Hero’s Journey

Giving up being right is the doorway to freedom

This is probably the most difficult thing on earth for any man (or woman) to do, and the one that’s most liberating. All the wars are fought because if this one, all the road rage caused by it, all the angry, bitter divorces, most of human suffering. Conversely the man who gets it right can call himself a hero, a man among men. It was for doing this that Nelson Mandela is so universally acknowledged and South Africa’s transition to democracy has inspired the world.

It’s most difficult when you know you’re right, but then it’s even more liberating.

It’s most difficult when you know you’re right, but even then, it’s truly liberating. That issue you’re stewing over right now, that’s right, the one that’s making you so unhappy, the one you can’t see how you could possibly not be anything other than right about … give it up, right now. It doesn’t mean you make the other person right, you just let go of defending and accusing; agree to differ. When you give up making the other person wrong, the other person miraculously gives up defending and the whole conflict dissolves.

Let go of being right and you’ll find a new power within you, and a sense of liberation that will change your life.

When you stand on a bridge and watch the water flow, you can create the impression for yourself that the water’s standing still and it’s you and the bridge that’s moving. Our view of time creates that impression for us: we think it’s us that’s moving, but it’s not. We’re on the bridge, in the moment, and stuff happens. That stuff is the water that flows past. It’s like junk falling into a plug hole, and we are that plug hole, seeing all this stuff falling in and thinking that we’re moving but we’re not. It’s just stuff happening that has us think that.

For years I struggled to find the thing that I should do that would make me happy, lead to success. I always looked for it ‘out there’ and ‘in the future’. I would observe what others were doing and think how I could do something similar and one day enjoy the same happiness and success. When I saw for myself that there’s only this moment, and when I heard Eckhart Tolle say that enjoyment is what you put into a situation or action, not what you get out of it, then for the first time I really got this: I got that there’s nothing else to do but enjoy what I do and the success will come. This is true gratitude, not as a concept, not convincing myself, but seeing it. 

If you stop being such a hero to the world, you’ll get more done

There’s a wisdom in us that’s active when we make decisions to do things that will lead to an increase – whether it be in health, wealth, or knowledge. Most often, however, we let small things become big ‘reasons’ that get in the way. We don’t make that business trip, for example, or take that weekend course, because there’s ‘just so much to do’ at the office, or at home.

Be purpose-driven, and life will take care of itself.

Have you ever sat in a room and imagined that you weren’t in it? Do this now, and observe the stillness of the objects in the room you’re in. Now as important as you think you are, notice that they’d be like that – unmoved – for all the time you were gone, if you were really not there. You don’t matter to them. Likewise, when you’re not there, life sits quietly and waits (actually it doesn’t even wait, it just sits). Or it fills in the space the way water does after you remove yourself from it. (If you get sick, for example, and have to be rushed to hospital, someone steps in and takes care of the kids – and they get along just fine without you.) Sorry hero, you’re just not that important.

Be purpose-driven, and life will take care of itself.

If you manage to slow the whole process down enough, you’ll see that habits and compulsions are outer expressions of the deeper habit of not honouring oneself.
It goes like this: you know something’s not good for you. You know you shouldn’t do it. You don’t even want to, and so you decide not to. Then you break down and you do it anyway. What’s the conversation in your head that makes you give in? It’s the habitual one that says, ‘Oh nonsense, it’s not that important.’
When did you learn that habit? When you were a kid, and you wanted something your way; you wanted to not wear socks, or to write with a colour pencil, and you were made to do what you were told instead. At that moment, you didn’t learn that socks are good, or that lead pencils are better. You learned that your unique wants or needs – what that inner you calls for – is not important.
Now, when that same inner you calls for what it knows is good and right for itself, the learned you says, ‘Oh nonsense, it’s not that important.’ Give up the habit of not honouring yourself, and you’ll give up every bad habit in the book. Each time you do it, it gets easier, and each time you open a doorway to a new level of self-respect.

Bad decisions don’t matter when you’ve taken care to be ten points ahead

Despite what we profess, most of us are not even honest for something as small as being late for a meeting – we make excuses, like blaming the traffic. Sportsmen and women know that they should not blame the ref for an unfair decision two minutes before time, as a result of which they lose – deep down they know it wouldn’t have mattered if they’d been ten points ahead.

Likewise, if you take responsibility to start out earlier, to be the cause of getting to your destination ten minutes early, no matter what, you wouldn’t be late. On the other hand, if you play the game to cut it fine, always making it by just a few seconds, then you must take the rap when it doesn’t go your way.

See yourself as the cause of everything that happens in your life.

If you’re in a financial crisis, check and see, what could you have done to make sure you were ten points ahead so that the referee’s decision going against you didn’t cause you to lose the game? You don’t have to torture yourself over it, but it will give you power if you take responsibility. Own up to your part in where you are right now. See yourself as the cause of everything that happens in your life. You may just find that it’s true on the upside as well – that you are in fact powerful enough to make good things happen too.

