by tashmcgill | Nov 30, 2015 | Community, Friendship, Relationships
You love fewer people than you think you do. And, if you need permission to care less diligently about some, in order to love others better – this is it. Feel free to hit delete.
I mean, of course, you’re kind and warm, welcoming and enthusiastic about lots of people when you encounter them in the street or with mutual friends. You’re never not gracious and friendly; making small talk while circulating the room. You listen to stories and remember to think good thoughts for those who are suffering and say a prayer if you are so inclined.
So, yes – you do care about people, in a general way of speaking. You care, in a general, non-practitioner sense. You care with the capacity that you have. You pay attention to your Facebook news feed. But you do not really love that many specific people.
Read that sentence twice. Follow the emphasis.
You do not really love that many specific, individual people.
You do not really love that many specific, individual people.
And that’s ok. In fact, it’s probably good for you. