Now, don’t be afraid of fear—that’s a scary thought!—just learn to recognize it for what it is.

And now, on with our story.

The search for inner peace led John to a group of other like-minded people who also saught the same thing, all rallied around a teacher who demonstrated some very successful techniques to help his students find and experience that peace. As the group grew, the teacher realized that he must establish a “method”, so others could teach the work as well. After all, what good would it do unless a means could be identified? And so, this method became concretized, shared, and taught to many more seekers of peace.

John, who believed the methods and the community around it to be the best thing he’d ever seen, became a teacher of this system. He taught others the methods, used them himself, and his life got better.

But then, a shadow began to grow…

As the organization grew, John started to see a resistance to new input and ideas. The results of what was once an “open spirit of exploration” began to become doctrine. Legends began to permeate the group, telling of the brilliance—nay, the infallibility—of the leaders, and the miracles they performed on a regular basis. The method became dogma, and those who challenged it were outcast.

John began to become disillusioned with his teacher, the methods, and the organization. He saw brilliant, dedicated teachers ostracized because they spoke out in opposition to the leaders. He watched as the methods became stale, outdated, and both inflexible in their approach and limited in their application and efficacy.

And so, John left.

History has a way of repeating itself, doesn’t it?

After a time of introspection and idea gathering, John decided to follow a different life-long passion, changing professions and moving on with his life. He trained, he learned, and he worked, and he was happy.

Eventually he came across another community, steeped in the pursuit of the same passions as he, and once again he found himself feeling at home. But as John grew, developed his talents, and learned more, he began to hear stories of disgruntled members within the community that seemed to be having experiences that mirrored his past. John began to question his involvement in the community after seeing the same kinds of rigidity and fear creeping into the organization.

Too bad I’m not Mother Goose.

Now, wouldn’t it be nice if this were a fairy tale, with a beginning and an end, neatly tied up in a bow of clear-cut morals and easily deciphered lessons? Maybe it would. But life isn’t a storybook fable, and rarely are decisions as easy to make as they might appear. Black-and-white quickly turns to grey in the real world.

Like yours, the ending of John’s story isn’t yet written. He can’t see the end, doesn’t know how things will turn out, and can’t rely on a crystal ball, fairy godmother, or all-seeing wizard. He, like you, has to make decisions based on heart, head, and gut.

But he, like you, can choose how to respond to life’s events proactively rather than reactively, based on principles and decisions about how he wants to live his life.

Looking at the experiences of his life, and the examples of those leaders John sees around him, he comes to a few conclusions:

• when you become afraid to challenge the status quo, you stagnate.
• if you aren’t willing to sacrifice your conclusions in favor of new evidence that contradicts it, then you’ve stopped learning.
• resist the temptation to label those who express deviation as deviants.
• there is strength and safety in numbers… but there is also a greater propensity for delusion (aka “groupthink.”)

Charles Du Bos had it right when he said,

The important thing is this: To be ready at any moment to sacrifice what you are for what you could become.

Because when your status, income, and success depend on you being what you’ve built, it’s scary to let it go. That fear drives irrational decisions.

However, another choice exists.

Look around you at examples of personal excellence. They may be a little less obvious, and thus a bit harder to find, than the grand commercial successes that so often get the publicity, but they’re there. They aren’t always mutually exclusive, of course, but the popular vote doesn’t always reward excellence (at least not right away).

Of course, these measures are largely subjective, because your criteria for excellence may be different than the next person’s, but since we’re talking about John, here , we’ll share the traits he feels are indicative of personal integrity:

• humility. (Confucius said, “Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues.”)
• willingness to abandon what you’ve known for what you know is right.
• an enduring quest for greater growth and understanding.

Rabindranath Tagore said it well:

Truth comes as conqueror only to those who have lost the art of receiving it as friend.

Because when you realize that your status, income, and success can also truly depend on what you stand for, it doesn’t make change any less scary, but it can make it liberating.

How to avoid the crumbling of your own empire

There’s a great analogy that I’m sure you’ve heard, which likens people to buses: Each of us has a number of personalities, emotions, and voices within us. What makes the difference in how we live is which one we let control us, i.e. “drive our bus.”

