whether we changed or not.  If, by choosing NOT to change, we could STOP change.

The truth is, we can’t.

Remember that old adage:  the only constant is change.  Well, like most overused phrases, it’s overused because it happens to be true.

And, yet, we increasingly live in a world that denies change (even as the world, itself, is changing..constantly).  That pretends “change” is just one more thing to be spun or mastered by the infallible genius of human intellect.

Folks nip and tuck their way out of aging.  Hoping that you’ll look at the wonders surgery can do to a sagging neck…and not notice the natural beauty of aging hands.

As financial markets were hurtling America (and much of the world) over an economic cliff last year, the airwaves were filled with promises of change.  And, yet, one year later, what HAS changed?

Congress (hopefully) is about to pass health care reform that does increase access, but doesn’t do much to reduce cost.  Because politicians have refused to change the system where it is most fiscally ravenous:  the costs at the final two years of people’s lives.  The costs associated with senior care.

In our own lives, how many of us deep down inside know it’s time for a change…in career, in relationship, in scenery, in habits.  But we tell ourselves we’ll wait til it’s the “right time”.

Of course, what we really mean is that we don’t have the cajones to acknowledge the change that’s already happened…and all that’s needed is for us to acknowledge it, let it in.

Because that’s the fun little truth about change.  It’s always happening.  It’s happened with every second that you’ve read this blog.

And if you ignore it, you more and more find yourself in what a client of mine calls a “disorienting dilemma”.  You think you’ve dealt with it by ignoring it (just wait for the press releases trumpeting the “landmark” health care reform!).  You put a check mark next to an incomplete (or totally ignored) task and go on your merry way.

But here’s the funny thing about change.  It won’t be ignored. You can’t tuck it away in a box until the sun, the moon, and the stars align for that “perfect” moment to deal with it.

Nope, it’ll keep stalking you.

And we can muster up all the illusion we want to ignore it, eventually being consumed by a tsunami of the inevitable.

Or we can do the natural thing…and acknowledge the change.  Welcome it.  Dance with it.  And learn to ride its wave.

An Olympic pitch…IN Chicago, not just FOR Chicago

The big news this morning is that the President and First Lady knocked it out of the park in pitching Chicago as the 2016 Olympic site.  ”They were rock stars” gushed a Today show reporter (of course, that’s about all the Today show does these days…gush…but I digress).

I’m thrilled that the Obamas made the pitch.  It’s great to see a president have fun touting all that is wonderful and positive and promising about our country and one of our best cities.

At the same time, I wish President and Mrs. Obama would make the 1.5 hour flight from DC to Chicago to tell school kids there that they’re as passionate about them as they are the Olympics. That their future is just as important to America as one week in the summer of 2016.

I wish they’d do it for Corey McLaurin.

I wish they’d do it for Corey Harris.

I wish they’d do it for Derrion Albert.

Who are these guys?

They’re the three young Chicago students who have been murdered since school started less than a month ago.

Three kids.  One month.

And this isn’t a flukey spike in crime.  Last year, almost 40 Chicago school kids were killed…that more than one per week.  Right here.  In America.  In our President’s hometown.  In the city that, hopefully and in so many ways justifiably, the whole world will be watching 6 summers from now.

The President and Mrs. Obama could fly to Chicago, give a speech and be back home—with their two children–in less than the time it took for them to fly ONE-WAY to Copenhagen.

Don’t you think that would be time well-spent?

Mrs. Obama said the other day that she would “take no prisoners” in her bid to secure the Olympic nod for Chicago.  What do you think would happen if she brought that same attitude to Chicago schools?

Or urban schools across the country for that matter?  As I write this, Boston has just announced that 5 more of our city’s high schools will have metal detectors.  Meaning that 35 of our 39 schools have them.

It’s all part of a federal program called “Secure Our Schools.”  Is that where we are as a country today?  That we “secure our schools” with metal detectors….instead of values?  Instead of leadership?  Instead of community?

