Embracing contradiction and developing adaptability
There’s an old story I sometimes tell.
It’s from one of the many Buddhist traditions.
It goes like this:
Some students go to their Master, and say: ‘You’re a fraud! We don’t want to study with you anymore!’
The Master smiled softly and stroked his beard (for this story comes from a time when Masters were men with long, grey beards).
‘Why do you say so?’ he replied.
‘You say one thing to one of us, the opposite to another. You keep changing your mind. Tell us truths. Tell us how to live rightly. We came here to learn, not be confused.’
‘Interesting’, replied the Master, still stroking his beard.
‘Imagine’, he said after a short pause, ‘that, together, we’re walking through the mountains. We’re on a narrow, winding, dangerous path. To the left is a steep drop. To the right, also, a steep drop.’
The angry students had fallen silent, imagining the scene the Master described.
‘I too am on the path’, the Master continued, ‘for we walk together. I’m a few steps ahead of you, because I’ve walked this path before. I guide you. I keep you safely on the path. I look back and say to one of you: ‘Go left a little’. To another I’ll say: ‘Go a little to the right’. To a third: ‘Keep going exactly as you are.’ To the one I said ‘go right’, a few moments later, I might say: ‘Go left’.
My purpose is to help you stay on the path.’
‘If I contradict myself’, the Master continued, ‘it’s because life is full of contradiction. I cannot walk for you. I can only help you stay on the path. In the end I can’t tell you which direction to travel, You may choose to walk a different path through the mountains. I can only guide you to what I see you need today, to stay on this path. Each day is different. What you need each day will change.’
As with so many stories of masters and students, this isn’t about learning from someone else.
We’re each our own master.
Each our own student.
There’s many one-size-fits-all approaches to growth and change.
You seem them everywhere. Promises. Systems. Guarantees. Simple 7-step programmes. Life hacks.
So many words for snake-oil.
They work sometimes, and sometimes not.
They might take you forward today, backwards tomorrow, leave you lost the day after.
Life is magnificent contradiction, and to live your life fully is to embrace uncertainty. No rigid system acknowledges that simple fact.
Effective growth combines clear intention and fearless adaptability.
Some days you need to work harder. Some days less hard.
Some days you need to focus. Some days drift and mull.
Some days you need to connect outwards Some days retreat inward.
We know this to be true, though often we wish it were not true.
Some days we prefer the certainties of a wise master, to whom we give responsibility for the journey.
It’s a comforting delusion.
To acknowledge this is bad marketing though.
People who know about marketing (rightly I’m sure) insist an offer should be simple. It should assure potential customers that change or growth will ask very little of them.
An offer should suggest outcomes are guaranteed and effortless.
Easy, quick, repeatable.
But on a narrow, winding path through the mountains, if you keep walking in a straight line, you’ll fall off.
If you stop paying attention to your next step, you’ll stumble.
If you refuse to hear the voice of your guide, you’ll end up lost.
If you blindly follow your guide you may end up somewhere you don’t want to be.
When we seek a guide, mentor, coach, teacher, instructor, we often seek certainty.
Certainty is a myth.
It’s comfortable but, like mountain mist, disappears in the heat of the day.
When we decide we want no other guide but our own intuition, we can also fall into a trap of certainty. We believe our own mythology and stories. We blindly pursue aims and ambitions, ignoring how the world around us and the world within, are changed by time and experience.
We find ourselves, aged 30, pursuing the dreams we had when we were 20.
Scared to change, we push on, and find at 50 we’re still trying to fulfil our 20-year-old’s ambitions.
We reach retirement and find we’ve sacrificed our whole lives to pursuing a path we were told (or told ourselves) would lead to happiness.
We started on that path before we’d tasted the world for ourselves.
It’s not inevitable.
Whatever path we walk, we can listen for the voice of the Old Master — whoever she or he might be to each of us.
We can hear what we need to do to stay on the path. ‘More of this’. ‘Less of that’. “Small changes of direction.’ ‘Hurry on to reach safety before nightfall.’ ‘Slow down to appreciate the view or conserve energy’.
We can also remind ourselves, every time we reach a junction, that we each day choose the path we walk. We cand ecide whether the guide we’re listening to is still the guide we want to follow.
Intention is our path.
Adaptability is how we stay securely on it.
We can find a guide outside ourselves, or hear the guide within.
But the choice, in the end, is ours.
After thirty years performing, directing and teaching around the world, now I coach and mentor artists and others to live in joy and creativity. I also still perform sometimes, but usually keep my clothes on.
I recently published a free training ‘How to make BIG decisions when you feel really stuck’. It’s a PDF and video. Get your copy here.
More information about me here: www.johnbritton.co
Email: [email protected]