I said in the beginning that I believe fear to be the driving force behind every bad decision we ever make. That doesn’t make fear “bad”, of course; it’s a necessary part of who we are, and most of us wouldn’t survive long without it. Just don’t let it drive the bus when it shouldn’t be.

When fear drives the bus, we lose perspective. Input we should be open to gets shut out, and we get rigid and inflexible in our thinking, if not more.

So, when something comes along that gets your knickers up in knots, ask yourself, “Is it my fear that is creating this situation, or is this a genuine threat?” And if you’re having a hard time figuring it out, see if you can discern what your reasoning is telling you is at stake. If you “give in”, what does it mean for you? Loss of face? More work? Or something real?

Growing something—anything—is a process that will take you and your beliefs to task more than you’d expect. But, if you can remain true to the values you started with, even in the face of your greatest demons, you can far exceed your wildest expectations, and be proud of what you accomplish.

Image by h.koppdelaney.

© Adam for Adam Kayce, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments

Like a baby bird chirping desperately for its mother’s return to the nest to bring the food that will keep it alive, there is a yearning that lives within you, and it calls incessantly. It can be satiated with the smallest of moments, and it has a camel’s resistance to thirst, but if you ignore it too long, it will shrivel and die.

And as it does, color will fade from your world. Meaning will ebb away, enjoyment will wither, and you’ll sit around trying to remember a time in your life when richness existed. You’ll get dry, stiff… and when you hardly recognize the crusty you that you’ve become, you’ll chalk it up to being busy. Or being a parent. Or being a professional. Or getting older.

But it has nothing to do with any of those things.

The Urgent Call is your spirit’s need for connection. Like the migrating herds of the plains of Africa, who travel thousands of miles every year in search of life-giving food and water, your spirit has an essential drive to feel its connection to all around it. It’s the reason we seek community. It’s the reason we search for purpose and meaning in life. It’s the reason we feel better when we’re on a spiritual path, and it’s the reason that it doesn’t really matter what path that ends up being.

What matters is that you connect.
What matters is the Urgent Call gets listened to.
It doesn’t matter how your Urgent Call gets fulfilled, only that it does.

Mind Schmind

Oh, sure, your rational mind wants to be right, it wants everything to make logical sense, and it wants reasoning to explain your beliefs. And those things are fine… for the mind. But the Call doesn’t need those things (which is why it’s doubted and ridiculed so often); the Call just needs connection.

The evidence for this is that this post makes sense to you. Logically? Reasonably? Heck no. Your left brain probably doesn’t have a clue in hell what I’m talking about, and it’s going a little nutso trying to figure out where this is going, matching patterns and looking for a logical conclusion. In fact, it’s probably liking this little explanation, because it can understand it. “Ahh,” it says, “I’m feeling much more comfortable now that you’re speaking my language.”

Left brain loves that this post is probably going to talk about life purpose, or pursuing your passions, or finding what juices you up and going for it. It’s hoping that I’m going to end this post with a three- or five-step process, a witty conclusion, or steps to finding your personal mission statement.

Hey, left brain: F off. This is not for you.

This is for the part of you that cries at sentimental commercials. It’s for the part of you that honors the life and struggle of the smallest spider crawling up your wall. It’s for the part of you that totally gets fed by a moving musical performance, a selfless act of service, or a hug.

If you aren\'t seeing the embedded video, click here to view.

It’s for the part of you that can have all the material things you want in this world, have a great job, eat fabulous food, vacation regularly, drive an expensive car, want for nothing… and still want. Here’s a tip: it’s not the stuff of this world that answers your Urgent Call… it’s the space between the stuff. More accurately, it’s that the space gets seen, felt, and honored.

One moment of touch can do it. One breath of togetherness. One searching call into the great unknown, and the guaranteed answer that returns. Sure, you have to be open to calling, and be open to receive the answer, but it only takes a drop of connection for the momentum of your life to turn around and point you back on the road to fulfillment.

If you’ve been feeling empty lately, as if the world has gone gray-scale, or that you’re just missing something, then now you know what you need to do. Stop looking outside. Stop looking for things to stuff into the hole, because no amount of Dolce & Gabbana, Crate & Barrel, or Ben & Jerry’s is going to do the trick this time. You’re going to have to quiet your mind, stop listening to the fluff, and listen to the essential, the primordial, the ancient.

Make the Call. It’s the only thing that’s going to work.

