Future Guardian,
"whoooAH." ... "hauh" ... "Daarruuuuaa"
He crawls over and stops. Looking right down at the floor by his hands.
It's a little folded up paper bag.
"gaaaaHA"
He regards it. Then grabs it.
Plops back down.
I watch him fiddle with the paper. He curiously runs his thumbnail against the paper.
scckkkaaaachhh skacch skacch
"HUUAH"
He turns it over in his hands. He sees the wire clip folding it shut. Tries to undo the fold.
He pauses. Regarding the bag.
"AHHHHH HA HA GHAAAA"
He wildly flaps his arms and flings the bag over his head.
On to the next inspection.
I love watching my 8 month old son explore and experience the world around him. Every little thing is curiously new. Every little thing must be inspected, touched, experienced.
It's how we grow.
How we discover what we like and don't like. How we discover who we are. How we discover who we can be.
Literal contact with reality.
And yet as with many of the lessons we can learn from our own selves growing up, we lose them in the tumult of the world and life.
The Shortcut They Want You to Take
"The biggest mistake I made was not starting this 5 years ago."
I read this recently from a highly skilled and entertaining email copywriter (unsurprisingly, in the context of trying to sell a course about doing what he does).
I couldn't help but think ...
"Really? Are you sure? Because 5 years ago you sure as heck weren't who you are now, and who you are now is why what you do is so damn good."
There are many forces at work that want you to think the reason you aren't doing something, or aren't succeeding, is because you are afraid, or you don't know the right things to do. They want you to believe you can have it all without making the same mistakes they made over the last 10 years.
But why does no one consider this? The reason they have all this "success" now is precisely because they took 10 years and made all those mistakes.
The Reality of Life
The reality of life is that we operate from inside our own box.
Not only can we not see ourselves (and thus need A Mirror) but the way we see the world is bound entirely by our nurtured perception.
Ideas become truth once you've heard them from enough people enough times with enough authority.
Truth becomes our perceived principle and reality when we accept it as such.
All through high school I thought the path I had to take was to go to college, go to grad school, get some degrees, get a career, get a family, house with the picket fence, etc.
That was the truth of the world. That's what you did.
So that's the path I walked.
But that was a truth fed to me. That was a truth I digested through limited lenses of experience.
"That's just what you do in life."
Turns out, you can do any damn thing you well please and imagine in life.
Funnily enough, even with that understanding, every new sphere of expertise I've stepped into I've fallen back into the perspective of "That's just what you do." After all, when you're new to something you often seek guidance in that thing, and it's highly alluring to learn "how to win without the pain."
We think we need to do things a certain way, because that's what successful people say. Because we grew up in a culture and society that is based on being valid over being useful.
What matters is getting the correct answer on the test.
What matters is having the right score.
What matters is being approved by everyone else who is also seeking the same level of approval. All of this validity seeking pools into a circle of mediocrity. Everyone following this path is melting into the same average "person."
But we might internally rebel against this idea that you must do things a certain way, because it doesn't feel natural. And it isn't natural.
So then we get sucked in by people giving us "the answer" to do things not a certain way, yet all the while we're still falling for the same trap. Even the maxim "do the opposite of what everyone else is doing" binds you to the same reality.
It's scary to just take what you believe, take your experience, ignore everyone else, and make the next best step1 right in front of you. To put into action what you know about yourself and what you believe to be correct.
Because you could be wrong.
And to a certain degree, you probably WILL be wrong.
So to avoid being wrong, to avoid failing, to avoid looking like an idiot and an asshole in front of people we know and especially in front of people we don't know, we look for the answer elsewhere.
We seek that shortcut.
We avoid doing the work and instead try to snatch the answer out of the ether.
But there is no shortcut, no matter what other people try to claim.
There is no right answer, no matter what anyone says.
There is no right or wrong.
There's ONLY you, who you are, and what you can do.
Through all this we are submerged in a sea of our own pride, fear, shame, hope, expectation, and all the rich emotional landscape that makes us human and is rigged to make sure we survive in a world where a shadow behind a rock could be a lion about to eat you ...
