Love the diversification metaphor Alex and the idea that a diversified personality portfolio makes suffering a loss in any life area less painful. I personally recognize the strategy and have used it pretty much as you have described. I'm not sure, however, it protects us against suffering the way you've described, or the way I myself have hoped it might. I have had the experience over and over of keeping myself busy in many domains, with many "irons in the fire," and have found myself not getting to the one thing I am most passionate about, most called to serve at a given time, and suffer as a result of the "diversification." When I finally say "enough" and get down to serving that current singular purpose, the suffering of my self-induced distraction lifts and the more I serve the purpose, the more my identity actually fades into the background, as the work, not my identity, becomes dominant in my attention. As I believe you mentioned, this is complex business, with many tendrils and nuances, requiring a great deal of vigilant self-observation, ruthless self-honesty, not to mention a sense of humor (like keeping track of how many times one's watch has been hurled against a wall) to make it through the labyrinth. The best protection I have found against suffering is to surrender to the most dynamic and engaging work, and if it's all I am doing for a time, and that work comes to end, or doesn't achieve the result that I wanted or hoped for, it's a chance to observe the way I create suffering for myself by investing in future outcomes rather than present process. This is such a juicy topic. Thanks for your thoughts on the subject and for letting me feed back into the conversation. Interested in your perspective, or anyone else with a personal experience in this domain.
Thanks so much for the thoughtful comment Rick. You make some great points, and you've made me realize that I may not have fully gotten to the heart of this topic (which, as you mention, is incredibly juicy and complicated). Because you're right - there are many of us who do a great job of diversifying our identities, with a bunch of irons in the fire, and still end up miserable.
I do still believe the diversification part is important. I think it's dangerous to get too wrapped up in one mode of existing. But, you make a fantastic point here: "surrender to the most dynamic and engaging work." I think that is the piece I missed - the element of surrendering yourself to the work that you find most captivating, rather than trying to subjugate it and cloud it with the ego of identity. I completely agree that a central piece of this is moving away from an outcome-focused way of thinking.
Thanks for sharing your awesome thoughts and helping to refine my thinking!
Your stuff has been a pleasure to read because of its thoughtfulness and I greatly appreciate the introduction of topics that invite conversation and evolving reflection. It would be crazy to think of getting this thinking completely refined. It seems this whole question of identity, what it is, and how to work with it—is the heart of spirituality. Humans have spent thousands of years pondering the truth of our essential identity, struggling with it, creating systems and practices to engage it, or just unconsciously defending rigid identifications through various forms of manipulation, control, and or violence. I've been mentioning lately a book that I found very inspiring called "In Love With the World," It's by a Buddhist teacher named Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. It's the story of him giving up his monastic robes and high status as a venerated lineage holder to wander as a beggar and the confrontations to his own identity he must work with in the process. It's perfectly in line with what you're exploring here and provides insight into the way Buddhist teachings support inquiring into the question of identity both dharmically and practically.
I really appreciate the kind words and your insightful commentary. Very well said on all fronts. Just looked into that book and it sounds fascinating...I started reading The Joy of Living (also written by him) over a decade ago but haven't thought about it in a long time - this was a great reminder. I'm going to purchase In Love With the World now!
So glad Alex. I would love to pick up with a conversation after you've experienced it. I'd be very interested in your perspective. And I just noticed your presence in write of passage today, which was a delightful surprise. Will see you there as well!
This is a great message, and I think hits home for a lot of people. Especially ex-athletes where our identity was just that, athlete. Then we graduated and had to figure out how to hold onto that identity or grow as a person and find a new identity that made us happy. I know it was a lesson that took me a hot minute and several obsessions to figure out
Love the diversification metaphor Alex and the idea that a diversified personality portfolio makes suffering a loss in any life area less painful. I personally recognize the strategy and have used it pretty much as you have described. I'm not sure, however, it protects us against suffering the way you've described, or the way I myself have hoped it might. I have had the experience over and over of keeping myself busy in many domains, with many "irons in the fire," and have found myself not getting to the one thing I am most passionate about, most called to serve at a given time, and suffer as a result of the "diversification." When I finally say "enough" and get down to serving that current singular purpose, the suffering of my self-induced distraction lifts and the more I serve the purpose, the more my identity actually fades into the background, as the work, not my identity, becomes dominant in my attention. As I believe you mentioned, this is complex business, with many tendrils and nuances, requiring a great deal of vigilant self-observation, ruthless self-honesty, not to mention a sense of humor (like keeping track of how many times one's watch has been hurled against a wall) to make it through the labyrinth. The best protection I have found against suffering is to surrender to the most dynamic and engaging work, and if it's all I am doing for a time, and that work comes to end, or doesn't achieve the result that I wanted or hoped for, it's a chance to observe the way I create suffering for myself by investing in future outcomes rather than present process. This is such a juicy topic. Thanks for your thoughts on the subject and for letting me feed back into the conversation. Interested in your perspective, or anyone else with a personal experience in this domain.
Thanks so much for the thoughtful comment Rick. You make some great points, and you've made me realize that I may not have fully gotten to the heart of this topic (which, as you mention, is incredibly juicy and complicated). Because you're right - there are many of us who do a great job of diversifying our identities, with a bunch of irons in the fire, and still end up miserable.
I do still believe the diversification part is important. I think it's dangerous to get too wrapped up in one mode of existing. But, you make a fantastic point here: "surrender to the most dynamic and engaging work." I think that is the piece I missed - the element of surrendering yourself to the work that you find most captivating, rather than trying to subjugate it and cloud it with the ego of identity. I completely agree that a central piece of this is moving away from an outcome-focused way of thinking.
Thanks for sharing your awesome thoughts and helping to refine my thinking!
Your stuff has been a pleasure to read because of its thoughtfulness and I greatly appreciate the introduction of topics that invite conversation and evolving reflection. It would be crazy to think of getting this thinking completely refined. It seems this whole question of identity, what it is, and how to work with it—is the heart of spirituality. Humans have spent thousands of years pondering the truth of our essential identity, struggling with it, creating systems and practices to engage it, or just unconsciously defending rigid identifications through various forms of manipulation, control, and or violence. I've been mentioning lately a book that I found very inspiring called "In Love With the World," It's by a Buddhist teacher named Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. It's the story of him giving up his monastic robes and high status as a venerated lineage holder to wander as a beggar and the confrontations to his own identity he must work with in the process. It's perfectly in line with what you're exploring here and provides insight into the way Buddhist teachings support inquiring into the question of identity both dharmically and practically.
I really appreciate the kind words and your insightful commentary. Very well said on all fronts. Just looked into that book and it sounds fascinating...I started reading The Joy of Living (also written by him) over a decade ago but haven't thought about it in a long time - this was a great reminder. I'm going to purchase In Love With the World now!
So glad Alex. I would love to pick up with a conversation after you've experienced it. I'd be very interested in your perspective. And I just noticed your presence in write of passage today, which was a delightful surprise. Will see you there as well!
This is a great message, and I think hits home for a lot of people. Especially ex-athletes where our identity was just that, athlete. Then we graduated and had to figure out how to hold onto that identity or grow as a person and find a new identity that made us happy. I know it was a lesson that took me a hot minute and several obsessions to figure out
Absolutely. Extremely common with athletes - definitely took a lot for me to see a life after being A Lacrosse Player