Image by ~MVI~.

© Adam for Adam Kayce, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments

Not really. It means I’m smart. Yay for me. But it also means I’m a perfectionist out the wazoo, so all these great ideas I have? All the amazing connections I see between things? All the creative impulses I have? They ride on the backs of turtles, past huge guardians of Quality Control, on their slow march towards freedom. It’s a wonder you’re even reading this. But who knows, you might not – I might edit this before I publish it.

I’m not alone, I know this.

You’re probably a perfectionist, too. And if you aren’t, you’ve probably got enough of an internal censor to grasp what I’m saying, even though you may not be bleeding in the trenches with the rest of us. If that’s you, well, good on ya; pass the gauze, will you?

Perfectionism, in its most beautiful out-picturing, is a valiant effort to maintain a degree of quality that you feel the world deserves. It’s a beautiful place, this world of ours, and dadgum, if you’re going to contribute something to it, it should be as beautiful as the rest, right? “Quality is job #1″, and all that. What a wonderful intention!

Perfectionism, unfortunately, also has a downside. When it’s ugly, it’s really not much more than fear of judgment projected outwards. You fear judgment, so you edit and polish and edit some more until either the thing shines, or withers away to nothingness, with no more substance than those dry, crackly vanilla wafer cookie things they sell at Quickie-Marts.

The bummer, then, is that all too often, your brilliance never gets shared with others. It stays hidden, behind the censors of your fear and doubt, until it dies of loneliness and boredom.

The bigger bummer is that the stuff that does go out tends to have two (okay, three) kinds of reception:

1. Either people love it… which makes your censors now tell you you have an even higher level of quality to live up to, or
2. People love it, but they miss the humanity in it. Because you’ve done them the unfortunate disservice of removing so much of you, so much of your process from it, that they miss out on the learning of what you, as a human being, actually went through to create it. Which, most likely, is 90% of what they’re thirsty for.
3. People hate it. But y’know what? Everybody hates something, and somebody hates everything. You can’t win ‘em all; you can only die trying. If somebody hates it, move on. If you use failure to beat yourself up, you’re only helping the censors.

I’m perfectly aware that this post may be loved. And if it is, great. That’s not why I’m writing it, but great. I’m writing it to help, in case there are others like me out there.

And, you may also think it sucks cheese. If you do, go ahead, unsubscribe, click away, or act like a troll in the comment box. It’ll only save me the pressure of feeling I have to perform better next time.

Because whether you like it or not, I’m here to stay.

And that’s what you need to tell your censors, too. You’re here to stay. The part of you that wants to share, to connect, to help, to give — it’s not going away based on the judgments of others, nor because of the rude comments your censors make. You’ve got a voice, and by god, you’re going to use it (no pressure, mind you).

So do it, whatever it is: Write it. Play it. Create it. Design it. Sing it. Build it. Get it out there. Sound that barbaric yawp of yours to the world, brothers and sisters.

Why? Because we need it. We need it so we can shut our own censors up long enough for us to give what we’ve got to give. Because the gems of greatness exist within us, but they need practice to develop, and room to breathe. Because when it comes down to it, even the stuff that most people would call semi-decent can be the catalyst for one person’s dramatic, life-changing epiphany.

So be the example of bravery for someone else. Create, so someone else will, too.

Image by Infinity Rain.

© Adam for Adam Kayce, 2009. | Permalink | 22 comments

Out with the old, in with the new.

That’s my motto right now. I reserve the right to change it, if/when it suits me, but that seems to be the flavor of my thinking lately.

Ever have the feeling your business could use an emema? I did/do, and I’ve been laying down on that table for quite some time now.

To help steer me away from expanding on that metaphor, and to give you some context, let me give you some background. This will be especially helpful for those of you who haven’t known me all that long, all that well, or just are curious about the path I’ve come to tread and where this blog is going. I’ll try to be succinct…

Tra-la-la-ing down memory lane…

When I was 24, I went to a school for energetic healing, which soon became spiritual/energetic healing, and after graduating, I taught for them. But, since it was part-time, I had a private practice on the side, and started teaching groups, too. One thing morphed into another, and I was a healer/intuitive/teacher/thingy, and needed a platform. That platform became Monk at Work.