Hours ago, President Obama wrapped up his pitch with these words:  ”If we walk this path together, then I promise you this:  The City of Chicago and the United States of America will do the world proud.”

Imagine if he said those words–not via video, by the way–to the kids of Chicago. If he told them that he and the First Lady have their backs.  That they will take no prisoners in making sure kids go to school to learn, not to be killed.  That he would walk with them…to do their city, their country…and themselves proud.

Now, THAT would be worthy of a gold medal.

My Dad’s final gifts

My Dad died last week.  And, in dying he has succeeded in getting me to do the one thing he always wanted me to do:  Slow down.

Slow down to experience his death fully…not as a project to be managed, but as a precious gift that, at last, opened the box of our relationship as father and son.

Talk about the universe throwing you an unexpected right hook (Dad was a former Golden Glove boxing champion…I couldn’t resist!).

You see, Dad and I weren’t close.

There wasn’t any animosity or anything.  And it wasn’t personal.  He wasn’t really close to anyone.  Eventually, we settled into a nice little routine where I had lunch with him at least once each time I went to Dallas.  We had the same conversation each time (weather, sports, family—always that order).  It may not have looked like a lot to the outside observer, but for us…it was enough.

Dad and I even were blessed with a great farewell lunch (though neither of us knew it at the time, at least I didn’t).  It was this past Thanksgiving.  Never being able to say he was proud of me, Dad DID say he was happy for my decision to become a writer.  He even said that “maybe someday, I’ll meet your friend” (that would be my husband).  I told him that I loved him.  As him.

After my sister called with the Hospice news, I sat down with that final memory and told myself that I’d take a day or two to sort through the other weaves of our 43-year journey together.   I quickly realized that there wasn’t much sorting to do.  To borrow a line from my old friend, Gerry, when it came to Dad and me, “there just wasn’t much ‘there’, there”.

At least that had always been the official version.

That night, I started crying… unexpectedly AND uncontrollably.

I went upstairs to the study and lit a candle for Dad.  And I cried. And cried.  More than I have ever cried in my entire life.

Eventually, I saw Dad.  He was covered in vines.

They were the vines life foists upon us.  Broken dreams.  False hopes.  Unfulfilled promises…that we had made to others, and they had made to us.

The vines were more alive than Dad…and they were weighing him down.  His face was at once both resigned and terrified.

“It’s ok Dad,” I said.  ”Put down the vines,” I told him.  ”They’re not clinging to you.  You’re clinging to them.”

I’ll never know if he did or didn’t.  But I do know what happened next.

Suddenly, I was in the house I grew up in.  On Lake Haven Street.  It was the holidays.  I was sitting next to the Christmas tree (artificial, of course, these were the 70’s!).  And I was waiting for Dad to come home and do the only thing Mom ever asked him to do with the tree:  hang the lights.  Now, when we were kids, my sister and I told ourselves we wanted him home because once the lights were up we could hang even MORE ornaments from their wires.  That night, as I sat crying in my house in Boston—so many years and lifetimes away from Lake Haven—I realized that, at least for me, we wanted him home so we could be a family.

And, then, I knew that was never meant to be.  At least not for me.  At least not for my family.

It was an illusion.  A vine that I had carried with me my whole life…just in case it ever came true.

And then, I saw the figure covered in vines again.  Only, this time, it wasn’t Dad.  It was me.

Turns out, when you reached below life’s surface to its true “hidden harmony”, as Heraclitus calls it, Dad and I were quite close, one and the same in many ways.  Unhappy with what we saw as our hand in life, we created illusions to fill perceived gaps.

Illusions around family, around friends, around work.  Around us.

And, the gift of Dad’s death was to show me that he wasn’t the only one who could drop those vines.  I could, too.

And so I did.

Now, if you haven’t done it, let me tell you:  the sound of shattering illusions is deafening, unsettling, terrifying….and freeing.

