A Month of Fridays continued...

Friday, March 5, 2010

Friday Challenge!

What will today's challenge be? You think I get them all organized ahead of time don't you? But I don't - I let ideas float in my mind on Thursday - gather like storm clouds - then I sit down - start writing and see what appears. Today's challenge is going to be one in which I challenge you to let go of your desire to produce something and instead focus on the process of lying fallow. When we struggle in our work - whatever it might be - we are pushing the river. We are not letting it come to us - we are making it hard. I think the reason we do this is because we get lots of strokes when we are children for 'trying' but as Yoda in Star Wars points out 'there is no try just do or not do'. So today's challenge is to let go of trying, let go of the struggle. If you are a writer - today you will not write - you will practice aimless wandering - no goal, no destination. If you are a painter, do not pick up your brush. Instead go lie on the couch reading something that isn't connected to your art - a book on physics perhaps or the life of saints. If you are a parent or a teacher of children today don't try to instill anything just enjoy what they are up to (yes I can hear you teachers freaking out but there are ways to do this and not be thought of as shirking). If you are generals, today wander into the camp kitchen and talk to the cooks about making porridge for a thousand. If you are carpenters - go and talk to some trees about how much you appreciate their treeness. If you are kite fliers go up to a tall bare hill and run down the other side without a kite. If you are a cook find a general and ask him what it is like to be responsible for so many young lives. If you are a bookkeeper cook a big pot of beans for the hungry. If you are a politician go play with some children. If you are a therapist practice the accordion.
Let me know how it all works out...oh and if you are a rooster - let the ladies alone for a minute will ya!