When my long-time buddy Dawud Miracle got me into blogging (so now you know who to thank/blame), the only way I thought to write was the same way I’d been doing for my email newsletters and for my classes, which was the Authority model. As in, “I’m the authority, and here’s what you need to know.” Which is great, if that’s what you think you need. But, as you’ll soon see, that set me up for some rough times…

Time passed. I kept writing, learning, and teaching. My subscribers grew, and life was good. Until the bottom fell out.

About two years ago, the school I was teaching with underwent both a metamorphosis and a financial crunch, and I found myself jobless. Not a huge deal, I thought; I saw it coming for a long time. I figured I’d be fine with my own classes, clients, and products, and life would continue on pretty much as it had before.

And it was good. I enjoyed my work, I kept on writing, and, free of the organization that had shaped so much of my development for so many years, and all the expectations that came along with it, I was free to explore my spiritual path without anyone “looking over my shoulder”, so to speak. I was accountable to no one but myself.

But then, doubts that I had long been suppressing arose. Rumors that had been circulating were examined. Curtains were lifted, and I peered behind them. And—long story carefully sidestepped—I didn’t like what I found.

This led to a lot of soul searching. And a lot of research. And a lot of raging. And a few pity parties (I was the only one who attended, though, thank god). And I came to a few inescapable conclusions:

• I didn’t like how exclusionary my beliefs had become.
• I didn’t feel the same kind of joy with my spiritual path as I once did.
• I didn’t like having my spiritual well-being and my financial well-being merged into one vehicle.
• I had lost my spiritual direction, and going back to it was not an option.

Now, if you think this is easy for me to write about, you’re dead wrong. I’m practically crapping in my pants writing this right now, because I’ve never said this publicly before. Imagine: the financial well-being of your wife and kids, who count on you for the roof over their heads and the food on their plates, is on your shoulders. You have clients, students, and people in your community who look to you for direction, and you no longer have answers for them. All of your so-called status is wrapped up in something that just evaporated like a fart in the wind. And now, you’re talking about it with the world.

What do you do?

Well, I have no idea what you’d do, but here’s what I did: I quit teaching. I completed with all my clients and handed them to someone else. I collapsed my website and tried going in a different direction (Viverati, I’m looking at you). I plunged headlong into a long-time hobby of mine—webdesign—and beefed up my skills to the point where I could go professional with it. I learned more about WordPress that I knew there was to know, and I keep learning more all the time. In short, I took a side passion and ran with it, because my old roads had been demolished.

But still, Monk at Work remains.

This blog remains. You remain, reading this. And even though I haven’t felt very Monkish in quite some time, I realize that this is my home, and I want to be here. I want to have you here. But not as your Authority.

When I announced Monk at Work’s Grand Re-Opening, I thought I could just waltz back in and start writing again. But with all that got washed away in my great flood, the Authority model got washed away with it.

Every week I think, “I really need to write a blog post”, but I haven’t been able to. My habits turn to the Authority model, but my heart is somewhere else. I’m not the Authority anymore, if I ever even was. I’m just me, in a monk’s clothing (speaking of, if anyone knows where I can get some saffron monk’s robes, I’d love to know).

It took some time, some conversations with my wife, and a few good examples to see that I have a voice without the Authority, and it’s worth sharing.

Besides, I don’t think being teachy-preachy really helps all that much. What I think helps is having friends to share the journey with, hearing the real story from what people go through, and learning from the experiences of others. The people I like to read the most aren’t proselytizing, they’re just being themselves. The funnier, the crazier, the more unique, the more honest and authentic, the better. I don’t expect them to be “the world’s best”; I expect them to be themselves.

Whether people show up at their finest, or fall flat on their face, makes no difference. I feel closer to them when they’re being honest, and I learn either way. So why, on God’s Green Earth, am I expecting something else from myself, and from you?

So, here’s the wake-up call.

If you’ve been reading me because you want a perfect model of how to be/do/have something, it’s time to unsubscribe, and search for your own personal guru somewhere else. There are plenty of people out there who would love to take your fawning admiration and inflate themselves with it, but I’m no longer one of them. It disgusts me that I used to be in that fraternity, even if it wasn’t a conscious intention of mine to be there. It happened, and I’m putting it behind me.