Fortunately we don't live in a world where we have to worry about the shadows being lions about to eat us.
And unfortunately, we NEED to be able to be wrong in order to learn and change and grow. Our world is far more complex than the world where the shadow could be a lion. We aren't spending our days gathering food and just fending for our survival (not in the "could-be-a-lion-over-there" kind of sense).
But succumbing to the base human survival fears, seeking the shortcut, avoiding the work, NOT having contact with reality, trying to avoid making mistakes, means you will NOT learn.
You will not learn what it is you need to know in order to understand how to play your game.
You will not learn what it is you need to know in order to take that understanding and apply it to your solvable problem in order to get the life you really want.
The ONLY path is The Earned Path.2
Contact With Reality
Valuing your mistakes is a perspective in embracing "contact with reality." One of the core concepts here at TGA.
Consider the travelling man from "embracing yourself."3 Contact with reality is taking each step and being aware of the present moment, not losing your perspective in the distant mountain you are trying to reach, being blind to all that is around you.
Contact with reality is the physical manifestation of your present belief in who you are and why you do what you do which is necessary in order to confirm your beliefs, your ideas.
It's necessary to learn and grow.
It's necessary for getting all of the pieces together in the way that makes sense for YOU, so that you can achieve the life you really desire.
As a personal example, let's consider writing.
I see writing as an extension of my thoughts. Every time I write, I get to externally observe the indescribable visceral ideas and feelings creating vivid yet often formless and describe-less imagery in my mind. Putting the words on page creates an experience which reveals through emergence the thing I'm actually searching for or trying to describe or share.
Contact with Reality is all about Emergence.
Emergence of your true self and Emergence of the things you really need to do to live the life you want.
Emergence is a powerful force which we can nurture through systems and practices that respect and honor the two inevitable forces of life - Time and Randomness. Doing the work, valuing your mistakes, having contact with reality gives you time to benefit from Time and Randomness, and it is in this form where great things "Emerge."
But, you MUST be in the thick of it AND aware and observant of yourself in order to recognize when the right things emerge.
As another example, let's consider copywriting - the skill of writing marketing words which typically sell products, build brands, and in general drive/coax/influence the actions of prospects and customers with respect to a business.
As a freelance copywriter, it's easy to say you need "Contact with Reality" in order to get results from your work and get paid. But those things are byproducts of everything else.
Contact with Reality helps you understand many things, including:
- What it is that you really do best
- What is is that you really enjoy the most
- What it is that you would never do no matter how much money was involved
- The kind of people you want to work with, and the kind of people you never want to work with again
- How, through all the infinite choices and potential, can something like copywriting fit into the fabric of your life such that you can meet your solvable problem
- Discovering the emergence of principles, strategies, and tactics uniquely combined to create outcomes no one else is
You can't KNOW any of that without consistent contact with reality. And all of that I think anyone reading can easily see is pretty vital to understand if you're going to have a career as a copywriter.
(Take any profession/skill through the above and you'll discover all the same things)
Contact with Reality is the implementation of the things you know about yourself which ALLOWS you to really discover and understand yourself, to play your own game.
It can't be done any other way.
But many people fear contact with reality, whether they realize it or not, because they don't want to make mistakes. They don't want to fail. So they seek the easiest answer they can find.
Our Youngest is A Climber
I mentioned our 8 month old son. We also have 3 other older kids. They are wonderful sweethearts with the baby. They absolutely love him.
When he falls, they are concerned and protective.
And falling is inevitable.
Especially with this little guy. Every chance he gets he's trying to stand up. It's his favorite activity. He's so excited for the day when he can walk (and a little frustrated sometimes that he can't already). We're already strategizing about the bookshelves, because no doubt he's gonna try to climb them.
One of the common reactions I've seen from our older kids is, "oh no! we have to make sure he doesn't fall. He needs to learn how to not fall."
