5 questions to navigate the choices life throws us
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A few months ago, I was sitting at a restaurant table across from three gentlemen I have the pleasure to work with, and for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect. Above the remains of an excellent meal, the conversation gently veered towards the principles we hold that preside to our choices. Each of these choices we take, wether as individuals or as communities, are grounded in assumptions and principles. Often these principles remain implicit and unconscious. But what becomes possible for us when our choices are powered by conscious, explicit principles?
Eight weeks ago, I left the vehicle that I thought was my working anchor: Percolab. For the last few years it has been my lighthouse and my home — the place that grounded my identity as a professional and practitioner. It was my learning and belonging ground, and I was blessed to be building it with a group of fellow human beings with whom it seemed to me that nothing was impossible. No obstacle could not be overturned. No conversation was off-bound. I had found my Home, and I had gained superpowers.
Still, after all these years where Percolab was to me a beacon of stability, a few weeks ago I felt a sense of exhaustion gradually take me over. I was tired. Blocked. Incapable of moving forward. I understood that the collective was moving in a direction that was not mine, and I felt out of breath. Percolab was scaling, developing, getting out of its shell, and it was beautiful to see. I needed connection, learning, depth. I needed to breathe, and slow down to a rhythm that would allow me to breathe and grow again. It is when I understood that, that I decided to leave, and change directions. A point of bifurcation presented itself. A choice was made. But what was behind this choice?
This is where I am coming back to this notion of principles, whether they appear in the projects we lead or in other spheres of our lives. What is it that leads us to choose a direction over another, to accept or decline projects? Months ago, this was the heart of the conversation around the small restaurant table. And I remember that to this simple question: « what is it that leads to accept or decline work? » one of us had answered that the question for him was to know whether that project was going to help him become a better person. These few words, to me, felt like someone had hit a gong bell.
I stayed with this answer. And I took it as my own. I then understood that, for me too, this had been a leading principle in my life and work choices. And now this was explicit. The work I had done, and the work I was going to do, had to help me become a better person. And today I want to explore what my other principles are. Without surprise, it is a list of questions. A living list, bound to expand and change over time, only because clarity is not so much a result as it is a process of infinite unveiling.
1. Does this project help me become a better person?
We are all engaged in a process of humaning — becoming human beings. And f I want to participate in the emergence of a more desirable future for all, it begins with transforming myself. It begins with recognizing the powers that I hold and those that I have inherited. I have a privilege, a voice, a status that I did not earn. I know how to navigate the dominant culture, because I look like it, because it was created by people like me. I want to participate in a fairer, more equitable world, a world where each human being can be seen, heard, honored, and can rise to its potential. It begins with seeing and recognizing my own relationship with power, privilege, voice. I want and I call for work and projects that help me learn about myself, about others, and where I can grow into a more powerful, a better version of myself.
2. Does this project add more beauty to our world?
Cultivating beauty, to me, means holding the line between what is and what what we want to see, and be. Beauty is in congruency. Some people like to speak about alignment. Care and inquiry are my weapons to touch this congruency. I want to invest my energy in spaces that will enable me to sharpen those weapons, projects that are explicit about cultivating for this kind of beauty in our world.
3. Does this project instill a bit of fear in me?
If yes, that is a good sign. I want to work in projects to push me towards my edge. I know that where there is that trembling, that fear, that is also where learning is. We tremble because we touch a limit, a potential that is not yet manifested or named. I am calling for projects that get me to touch that untapped power, that give me the space to uncover it by jumping into the unknown.
4. Will this project leave the world in a better shape than when it started?
I want to help those who do good work, by taking of themselves and others. I want to help those who want to do good work through working better. I listen. I inquire. I reframe. With kindness and openness. And together we become able to uncover the darker patterns, the shadow sides, what is outside the frame and what limits us. Together we develop our capacity to see the rocky parts where our good intentions get stranded. Together we learn to practice from our unknowing to wider the range of what we know.
5. Will this project help us make wiser choices, collectively?
I want to be in co-learning with others of my full capacity as a human being, with all my strengths and my vulnerabilities. This means that I want to learn how we can be together in spaces where we get to explore our gifts, and where those gifts are wanted and called. I want to support the emergence of a new culture of being, thinking and doing together. We need to learn how to see and listen to this new culture. We need to learn how to rediscover it. We have learned to hide it to our senses. We can learn to express it again through new and old practices of listening and caring: caring for others, and listening for what life is calling from us. Only then will we become able to make wiser choices and fully participate to the well-being of what my 7-year old Rachel calls, in her infinite wisdom: “the kingdom of Life”.
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What if we learned
together
the art of humaning
to better see one another
and know one another and
help each other
fulfill our full potential
in service of Life?
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What about you? What are some of your big and small principles to choose where your steps will lead you?
ici - ailleurs 