If you’re wanting to hear the personal journey of a man trying to live consciously, do good things, learn fun stuff, get in damn good shape, and unleash his triple-Virgo self all over what it takes to operate a successful website, then stick around. I’m planning to share my insights on all the stuff I’m interested in, from productivity to WordPress to macs, from CrossFit to personal development to social media, and try to do it all as genuinely and authentically as I can. No promises of brilliance, no claims to perfection, no one-up/one-down teacher/student relationships. Just me. Just you.

Image by pixelfahrenheit20.
Just friends.

© Adam for Adam Kayce, 2008. | Permalink | 30 comments

If you want to make an impact in the world, you have to express yourself. And the way you’ve expressed yourself so far has been good, in that it has gotten you to where you are now. But if you want to go beyond where you’ve come, you need to make a shift. And making a shift in how you express yourself is one of the toughest things to do. (Spinning plates, juggling knives, doing a back handspring? Child’s play.)

Expression isn’t about words, and it isn’t about style… even though these factor into it heavily. It’s easy to get into ruts with your language, your catch-phrases, your metaphors. Expression is about viewpoints. It’s about perspective. It’s tied fundamentally to the eyes through which you see the world around you, and all the filters between your brain and the world it’s trying to make sense of.

Try this: think about your business. Think about who you serve, and what you do for them. Write it down. Keep it simple. Got it?

Now, come at it from a completely different angle, and do it again. Try seeing it as you’ve never seen it before. (Go ahead, take a minute and do it. I’ll wait.)

See how frickin’ hard that is?

You might have come up with some different phrases, or maybe a different way of languaging your process. Good for you. But did you notice how easy it was to slip back into your old way of seeing things? Did you feel how hard it was not to trudge down the same road as usual?

What does any of this matter?

It matters because it’s necessary. It matters because, in order to stay on top of the wave of a world that’s in constant flux, you have to constantly be reinventing your view on yourself. Why? Because people are constantly re-evaluating you each and every time they come in contact with you, and if you keep on spouting the same old tired platitudes, you’ll slip gently into the good night of obsoleteness.

As Hugh McLeod (of gapingvoid.com) wrote in his HughTrain Manifesto,

It’s no longer just enough for people to believe that your product does what it says on the label. They want to believe in you and what you do. And they’ll go elsewhere if they don’t.

It’s not enough for the customer to love your product. They have to love your process as well.

Now this isn’t some isolated business-speak, devoid of deeper implications or the need for actual human intimacy, here. Hugh goes on to say, “It’s not about merit. It’s about faith. Belief. Conviction. Courage. It?s about why you?re on this planet. To make a dent in the universe.” In other words, if you want to reach people, you have to dig deep. You have to extract the essence of what you’re about, and offer it up on a platter to anyone and everyone who reads you, gets in contact with you, or even remotely thinks about hiring you. And if you hope for being referred to others, be prepared to share your soul.

And, my friends, none of this can be done without some open-hearted introspection, dogged determination to strike to the core of who you are and what you do, and the genuine desire to connect with your fellow (wo)man. If you insist on mamby-pamby’ing around with superficialities, you’ll marginalize yourself. There’s too much ambient noise these days to just whimper, and expect to be heard. If you want to be heard, you’ve gotta yawp.

I know, I know…

This is tough stuff. This is bare-naked, raw-to-the-bone stuff. But it doesn’t have to be ugly. It can be a glorious sharing of your innermost desires, an arms-wide-open invitation to the world to glimpse the essence of who you are. And sharing of that magnitude rarely goes unrewarded.

Some may not like what they see. Some may object, driven by their own fears and doubts, and blame you for their pain. Others may counsel you to take a safer road, or keep hidden, or “appear professional (i.e. do ‘the ostrich routine’).” I say, let them have their way. You forge yours. Let them leave. You stay. And shine.

Some people—the right people, the people who matter—will love you for it. Why? Because you’ve given them something to love, something to wrap their hands around and hug. Those who stay hidden can’t touch, or be touched, like this.

It takes courage to step outside of your comfort zone. But that’s okay. I know you can do it. I believe in you.

Image by sleepysparrow.

© Adam for Adam Kayce, 2008. | Permalink | 10 comments

Love it or hate it, Twitter is a social phenomenon that deserves recognition. It may not be for you, and if you’ve tried it to find out, great. Enjoy the silence.