I slept full of gratitude that night…gratitude for my father.  It was the first time I had ever paired those words together.

As I drummed the following morning, I again saw Dad (this time sans-vines).  We were moving towards each other.  Neither of us had much shape at all.  At one point, our finger’s barely touched and, then, we kept moving…now past each other. Dad one way.  Me another.

4 hours later as I was making lunch, I felt a pain.  A release.   A feeling at once empty and full.

My sister texted me 5 minutes later to confirm what I knew.  Dad was dead.

That afternoon, the first wave of a completely new sensation washed over me.

Turns out that Dad’s gift of shattered illusions had been simply a stocking stuffer.

His real gift was what happens AFTER you shatter those illusions.   And that is the gift of peace.

Not the Hallmark version of peace where it’s always morning in America.  Nor the Southern or Yankee brand of peace where you just lock all those unpleasant feelings, things and people in life’s basement and “buck up”.

Nope.  The kind of peace that comes only AFTER you’ve dropped all illusions.  The peace that is synonymous with truth.  With life.  Not as it could have been or should be, but as it is.  Now.  This moment.

Wherever Dad is, I hope he’s riding wave after wave of infinitely beautiful, just plain fun, peace.

I know I am.   And, for that, this son is forever grateful to his father.

A moment for fathers

Father’s Day is a bit of an odd day for me.

My birth father is proof-positive that love and blood alone aren’t enough to make you a father.  They must be equaled by intent.  One of the constants in my life is that Dad always has offered the first two qualities and, rarely, the third.

But the universe has more than made up for that karmic deficiency by providing me with two father figures throughout my life.  Men who show that, if you have to choose the balance among the three qualities mentioned above, love and intent will always win out over blood.

They’re the men I honored earlier this year by changing my name, by dropping “James” (my father’s father’s name) and “Woodruff” in favor of “Brett” and “Taylor.”

“Brett” honors my step-grandfather who was my father for the first ten years of my life. His last name was “Brettman”, but all of his friends called him “Brett”.  “Taylor” honors my stepfather, who picked up the fatherhood mantle after my grandfather died and carried it until he died this past year.

But, there is a back of symbol to these two words.  Behind the men they honor are the rich lessons they imparted onto me..lessons that continue to unfold moment to moment.

A career military man, my grandfather taught me to be a gentleman; to fuel outward respect with inward pride; and to live life without a net.

On that last point…I was  sick for much of the first ten years of my life.  As a result, a lot of folks treated me like a fragile, frail object.  Not Grandaddy.  He picked me up every Saturday morning for an adventure.  He always kept me out later than my mom or grandmother wanted; let me eat whatever I wanted; talk about whatever I wanted to talk about.

He figured that, if I was going to die in childhood as a lot of docs thought, I might as well enjoy the time I had.  It’s an attitude that caused him to move back to Southern California after doctors told him that a series of heart attacks and skin cancers made him too weak for such a move.  It’s the attitude that sent him to the golf course on January 20, 1976–seven months after the move–where he dropped dead walking to the links.  One that walks with me every day.

I called my stepfather “Thoso”.  He taught me three things:  to love nature; to ground in faith; and to always, always, always enjoy food…especially dessert, specifically Blue Bell and Spring Creek B-B-Q.  I got that last lesson first and struggled for years with the second.  The first lesson, the love of nature, was his last gift to me.

Like many gifts, it’s best shared through a story.

After a lengthy struggle with Parkinson’s, Thoso died last March.  He had a rapid-fire series of strokes beforehand that brought me home to Texas 8 times between December, 2007 and March, 2008.

As I took that final flight home, 33-years of memories flashed through my mind.  Then, just as we were beginning our descent into DFW, a final image flashed:  Thoso and I were sitting on a ridge, looking out at the deceptively simple Texas landscape.  We had our arms around each other’s shoulders, gazing out.  Just sitting in silent awe at the wonders and gifts of nature.

