http://youtu.be/MlLWTeApqIM
The above TED Talk got me thinking about many things. David Brooks stirred my soul and provided confirmation of the state of things. The state of who, or what, should be master.
It really is about the who of you.
I stand on the battleground of souls and lives. This was evident to me over 10 years ago, as it is now. As noble as that may echo, it really doesn’t matter, outside of the context of what you want life to be. Many are living under the sun and hope that will produce happiness and contentment. It doesn’t. All of the striving, all of the ignoring, all of the convincing self-talk will never provide lasting results. If it did, we’d have satisfaction. Ever notice how America continues to scream out that you need more education, more career mobility, more recognition, more money?
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
The wizard had a great gig, until Toto got in the way. He had us convinced that we could fool the audience with tricks from a traveling carnival. He told us the curtain was an absolute necessity to keep the audience from discovering what was real. “They will never understand,” he whispered to us in the deep of night. We believed him.
Now, here’s the irony, in my modern culture (an eroding one), most are still trying to conjure a spell or trick. We panically negotiate with the audience. We tell them what they thought was true, was just their imagination. We hope for the miracle of distraction. Maybe they won’t figure out who we really are.
As we face the truth, the deceptive self-talk kicks in:
- “It could be worse, some people don’t have a job.”
- “You tried before, and it didn’t work.”
- “They won’t look at someone, who’s done that.”
- “You need to make sure, you’ve got x number of followers and likes.”
- “No one would think less of you, if you gave up.”
Ten years ago I had an audience that said, “OK, Eric, show us another trick.”
Find the who of you while there’s time.