Loved this, from Adam Kayce's Monk at Work:
Searching for meaning? Want to know what your purpose is?
Get in line. ... Just kidding!
It’s obvious that there’s no one answer to these kinds of questions. It’s a search, an exploration… one that we all take once bitten by the “significance” bug. It’s a part of living an examined, awake life.
The trick is this: it’s one thing to search… and it’s another to stay sane as you do.
Discovering your purpose isn’t a race. Instead of adopting the attitude of, “I’ve gotta find it NOW, so I can get going and make it happen!”, with a drive for perfection and a now-I-can-stop-searching-and-just-be-happy attitude, you’ll be far better off taking a page from the book of Japanese aesthetics, and more specifically, the concept of wabi-sabi.
What’s known to millions as a philosophy of “imperfection, impermanence, and incompletion” can keep you from ripping the hair from your head as you walk your walk.
Adam continues with coaching for us on these three points:
- Slow it down
- Pare it back
- Let it go, and
- It’s your life, after all: “Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.”
I share Adam’s article with you for those who may be wondering about their own ho‘ohana:
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MY MANA‘O (what I believe to be true) ~ ~ ~ Ho‘ohana is the value of worthwhile work. When you ho‘ohana, you are working with passion, with full intention and with definitive purpose. You work to bring meaning to the life you lead.
Everything you need, you have within you. I happen to call it your aloha.
Make your life and your work personal.
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By far, the question I get most from people who have just begun to read Managing with Aloha is, “What if I don’t yet know what my ho‘ohana is? What do I do?”
First of all, you need to stop allowing the magnitude of your own life to intimidate you.
I find that for most people, cutting it down to smaller chunks helps quite a bit. Some people prefer to separate their professional lives from their personal ones, others start by listing their responsibilities, feeling they must honor those things before self, and others get very business-like in their approach, looking for ROA and ROI (returns on their attention and their investments), perhaps by using Pareto’s Rule, working on the “20 that gets you the 80.”
Ho‘ohana is very much about focus, and I like this Wabi-Sabi approach because it is aimed at “a simple aesthetic that [grows] stronger as inessentials [are] eliminated and trimmed away.” I think it tells us something that the most contented, happiest people alive are those who have found limitless joy in so few things. They do what they love, period. It is not a cliché for them; they are self-aware and self-attuned.
The “work” of Ho‘ohana is not just job, though that is the usual context of what we may talk about here, and within MWA. Work is whatever you want to apply the discipline of work’s effort to. I like author David Allen’s definition that work is whatever is not yet done for you.
As I mentioned in a comment I left for Adam at his article, the great thing about taking-it-day-by-day approach is that you give yourself more celebrations when you conquer the day before you, learning to be more appreciative and cognizant of what you already have accomplished.
You are better than you give yourself credit for. You achieve more than you take notice of.
So give yourself a break and enjoy the process of discovering your complete Ho‘ohana little by little. Start with the bite-sized approach to ‘Imi ola too, and the picture-painting of the best possible DAY you would have in your wildest dreams, for the striving for it will give you renewed energy, and achieving the whole life you want will now be in motion.
In very practical terms, don’t stop reading MWA at chapter 2 (Ho‘ohana)! The very next chapter is ‘Imi ola, so continue your journey.
Links which may be helpful;
- Find Adam's posting in full (I have edited it here without his embedded links), at The Wabi-Sabi Search for Purpose. Monk at Work is exceptional, and I highly recommend you bookmark Adam's site. Here is his subscription page, and his RSS feed.
- One link I have pulled from Adam's pointers for your quick reference is this one: What is Wabi-Sabi. My local-to-Hawai‘i readers probably thought about wasabi (the Japanese horseradish in sushi and for sashimi) first, just as I did!
- The full context of what I have written in the MY MANA‘O box is here: Ho‘ohana! Everything you need, you have.
- David Allen is the author of Getting Things Done, and is a productivity guru. I have learned a lot from his jewel of a book! Here is a sample of what I have chronicled at Talking Story: Comfy with My-Tech GTD.
~architect Tadao Ando
I have added Adam's feed to my list of new blogs (new to me) to watch and read. Thanks for that.
I have found that my ‘Imi ola has a life of it's own. As I learn and grow it evolves as my awareness is piqued and my only task then is to pay attention and notice it because my life experience has taught me that I will apply it 'when the time is right'.
That is a big change for me as I used to push hard and try to make things happen. Much easier to live in a state of 'effortless awareness' trusting and knowing it will be integrated when things are 'pono'.
Congratulations on this new blog!
Posted by: The Remote Control CEO | August 04, 2007 at 01:58 PM
Thank you for sharing this with us Greg! What you describe is so wonderful, and I feel so happy for you!
I think you have arrived at more than the “life’s experience” you speak of Greg, though I do not at all mean to discount its importance. Your choice in mentioning both ‘Imi ola (vision) and Pono (balance) tells me that you understand your life is like sculptor’s clay in your hands, waiting for your best creation, but you also have the self-assuredness to know that your aloha spirit will not steer you wrong, handling the timing of it all in the grand scheme of things. Your own intuition will kick in at the right time, and because you trust in that, your clay will always remain pliable, stretching when it needs to.
You will enjoy reading more of what Adam has to share with us as well.
Posted by: Rosa Say | August 04, 2007 at 02:16 PM
That Japanese quote is great too. A mashup of east/west. I always learn so much about myself when I comment on your blog entries - your writing seems to be a catalyst for congealing my thoughts and learnings.
"Cool you are, leader you must be." (my impression of Yoda)
Posted by: The Remote Control CEO | August 04, 2007 at 02:46 PM