 Dear Why Team Member, I hope this week’s message finds you well and enjoying Now. As my boys and I were recently on vacation growing our European history, knowledge and customs, it behooves me to stop and give thanks for simply being born in this country, in this era. Have you ever pondered what your life would have been like had you been born as a…peasant under a tyrant king?
Why does our own life design sometimes do more harm than good? Have we gotten too busy to ask why? German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche once said, ‘He who has a why can endure any how.’ And I bet that is true not only for you and I living now but for any peasant living under the rule of a tyrant. Knowing our why is an important first step in figuring out how best to achieve the goals that excite us and create a life we enjoy living. Do you have too little margin to find time to ask why? The faster we move, the more blurry things can become. Our best efforts to be effective can often lead us to harm the very people we love and seek to serve the most. Our pursuit to "DO more" can keep us from "BEING more". It is very easy to become more a human-doing than a human-being. My personal journey has revealed time and again that......the best thing I can do, at times, is to slow down enough to ask the question "why?" Each of us have only so much capacity, our fuel tanks can hold only so much fuel and while I am all about testing the limits, I have also found it's unwise to run too long on fumes. Life has a way of throwing us curve balls, and when it does, if our tanks are running on empty, we may not have the fuel necessary to be our best selves in the heat of the moment. A few years ago, a fellow Why Team member and good friend of mine shared an awakening he had when he asked himself why he gets so frustrated, and sometimes a little unkind to his children, when they leave their dirty clothes inside out. Why? Because, he said, their behavior adds additional work for him when pulling their clothes from the dryer, having to turn them right-side out before he can fold them, therefore causing him to be less efficient and effective than he wants to be. Hmm… Haven't we all been there? Albeit with our own unique examples? Why would we put our systems and rules above the very people those systems and rules are developed to support?! To catch myself in these moments, I'll simply ask what is more important, my rules or the person those rules have been built to serve. While the rules we establish are important, they are never more important than the people we seek to serve with them. You are the designer of your life, you largely make the rules that fuel your effectiveness, you can adjust those rules, you can change them - at least those you have put above the people you love. Lou Cassara, author of "From Selling to Serving", said it well when he said, "Who you are being is far more important than what you are doing." The quality of our doing is largely born from the quality of our being. When we find ourself getting upset, for any reason, consider asking “Why?". And does that ‘why’ align with the best version of who you aspire to be. Next time you're doing laundry, and find a shirt inside out, smile and turn it right-side out while feeling the love you have for the person that wears that shirt - above and beyond any rule that may inconvenience you. There is always another time to review house rules to be more effective as a family, but know our primary identity is not found in our doing, but rather in our being. Be more patient and loving toward yourself and no doubt you will be more patient and loving toward others. Love yourself more, for who you are being, not just for what you are doing, and you will be more of what the world needs now. Make it a great week, Steve Luckenbach Comments are closed.
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