The Art of Intentional Change

Level 5: Master Player

He is ever so tiny.  9 months old. Sitting on the floor there.

And he did the cutest thing.

He was picking up, holding, and looking at a piece of Celery.

With great reverence.

Then he saw me.

His eyes went a little wider.

He said 'OOHHH'

And he held out the celery in monumental triumph.

Grand trumpets played, the chorus of angels sang upon high and this tiny little boy held up his first celery in glorious wonder unto the earth!

A huge grin dawned upon his face and he absolutely SCREAMED in delight.

THE CELERY!

I write this as my son is turning 1 year old.

The last year has brought many new experiences and changes.

From a brand new tiny guy to a little walking (and running, and climbing) boy who sometimes manages to look like a tiny old man in his overly large pants pulled up to his chest and knitted sweater.

In many ways he still is absolutely delighted to "show me the celery" whenever he finds a thing or has a new idea. Just this morning he went shopping in our food pantry and brought me the box of pancake mix as I was eating breakfast.

Priceless.

It's a beautiful experience.

I love and appreciate every moment of it.

And I also know, and accept, that it is fleeting.

I know that this will never happen again ... not like it did the first time.  

At some point he won't be overjoyed to show me the celery.

And that's ok. 

In fact.  

I think that's a great important wonderful beautiful part of life.

I'm far too young to feel like an old man with what I'm about to write (I'm only 40). And without question I know there are many far more experienced who have deeper insight and understanding.

I can say with confidence that in 10 years I'll look back on this and have some new insight and understanding as well.

But I also have understanding and perspective that is far older than I am.

FAR older.

What I have to say, I believe is valuable.  

It may appear to center around being a parent, but the core message applies to all of us, in every aspect of life.

How do we live our fullest and best life if we are stuck in what once was (or what might be)?

Transformations

As I have stepped more and more into being a parent, I have experienced a greater level of exposure to the general message that society likes to give.

"At some point, you'll hold your child for the last time"

"They are only young for so long"

"Treasure this time for it will go by in a flash"

"Don't miss those special moments"

All words and messages filled with the aging regret of people who look back on those times and miss them dearly.

Who look back in memory of the moments when they first held their baby,

When their baby first looked into their eyes. When he curled up in your lap while upset and calmed himself against your chest. 

When he took those first running steps toward you in complete utter innocent joy with a smile on his face so wide you couldn't see anything else in the world.

I participate in the craft of marketing. So though I am not immune to the emotional heartstring tug, I like to think I am more aware of when that is happening.  

And as always, presence in the moment is the greatest cure against manipulation.

But seeing this general feeling, 

Echoed in other parents who do not share my perspective, it has revealed to me a truth about life as we live it.

There's a dynamic I believe in. 

It's an old one. 

By old I mean from ancient cultures before western society rolled over everything.

It used to be that when you turned certain ages, you would go through ritual transformation.

As an example,

The Tutzuhil Mayan people: When a boy came of age (turning into a teenager basically), they had this elaborate ritual where the men of the village would come and forcibly take the boy away from his mother. The mother and her family would attempt to fight off the men and keep the boy, but they would not succeed. 

This was all known and accepted practice and ritual.

Why?

Transition. Change. Transformation.

When we grow and move into new chapters and eras of our life, we are changing SIGNIFICANTLY as individuals. 

It's impossible to go from being a boy to being a man and NOT completely change how you related to everything and everyone - your parents most especially included in this.

The ritual of the Mayans was made to HONOR that transition. To recognize and celebrate that something significant and challenging for our inner selves happens at that point. To in some ways tear off the bandaid, but more so to walk forward with present intent into the new era.

And to make sure that the young men would be able to enter society fully grown and able to participate and contribute as much of themselves as they can.

A chapter closes and a new one opens. 

They did it with elegant ritual grace that helped everyone involved accept the change and move forward into their new roles as the people they were becoming.

It's not just the boy changing into the man. It's the mother changing from a mother with a child to a mother with a young man taking his first major steps into society and the roles he will discover for himself there.

We do not have these transitions anymore.  

At least, in the sense that we do not collectively HONOR them as a society.  We do not recognize them. We do not appreciate them. We do not prepare for them. We do not give ourselves the gift of closing one chapter and opening another.

The transitions happen, because they can't be avoided.

But they are messy. 

Parents hold onto the memory of when their baby was a baby. Children hold onto the feeling that they are completely protected and safe and without a care in the world like they are still 7 years old and their parents are there holding their hand.

