Creating Congruence -The Balancing Game
This is the fourth post in the creating congruence series, you can find links to the other posts here.
In the previous post we explored an insight on how we can update, or you could say redefine, our definition of the perfect human. The purpose of this insight is to enable us to create a set of rules for the game of life that enable us to win.
A word of warning though:
With great power comes great responsibility.
Timing is Essential
Replacing should with could, and changing your definition of the perfect human to be relative and not absolute are both powerful tactics that enable you to achieve contentment and happiness. Used in the wrong way, they can enable you to game the system and delude yourself though. Let me put this another way…
First consider happiness as being locked behind a doorway… You now have two insights which can be used to tackle your ego and unlock the door to happiness, when used without due consideration, you can actually unwittingly pick the lock and barge your way in before the time is right.
Just like our human bodies, your doorway to happiness is traveling though time, if you pick the lock and try to bypass the processes of time and growth, you will arrive at the wrong destination for the door is not yet at the location it should be; it is not the right moment in time.
Consider a butterfly trying to emerge from a chrysalis… It struggles away trying to make a hole then slowly squeezes its way through the hole and out in to the world.
If a helpful passer by notices this struggle and attempts to help by cutting a larger hole, yes, the butterfly may emerge sooner. The problem is though, that during the struggle to emerge, this gives the butterflies wings time to dry and harden so it can fly. If it emerges too quickly the wings will not dry properly and when it tries to fly it will fall to the floor, its wings will be damaged and it is simply game over.
The struggle of the butterfly is an essential part of its journey to live its life and fulfil its purpose.
Some food for thought.
The Right Time
Used irresponsibly we can start to convert some essential shoulds in to coulds. A couple of examples would be: I should keep my promises or I should be honest with myself.
We can also do away with all absolute criteria and convert them in to softened relative criteria that we don’t actually ever intend to meet. If we do this, what we are actually doing is not being honest with ourselves. We are deluding ourselves by consciously playing the same game that the ego does when it locks painful memories away. We are hiding from the truth and the acceptance our failures.
Fear is at the root of this. If we are scared of embracing failure and place too much of an emphasis on what other people think, this will drive us to recoil in fear and seek to use our definition of the perfect human to reinforce our definition of me.
The killer is that if we do this, we know what we are doing it. Even if we project ourselves outwardly as happy, and tell ourselves that we are happy, we are simply brushing the truth under the carpet. The pain and guilt will eat away at us and our foreman will eventually use it against us.
Our sights must always be set just outside of our comfort zone to ensure that we are focused on growth and evolution. Not too harsh that we lose, and not too soft that we stagnate.
This is where the balancing game comes in…
The rules for the game, which set the rules for the game of life
The balancing game centres around honesty and pragmatism. We need to be honest with ourselves about our current life situation, and accept ourselves for who we are right now.
Seeing ourselves through honest eyes, we can then use pragmatism and realism to choose our goals. If we set the bar too low, we game the system and we do not grow; the fast track to happiness leads to nowhere. If we set the bar too high, we will fail; constant failure is demotivating and bad for our emotional wellbeing.
We need to accept responsibility for making our own life plan and set realistic achievable goals for ourselves. You could think of this as the happy path to the happy path.
In short: work to maintain a balance in your definition of the perfect human so that you can pursue realistic and sustained incremental growth. In time, I will share lots of insights as part of the approach toolkit which will assist you to do this.
The Take Away
Be kind to yourself but also practice tough love.
This is an act which requires all of the principles of The Mountain Pathway:
- Prioritise increasing vitality – Set goals that maximise your growth
- Be the change – Take action to achieve them every day
- Speak sincerely – Be honest with your self about what you can and cannot do
- Establish equilibrium – Play the balancing game
- Embody compassion – Be kind to yourself
In the next post I will share a perspective that will enable you to consider your whole being… are you perfectly imperfect too?
Enjoy, for now.