When I got to my parents’ house, my mother told me that Thoso had slipped into a coma.  I went back to his room, knelt down and took his hand.  As I did, he opened his eyes, squinted at me as only a Texas cowboy can and said,  “We had some good times, didn’t we?”

They were the last words he ever spoke.

They weren’t just words of good-bye to my mother–his soul mate–and me.  They were words of appreciation for the gift of A life that was about to be extinguished so a new one could be born.

Never forgetting that life is a gift from nature best lived with adventure…and dignity…and pride…and faith.  What a gift to re-member on this Father’s Day…from the fathers who now walk to the left and right of my name every day.

Of words and keys

The word on writers is that we write because we love words.  That may be true for some, but not for me.  I write because I love what words can lead us to.  I see words as keys.  Keys that unlock the doors leading to life’s mysteries.  Mysteries that aren’t meant to be solved, but experienced.  To me,  words are but the means to an infinite end.

I’ve been thinking a lot about words this past week as President Obama, Democratic politicians and gay leaders have been knocked back on their heels by a community that is starting to grow tired of a words-only movement.  Weary of finding that words that promise action only unlock doors revealing brick walls.

But, I’m an artist, not an activist.  So, this blog isn’t about politics.

Rather, it’s an invitation to look at the key chain of words you carry with you.

If you’re married, when’s the last time you unlocked the door of your marriage?  To go behind the door of the word and into the room of your marriage? What’s there?  Two chairs facing a table of responsibilities? Or, a wall-less room where, as Joe Campbell says, the two selves who enter into marriage have re united into the whole self?

What does the key of your faith lead to?  Does it open the door to a “chosen” room that is bigger, better, brighter than anyone else’s?  Or have you realized that while the doors may be marked “Christian”, “Jew”, “Buddha” , “Shaman” et al, they all open to the exact same room?

And on and on the keys go.  They key for your career, your hobby, your politics, and on and on.

What do you DO with all those keys?

Are they your keys or did you just pick up the ones society says you should have?

Do you even know which doors they open?  Or are you one of those folks who just like to carry around a big key ring because you hope it will tell a story of how very important you are?  Hoping that just the fact you carry the words “married”, “religious”, “executive” with you…that those words alone will be enough to get you through life.

And, even if you know the doors they open, when’s the last time you went in?  In other words, do words open doors for you….or close them?

Finally, when’s the last time you borrowed someone else’s keys? What would happen if President Obama, a black man who can’t hide who he is, traded keys with a closeted gay man who not only CAN hide, but DOES hide every day?  What would each find in the experience that is the other’s room?

You can tell a lot about a life, a people, a country by unlocking the doors behind the words we use.  Perhaps we should do it more often.

What $300,000 can buy you in Boston

The Boston Globe today ran a gushing story about the sale of a parking place in our fair city’s tony Back Bay neighborhood.  The sales price?  $300,000.  That’s right.  Three….hundred…thousand…dollars.

Now, the reporter DID point out that that is a tad more than folks pay for their homes, but the no-nonsense (and blissfully clueless) agent who sold the space brushed that query off by saying “There’s only so many parking spaces available in the city.”

$300,000!?!   To park your car….outside, I might add.  I guess it’s a cool million if you want garage parking.

At first, I this story made me laugh at how proudly folks still flaunt excess…in the midst of the worse recession since the Depression.

Then, when I went to the grocery store a little while later, the story pissed me off.

Here’s why.  I was in our local Roche Brothers.  A very suburban grocery store in about the very suburban part of Boston (they offer parking for free in this part of town!).  Bottom line:  it’s the kind of grocery store that my Texas friends would be comfortable in!

So, I’m zipping around from aisle to aisle and I come to a screeching halt behind this elderly couple that was moving at whatever is slower than a snail’s pace.  They were so hesitant–stopping, turning, picking up cans, looking at them, putting them back, over and over–that I, and several other shoppers turned my cart around and went the other way down the aisle.