If you haven’t tried it, though, I’d recommend giving it a shot. It could just be the best thing you’ve ever found. Once you’ve had it demystified and myth-debunked, that is.

Update: I’m still Twittering, although less than I used to. Why? I think I’m still figuring out how to use it… although Havi’s post (look at that last link) has helped tremendously with my attitude towards the whole thing.

The Twitter community has also grown substantially, and there are some fantastic tools and resources out there in case you’re wanting to dip your toes in the pool. I heartily recommend TweetDeck as the best Twittering tool out there, and Darren Rowse’s TwiTip is an excellent site for picking up great twitter tips, especially for beginners.

© Adam for Adam Kayce, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments

There is a saying in business: “If you are unhappy with someone’s service, ‘talk with your feet.’” Meaning, leave. They say that the window to please a customer these days is getting shorter and shorter.

But that’s a completely ridiculous course of action. (Not to mention, childish.)

The problem with this strategy is that a) you, as a patron, don’t get what you want, and b) the business doesn’t get what it wants. The business obviously wants happy customers, people to have a long-term relationship with and, ultimately, success.

But you want the same thing, right? You want whatever amazing benefit or solution you went to the company for in the first place. Say, for example, you went with a company because you liked the way they did things, i.e. you liked their service or you like their product, and while you were getting it, you were happy.

But then, they changed something. They changed the way they delivered the product, or they changed their logo or their colors (hey, I’ve known people who’ve jumped ship for smaller reasons!). Who knows what it was, but they made some change and you don’t like it.

And what is the typical response? Talk with your feet, right? You unsubscribe, leave, or just stop buying their product. Now, if you’re one of the rare few, maybe you give the company feedback before you leave, saying, “I don’t like this new change; I think you were better before.” But then, you’re gone.

But who suffers most?

You’ve left, feeling upset (but justified)… but now, you’re no longer getting the juicy stuff. You’re without the service that you went there for originally. And, unless you’re one of the rare few, the company has no idea why you’ve left. Either way, you lose, and they lose.

And here’s the long-term view: what if the company changes back? You don’t even know about it, because you’re not paying attention anymore. Big mistake.

In order to get what you want, you need to help the company to improve by giving them the feedback you have for them… and then, stick around. Be there when they change. And if they don’t, tell them again. Ask why they’re doing it the way they are. Get in their face, if you need to. It’s how relationships get worked out, and not just abandoned.

A personal example…

I had a student once in one of my classes who used to complain about just about everything (seriously). In the beginning, this drove me crazy (I figured she hated how I taught) and, of course, it brought up all my insecurities about my abilities. But then I realized it’s not that she didn’t like me… she actually loved me. She just wanted the best that I could give her, and she knew I was capable of it.

Luckily (claiming no genius on my part), I was able to put down my ego and make the changes that she asked for. And not only did it improve her experience, but it also made the class much better for everyone (they told me so after the fact). It was a win-win situation all the way around.

So, the next time a company or business that you like—be it Apple Computer, the plumber down the street, or a Thai restaurant you visit—changes anything they do for the worse, or if you just have a bad experience, tell them about it. Speak up, but then stick around and see how they make their changes.

You’ll be much happier in the end.

Image by Basak.

© Adam for Adam Kayce, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments

L-R: Kane, me, Cree, Garrett

No exploding tires, no big catastrophe this time, don’t worry.

But I had it in mind to write a great review of what happened at SOBCon08, and then I thought—especially in light of all the great reviews being posted out there—would that really be helpful? Would it help you to hear about the things I did, the food I ate, the people I talked to, and the sights I saw on my trip to Chicago this month?

No, not really. It probably wouldn’t. (Other than to give you social proof that SOBCon is great, and you should really go next year if you’re even at all curious.)

So, what would benefit you?

1. I had a great time. Now you can be happy for me (thanks).
2. It was a great catalyst for a number of decisions I needed to make, and you’ll be hearing about the fruits of those decisions very, very soon.
3. It reinforced for me the importance of friendship, community, and why it’s so great to go to events like this.

Because the information I heard was great, but it didn’t make as large an impact on me as when I went last year. At SOBCon07, I had been blogging about three weeks… so the information presented blew me away. Everything that anyone said was so helpful, so new, so eye-opening.