Indeed many people grow up and figure this out along the way.

But what I see missing is the intention. The willful acknowledgement and acceptance that the magical joy inherent in the uniqueness of the present moment is ONLY here and now. That it will one day be only a memory. And that this is all not only OK, it's actually beautiful.

My son right now is overjoyed to show me the simple new things. The celery he is enjoying. The sound he figured out how to make with his mouth. 

That is a unique state of our current relationship and our life together,

Some day, it will never happen again ... not like it did.  In fact it's already shifting. He's already past his overjoyness of showing me the celery (though "the celery" he is overjoyed about is taking new forms as he grows and discovers now things).

At some point he won't be overjoyed to show me "the celery."

And that's ok.  

More than ok. 

Right now he is a baby boy to a father who protects and guides him in a wild new world and full of experiences he is discovering. Some day he will be a teenager who needs a father that backs him up but let's him also go. Some day he will be a grown man with entirely his own life, and perhaps he will desire to share that in his unique way with me.

This all seems completely clear and obvious in retrospect. We grow. We change. Our lives change. We become more and more ourselves (hopefully).

Roles

In another article, I posed the question ' What is your role?'¹

In it I discussed the idea that we are all constantly inhabiting roles, whether we realize it or not, and acknowledging our roles is an important part of understanding who we are and getting the most out of life.

I also pointed out that life is constantly changing roles.

What is hard to see is the power of honoring and respecting not only the role that you are in now, but the process itself of changing a role.

I think perhaps one of the most damaging things that happens in our culture is that we do not acknowledge and intentionally process the changing of roles we experience throughout life.

"Parent" is a role you'll always have if you've kids, whether you like it or not, but that parent-child relationship itself shifts through various role stages throughout your life.

I keep going back to parenting because ...

It's one of the clearest roles you can't walk away from.

It's one of the most important and major roles in our lives as humans which goes through transitions, and which we've clearly forgotten to honor.

At the heart of it all I think is an unwillingness, inability, or unconscious effort to hold onto the past, and sometimes to hold onto the future you really think you want.

As a parent, I have a choice. 

I can try to hold onto these moments. The feeling of holding my boy when he's so tiny he just disappears into my chest as he snoozes (which will never happen again). The image of him just trying to figure out how to stand up for the first time. The first time he smiled. All of which, and many others, will never happen again ever in the existence of time.

Or.

I can deeply appreciate those moments in the present time when they do happen. I can appreciate them all the more knowing that they are fleeting.  

I can grieve when they are gone, and then let that be a memory where memory belongs. Written in the past.

As I write this, he is asleep next to me with his head butted up against me. He'll never be this tiny again, and the times he wants to sleep up against me like this will disappear one day. But I see this, I know this, and I love that it is so fleeting. It makes the present all the more special and enjoyable to be in.

I'll enjoy every minute of it, and when the time comes for our role and relationship to change, I'll be present in that moment and be able to intentionally walk him forward into what that means for both of us. 

Nothing can ever live up to memory. Or any part of your imagination for that matter. Yet its not hard to see how often people desperately want something to be exactly how they remember it being.

What Now?

What I've been doing with these articles, when I propose a new way of thinking of things, or point out a dynamic or frame for perspective, is I'll give you some form of "ok now what do you do with this?"

I'm not going to do that this time.

Part of the reason for that is, I'm not sure I can.

I don't have the life experience to look back and say "this is how to solve this problem as a parent."  Or an entrepreneur, a copywriter, etc. I don't see a clear solution (which is likely part of the problem). 

Outside of "be present" what can I really say?

But perhaps it's more powerful to NOT answer that question for you anyway.

I think it's really easy to get stuck in the past. To want things to be the way they were. It's also really easy to get stuck in the future, to imagine how things can be and hold onto something in the present because you think it will get you where you want to go (and in the process, fail to see the way you can live more fully in the present).

I think both paths present a danger to ourselves and those around us.

All we ever truly HAVE, is our breath in the present moment. Experienced in the body in which we are living. 

Every moment after that breath is unwritten. Every moment before that breath is written. In the present we ARE, and every other moment we either were or might be.

I'll leave it up to you to determine what that means to you ...

And what you can do with all this.

But if I may ...

Don't try to answer that question.

Just live with it.²

1. What Is Your Role?

2. Open Loops and Learning