I ran into them about three more times while shopping.  Always, they were blocking an aisle.   Poor things, I judged.  They must be losing it.

They ended up behind me in the check-out line.  I turned around and could not believe that their cart–after all that pain staking, slow effort–had exactly 6 cans of chicken broth in it; 4 cans of green beans, some juice and a carton of eggs.

Then, I looked in the wife’s hands.  She was holding coupons…and food vouchers.

It all made sense.

They weren’t senile.  They were trying to stretch their vouchers. And, like so many Americans, they had come up short.

Suddenly, I was taken back to my days as a kid after my parents got divorced.  We never had to resort to food stamps, but my mom did have to make a $90 a week salary feed and clothe my sister and me (not to mention my mother).  She never said anything when we kidded her for being so obsessive about coupons.  And she’d distract us from the reality of not having enough money, by challenging us to find “deals” when we were in the grocery store.

The couple I saw today was too old…and too beaten down..to make stretching the dollar into a fun game.

You could tell by looking at them that they had worked hard their entire lives.  Raised their kids.  Probably served their country.  Most definitely went to church.  Bought a home.  Lived the American dream…only to have that dream crushed by the greed of  their fellow countrymen, right as they were walking, hand-in-hand, into the sunset of their lives.

As I was seeing all of this, the woman and I exchanged glances.  She smiled the most beautiful smile I’ve seen in a long time.

“They’ll be just fine,” I thought to myself.  They have each other and I bet they have good kids and lots of faith.

The rest of us?

If we continue to live in a society that places greed over values, I wonder how long the “American dream” will last.  If things don’t change, I wonder how long it deserves to.

A day of rebels, poverty, destiny, political fundraisers…and innocence

When I first was called to this spirit journey, I remember asking someone “When will the next message come?”  Chuckling, she said, “The messages are always there—every moment of every day. The question is when will you be ready to receive them?”

That moment..that wisdom…came to mind repeatedly yesterday.  It was one of those great gifts of a day filled with messages…and stories.  In other words, a typical day where you see how extraordinary the ordinary is.  There’s a months worth of stories in the day, but rather than cage the stories and put them on a shelf , today feels like a day to recount them as they were–moments that simply floated by me on life’s river.

REBEL REBEL I started my day yesterday as I start everyday:  by pulling a Tarot card form my Osho deck.  The card was “The Rebel”…a great reminder of the inextricable link between freedom and responsibility…not “responsibility” as duty, but as “responding” based on the present moment vs “reacting” based on past memories (for you Tarot card readers, the corresponding cared in more traditional decks is “The Emperor”).

POVERTY AND ILLUSIONS I had coffee with a new friend to talk about the “business” of writing.  We did that, but first we got into a conversation about poverty–and how dated the common image of poverty is.  That moment led to questions about why we perpetuate such extreme stereotypes–why do we trick ourselves into believing that “poverty” means you’re a homeless, unemployed bum.  Perhaps, we offered, it’s because stereotypes create the illusion of a wall separating “us” from “them”.   If you define poverty as being about bums begging on the street (vs, say,  the young kids/college graduates who serve you coffee every morning), then you’re safe from the bogeyman.  By the way, play with this idea by inserting third rail topics like abortion or any minority and see what happens.

WHOSE DESTINY IS IT ANYWAY? Early in the afternoon I was chatting with a graduate of a client’s leadership development program.  I asked what she got out of the experience.  ” I realized that my destiny is MY destiny,” she said, spur of the moment.  What a great lesson for anyone whose parents were emotionally AWOL or whose spouse beats them; who didn’t get a job because of the color of her skin or who was laughed at–IS laughed at–because the gods put a woman’s spirit in a man’s body.  One of life’s fundamental questions is “whose life are you going to live?”  There are two answers:  ”Life as others define it” or “My life as it, simply, is.”  My destiny is my destiny.  Love it!