After all, it's a bit of a sad time when he falls and bonks his head. He's sad. We feel that and mirror that.
But here's the thing.
He does not need to learn how not to fall.
Falling is inevitable the moment you start trying to stand. Throughout his life in all the different possible ways he will be falling.
What he's got to learn now is how to get back up again. He's got to learn how to fall well, and get back up and keep going.
He doesn't become a full capable person without learning how to get back up again. Without learning how to fall and be ok.
If we were to provide the shortcut, so he can avoid making all the falling mistakes the rest of us stupid humans make, we could just stick him in a floating chair that does the moving for him - like the humans in WALL-E. But we don't even have to imagine how that turns out...
Avoiding the mistakes, avoiding the falling, is to avoid the path of learning and growth which makes us fully human.
Make The Damn Mistakes
"Contact With Reality" can be a rather esoteric idea. It intellectually makes sense, and if you ascribe to it, over time you'll develop a personal sense of what it means to you.
But everyone knows about making mistakes, and even though some may be painful, we can all appreciate what those mistakes have done for us.
It's when we set ourselves to task, when we do the work, when we try ideas, that we are prone to mistakes.
We are prone to falling down.
We are prone to robbing peter to pay paul.
We are prone to valuing our decision making based on the outcome.
We are prone to seeking shortcuts.
We are prone to moving too fast and falling on our face.
But until you cock it up, look back and see the impact and result of your mistake ... are you really going to value the principles and philosophies which can help you avoid them?
Are you really going to slow down, figure out your solvable problem, then the next best step, until you've tried the usual approach and run into the wall so many times you think "well, nothing else worked, let's do it this way."
Intellectual understanding only gets you so far.
Learning - really deeply learning - requires you to DO. To Implement. To Create. To Act. To Publish.
To put your whole self out there, fall down, skin your knees, and get up and keep going.
Those Who'd Rob You
When I see someone who is doing well try to claim "I wish I had started this all years ago, I'd be doing even better than I am now! Don't make the same mistakes as me."
My reaction is "that's bullshit."
I don't think they are lying. I think they believe that. I just know, in this perspective they are devaluing their mistakes and the path they earned, and they are robbing other people of the opportunity to walk that path as well.
The Earned Path is where all the good stuff COMES from.
We talk about people's success like an iceberg, about how you can only see the little floating bits on top and all the garbage and failure is hidden beneath.
I think it's more akin to examining a gargoyle on the peak of a very fine cathedral, valuing the gargoyle at the peak above all else. But in that act being completely ignorant of how important and stunningly beautiful the entire structure under the gargoyle IS to that one piece.
The entire structure represents a unique path of experience which CANT be replicated or shortcut in any way. That whole structure must be built, exactly as it was built, in order for the gargoyle to be witnessed the way it is.
Sure, you can take the building methodologies used in that structure, maybe even improve on some of them, use better materials ... but you MUST build your own, from the ground up.
A Message To My Kids
If there's any lesson I hope to impart to my children it is this one. Don't devalue the mistakes. Don't be afraid of doing the work. Don't fear spending time in your life figuring it out.
Don't rob yourself of the gift of The Earned Path.
If you don't love the work, spend time figuring out how to. Because it's IN that "work" where you'll discover yourself and all the amazing things you can do and be in life.
I know you want it all now.
I know you want the glory and the glamour and the delight and the joy of the life you imagine and dream of.
But the truth is all of that which you see in someone else is irrelevant to you, because no matter what, you WILL walk a path in life, and that experience on the path WILL dictate the experience, form, and joy of your life.
If you spend that time walking the path trying to walk in someone else's footsteps you'll forever be blind to the actual life around you, the actual strengths and gifts that you have, how you can live and be your fullest, most glorious self.
No matter what I do here, I don't think there's a way for me to communicate such that you GET IT.
The only thing I can say is, forget everything you think you know. Find the work that you enjoy and do well, and just DO THAT WORK.
Because it's in the doing, in the making of those mistakes, that you'll discover the real answers of your path in life and what it all means to you.