If you’ve ever been one of those people who, in social situations just wants to run and hide, listen up: you’re not alone. Chances are half the people in the room feel the same way. It just happens to be the happy hunting ground for the gregarious, the ebullient, the always-delighted, and you are forced to play along.

How you deal with it is up to you, but promise yourself one thing: do not tell yourself you should be like them, or that your life would be easier or better if you were that way, or that there’s something wrong with you.

Making yourself wrong and beating yourself up internally is a childish thing to do. It’s a repeat of the familiar – what you get from your parents as children you take to be love. If your parents – with all the good intentions in the world – constantly compared you to others or to some standard, you’ll be living with this self-abasing internal voice.

The great thing in midlife is that the energy behind that voice starts to dissipate. The problem becomes, what do you replace it with? Can I trust myself when I say I’m OK? Can I just leave myself to be the way I am? It seems so wrong, so irresponsible, so unfounded! Listen kiddo, those old thought patterns are just habits, a painful memory that we replay like an old sad song just because it’s familiar. Becoming aware of them, then replacing them with something else – something you choose – is a process; it’s taken me years, and I can honestly say that a separation is possible between the automatic internal voices and a conscious awareness that can make choices about itself – who it chooses to be, and how. This doesn’t mean you can change your personality, but you can learn to love the one you have. Great rivers of peace, love, success, flow from this.

There’s power and respect waiting for those who have strong values and act on them

Feeling undecided about something? Chances are you’re not clear about what you stand for. When you get up in the morning and you have to be at work by eight o’clock there’s not much milling about wondering what to do next, is there? No, your decisions and actions come clearly out of that commitment to be at work on time. Even a complicated wardrobe debate is decided by the time imperative – you’re forced to make a choice and you do.

It’s really no different with the big things in our lives. When you find yourself taking a long time to decide on something, it’s most likely because you’re not clear on what you stand for. If Nelson Mandela had been unclear on whether he stood for freedom or for being with his family on weekends, South Africa might have had a very different history. 

You might not agree with someone’s values, but you’ll recognise the power in them, and you’ll have some measure of respect for them, if they are clear what they stand for, if their actions are consistently aligned with their values. What about you, what do you stand for?

In case you were wondering – in case you’ve ever been as lost and confused as I have – there is an arrival point on the journey to find yourself. How do I know? Let’s say I performed my own prodigal son experiment – I went out into the world and became something I’m not and it took a long time to return to who I am.

You see, on the outward leg I made everything about myself wrong. When I was about five I heard my aunt comment to my mother that I still used my left hand; I thought I was doing something wrong and I changed to using my right hand. This became the pattern of my life. When I discovered I was an introvert, I tried to make myself into an extrovert, and so on.

The route for the return journey was indicated by the answers I found to the question, ‘What if there’s nothing wrong?’ If I recognised for example that my mind jumped from one project to the next, instead of trying to fix and change that through discipline and force, I took the view that nothing was wrong and asked instead, ‘How can I apply this to my best advantage?’

The fixing and changing approach is based on the assumption that there’s something wrong, something to be fixed and changed. What do you change it to? It has to be based on some external, which would inevitably be some other person, a colleague or peer – or God forbid, a sports star or celebrity! – who you compare yourself to. Which one to choose, there are so many! The alternative was like a bolt of lightning: change nothing, emphasise that which you are – all you have to do is overcome the shame, guilt, doubt, fear. Talk about crawling across cut glass!

The rewards are great: a sense of peace, power, presence. And who knows, maybe your father will throw a party!

Making promises and keeping them is the brick and mortar of self-esteem

When John F Kennedy told the world that America would go to the moon, he didn’t say maybe, he made a bold promise. When Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa, he didn’t mince his words: ‘Never, never, and never again…’ was how he phrased his promise. How is it that great men can promise things on behalf of nations, of people who haven’t been born yet, and others can’t promise to make a simple project deadline, or sales target? They’ll rather say that they’ll try. About going to gym, they’ll say that they want to, or should.

If you’re not doing it, or not doing it enough, you’re losing power daily.

Observe your language and see how much of it is filled with if’s and maybe’s, and want to’s and should’s. How would your life look if you were to change that and turn those into firm promises and commitments? Being willing to make firm commitments and having the power to keep them is the brick and mortar of self-esteem. If you’re not doing it, or not doing it enough, then you’re losing power daily. Go ahead, test it.

The midlife phase gives us the chance to incorporate into our repertoire the talents and dreams we let slide post-childhood, and to finally express ourselves authentically. It might not take the form that you dreamed about in your youth – I’ll never be on the stage under lights, for example – but it will be deeply satisfying.

At first this seems scary – when you try on new ways of being, you don’t know what you will become. However, the great thing is that you don’t have to choose and create it all, it’s more about uncovering the raw material that’s already there – that the critical comments or teasing by some adult caused you to hide.

The search will have you scratching about in your early childhood talents and preferences. So you liked drawing, and you became a banker. It’s time to give up chasing after the dreams of others and go with what you’re good at: be honest with yourself and stop trying to force things. Delve into those things about yourself that you’ve always been ashamed about - choose what’s good and right for you, and not what looks good to others.