(BAD) POLITICAL THEATRE. My day ended with a political fund raiser.  If you’ve never gone to one, don’t.  If you have, you’ll know that Bowie was talking as much about fund raisers as adolescence when sang “same old thing, in brand new drag” in “Teenage Wildlife”!  Fundraisers truly are god-awful affairs–a Brechtian version “Groundhog Day” that always tell the same story, the story of power.  No one looks anyone in the eye.  You’re always looking slightly past the person you’re talking with to line up your next prospect.  Someone who will give you their power…or admire yours (since I have a lazy eye, I was particularly adept at this in my political days!).  So, there I was, watching the actors act out the same lines (some with the freshness of their first time on stage, others with the weariness of one for whom politics has become a job, not a cause).   I’ve seen this show before, I thought.  I left the stage awhile ago and now it’s time to leave the theatre.  And, then, I ran into two friends…which brings me to…

INNOCENCE. These guys–both architects—embody the Zen concept of “innocence”.  Both have owned their own firms for many years.  Yet, each time you see them, it is as if they’re starting their first job.   Every day really is new to them, because–even after years of doing what on the surface looks like the same thing–they have mastered the gift of know-ing that every day really is new.  They don’t sit in the audience and watch the same play over and over.  Nope, they write their own play every day—filled not with old memories, but, rather, with what Joseph Campbell called “the rapture of being alive”.  What a gift…and what a lesson.  A lesson that I could go through life and watch the play I expect to see (it’s always there, after all!).  OR, I can bypass that theatre and go see, hell go write,  new plays.  They may not draw the crowds, but you can’t beat the quality.

Not bad for a day’s life.

Finding peace amidst poledancing and sand

Two moments over the past 16 hours shed light on the importance of finding peace amongst chaos…and the pure folly of all that we call life.

Last night, my husband and I went to a Sound Temple program at Boston’s Back Bay Yoga.  Led by Christine Tulis, the premise behind Sound Temple is that “sound brings us into harmony with our essential nature.”  Translation:  Christine and her very cool band create space where sound transports listeners to a place of inner peace.

That was the intent behind last night.  Here’s the reality:  the oh-so-OM Back Bay Yoga studio sits directly beneath a poledancing “training” studio.  And those poles were training fast and furiously…and passionately…last night!!  The ladies (and perhaps men, perhaps even live animals) were slip, sliding, grunding away while those of us downstairs tried to find our inner peace.  Our peaceful search for a Soul Temple collided with their rowdy, bawdy celebration of a Pole Temple!

Christine and the “temple keepers” (god, people love process!) kept apologizing for the noise from above.   I loved it.  It reminded me of how ridiculously superficial the pursuit of “peace” in controlled, quiet–well, peaceful–spaces is.  Anyone can find peace, Zen, bliss, whatever in a peaceful place. The trick is to find your peace–your self, YOUR soul temple–amidst the chaos of the “real world”….amidst the chaos of the mind (which, after all, creates that world).  Those pole dancers last night, to me, were simply the mind rat-a-tat-tat-tatting around our temple—daring us, testing us, to let go of the illusions of life, of the mind, and fall–freely and easily, within.  What an awesome gift!  Viva la poledancers!!

This morning, a friend of mine sent me this clip via Facebook.  It’s about a New Zealand guy named Peter Donnelly who they call the Sand Dancer. He uses a stick and a rake to create amazing works of art on the shoreline during low tide.  The piece is beautiful not only for WHAT he creates, but also for both its celebration of the true spirit of creation (as coming from the divine, not the “artist”) and its reminder of life’s folly (why cling to any thing or any one if none of it matters?).  Click here for a short intro courtesy of CBS News; if you want to watch a longer piece, check out the 10 min video below)

Hope your day is filled with your own sand dancing…with or without poles!!

Mirror, mirror on the wall: Who’s the “projecting”-ist of all?

