663: Your Path To A Chaos-Liberating Will NOT Be Straight

In about a year from now, Business On Purpose will celebrate its 10-year anniversary. The statistics range, but it has been said 96% of businesses never see their 10th birthday. When milestones and thresholds are crossed over questions begin peppering your inbox searching for the “secret to your success” as if there is a singular ingredient that concocted the cake that now stands in the display. It may be worth noting that success is not a given destination and instead is a manufactured line that we cross of our own making.  Ashley and I have been married since 1998 and while we celebrate the miles we have traveled together, we know that that are another 50 years yet to explore and the path we laid in those early years is not representative of the path we actually took. I once read a quote by Seth Godin saying, “I am an overnight success and it only took me 14 years to get here.”   Father Richard Rohr remarked, “This journey is a spiral and never a straight line”. When asked to share our story and background it is crucial that we begin with, “mine is a fragmented blueprint…not a linear set of logical lines.” In the chaos of life there are curbs along the side of the road that can and will act as a rudder for the ship of your life while navigating the open seas of your daily reality.  In the spirit of Anne Dillard, you have the agency for those rudders to be “willed, faked, and so brought into being.” There are four filters that we have willed and faked guiding our decision making, influencing our investment of resources, and shaping our worldview. Generosity Intentionality Togetherness Perspective The rudder of generosity ensures that we are at least confronted with the tough decision to forego the consumption of some resources for our own pleasure and instead joyfully share those with others, with no expectation of expressed gratitude in return.    The emotional labor of intentionality works to will meaning into mundane daily activities.  We can choose to wake and “make the donuts”, or we can choose to feed others with whimsy and joy!  Both actions are the same, proactive intentionality infuses a premeditation about what you are trying to cause brings significant motivational increase to everyone influenced.   The focus of togetherness offers a powerful alternative in a society riddled with the ammunition of isolation.  Instead of more time alone, we need better time alone and observant time when we are with others.  Distraction is disrupting a disjointedly disagreeable culture unnecessarily disgracing an otherwise distinguished relationship.  The focus of togetherness helps to disengage the tragedy of isolation. Finally, the overlook of perspective allows us to take in and understand the sweeping geography that surrounds us.  Worldviews, faiths, convictions, doctrines, rituals, formalities, and codes all seem a little less crazy when we are able to ride the hot air ballon of perspective above the fracas and with a safe distance from the heat of emotions that whips a cultural fever. Coolheadedness has space to breathe on the hill of perspective.   These four values (generosity, intentionality, togetherness, and perspective) have helped provide lucidity in the spiral and fragmented blueprint for the short breathe of our life.  These four are the four that emerged for us and are likely different than the values that emerge for you. Everything seems a straight line when admired from the rearview, but the spiral of your future will help uncover the boundaries of your decisions.  The moment you have it figured out the line curves again.   Looking back on the spiral of your life, what principles have guided your decisions?  If chaos is the prevailing principle, today is a great day to make a different choice…an intentional choice.