But this time, with a year of blogging behind me (never liked the whole ‘under my belt’ metaphor), it was the people I met and hung out with that really made the event. Last year’s connections and friendships got renewed and deepened, and I got to meet a bunch of new people, too. I even got to hug a few fabulous people I’ve known from across the world, and met face-to-face with for the first time.

And, true, I made some great business connections, too. It turns out that quite a few people are in need of a WordPress-based webdesigner, or know people who are, and so I ran out of business cards before too long (a problem I’m happy to have). And, it was the first time I’ve really been at a public event since making the transition to full-time webdesign work, and it felt good to call myself a webdesigner, and not have to try to explain all kinds of esoteric, spiritual-intuitive stuff. (And, admittedly, it was great to be with other web-and-blog-savvy folks, so I didn’t just have to say, “I make websites…”)

In the week or so since being in Chicago, what I think back on the most was the time spent laughing, talking, eating, walking, and shmoozing with the wonderful people. As someone who works alone, at home, 99% of the time, having a chance to “press the flesh” (and I mean that in the cleanest of ways) with friends and colleagues is indispensable.

Relationships are the cornerstone of what makes life juicy, I believe.

• Looking at it in a worldly way, you could say that life isn’t made by the stuff we have, or the things we do, but by the lives we touch and the hearts we influence and are influenced by. Some of the best moments in our lives are the ones involving other people, and the deep, meaningful connections we have with them.
• Looking at it in a spiritual way, you could say (as many have and do) that we are all One. That at our core, we are all connected by the spirit that enlivens and interpenetrates everything… and the more connection we experience, the more fulfilling and meaningful our lives become. And the more we interact and relate with people, given the right intention, the more we realize this.

Of course, these are two perspectives that start where they start and meet in the middle, but I find that to be indicative of most truths. The more you look at it, the more you see the same thing being said, just from different angles.

And so, it turns to you

What’s your social situation like? Are you normally alone, or saturated by contact? And because both are important for all kinds of reasons, we each need strategies to get the right balance of what we need, when we need it, of course… but just so we don’t make this too cumbersome a conversation, let’s focus on the get-you-more-people-time side, for now (we’ll get into the get-you-more-alone-time side later.)

What do you do to get more people-time?

Image of “The Cool Table” by me. L-R: Christine Kane, me, Chris Cree, Chris Garrett.

© Adam for Adam Kayce, 2008. | Permalink | 7 comments

chuckp

The conversation that’s gotten started from “How Do You Orient To The Divine?” is one that I’m really, really enjoying. It’s the kind of discussion (one of them, at least) that I was hoping would happen when I started Monk at Work.

I’ve been touched by the sentiments shared, because it’s easy to see that people are really looking at their beliefs, and perhaps, questioning them. Personally, I’ve been questioning my beliefs for most of my life, and it has been a very fruitful debate.

One of the things I wrote was, “I’ve been both [a dualist and a monist],” The truth is, I could have easily added, “and, I’ve been neither — for most of my youth, I didn’t believe in anything.”

“- gasp – is it true? the monk was once an atheist?”

Yeah, but it’s really not that big a deal, I don’t think. If anything, it demonstrates my belief in having first-hand experience of something in order to make a decision about it. Because I didn’t have those experiences in my youth, I didn’t believe.

Things change, though.

In the explorations of my twenty-something years (and since), I’ve had a number of experiences where I’ve tangibly felt and communicated on some level with a presence that I’ve come to call Divine.

And, I’ve also had plenty of times where I’ve questioned it all, including all my experiences, no matter how strong and sure they were in the moment.

What I’ve come to is this: I suppose I could argue that my first-hand experience is unquestionable. Or, I just as easily say that every experience is subject to doubt. Which is to say, I could argue for, or against, the existence of a Divine presence, and I’d probably be right.

But I also have come to realize that even more important than being right is being rich. Having a full, abundant experience of life is more important to me than scoring an “A” on any scorecard that my mind (or anyone else’s) would hand out. And whether I’m right or wrong, for me, believing in the Divine (and living the life that stems from that) is the path to the richest, fullest experience of life I know.

So, whether you believe or don’t, I don’t really mind. I can support and love you in either. And where I truly want to support you is finding what works for you to have the richest, fullest experience of life that you can.

© Adam for Adam Kayce, 2007. | Permalink | 11 comments