Maybe the reason so many couch potatoes watch so much tv is because they find a kindred spirit in, a kinship to, something that projects illusion in the guise of reality.*

I thought about this the other day while in a meeting where one person dared to express her dream vision and another shot it down with a “thou doest protest too much” fervor.  It increasingly became obvious that these two people actually harbored similar dreams.  Yet, one was just taking the first tentative, baby steps towards hers while the other had long ago decided the journey was futile (i.e. he didn’t have the balls to do it!).

As he hurled onto his colleague every reason why he hadn’t pursued his dream (all under the guise, of course, of “the time isn’t right”, “it’s too risky”, “it’s been tried before”, etc, etc) you could see the sharp edges of his anger camoflouging his fear shielding his shame.  And you could see those sharp edges prick and then burst the woman’s dream.

Mission accomplished!

Once she was beat into the submissive state of one who dreams for others, not for self, the guy shrugged his shoulders and said “I mean, that’s just how I see it”.  I wanted to add “Yes, how you see it….as a spectator, not a participant.”

That poor woman.  My colleague had projected onto her an entire Lifetime mini-series of angst and drama!

And neither of them had a clue what the other had done.

What is it about humans that make us so prone to projection?

When we meet someone’s new boyfriend, we say “he’s not right for him”…because we haven’t found the right person for us. A friend of mine is picking up and moving away and a lot of our mutual friends think he’s plum crazy…because they cannot imagine living a life alive with mystery, preferring one that is dead with predictability.

Much of our discourse in this country is based on what was, not what is.  Democrats and Republicans would rather play from old, batter-worn playbooks, than the truth.  And look at race in this country.  We’re still having that conversation via a 1960’s/1970’s time warp.   And on and on it goes.

Now not all projection is unpleasant.   Some of it’s downright fun. But none of it’s real.  It’s as much an illusion as the images that come out of our tv’s. And when we forget that, we pump air into the illusion and douse the flames of reality.

*  A  tip of the hat (pen? keyboard?)  to Richard Bach who wrote beautifully about movies, projectors and life in Ilusions.

Predictable moments

As I was getting dressed this morning, I was thinking about how predictable other people are.  ”Poor things,” I thought.  ”They really need to step off the island more often and swim in the fullness of life’s ocean.”

Then, of course, I got in the car and drove to the same coffee shop I drive to every morning…at approximately the same time…down the same streets…to sit at the same table.  ”Point taken,” I said to the Universe.

The truth is we’re all predictable creatures.  It’s part of our nature.  And certainly we live in such UNpredictable times, that a little predictability feels damned good.

The key words here are part and little.

It’s good to find comfort in predictability…in walking a familiar path, in savoring a favorite meal, in dancing to a favorite song.  The danger is when comfort becomes contentment.  Because, if you’re content, you’ve stopped moving.  And when you’ve stopped moving, life can’t help but pass you by. Who wants that?

So, today, do something UNpredictable.  It doesn’t have to be big (hell, my unpredictable moment is to sit at a different table this morning).  But small actions can have major impacts.   Have you ever moved an old piece of furniture in your house and find that it looks completely different, that you notice aspects of its design you’ve never noticed before?  The piece of furniture is the same.  You’re just seeing it from a new perspective.

In the end, that’s the gift of the unpredictable:  a new perspective.

And if you’re willing to see a piece of furniture from a new perspective, why not do the same for your life?

Why not move your friends into a dark corner and put your enemies closer to the window?  Take your lover and family out of their traditional places and put them smack dab in the middle of the room where you can see them from all angles?

Like the new perspective.  Hate it.  Sleep on it.  Adjust it a little.  Put things back to the way they are.  Keep moving things around.

It doesn’t matter what you do with your unpredictability.  Just the intent, the act, means you’re present to the rapture of being alive (thanks Joseph Campbell!).  And that’s not a bad way to be!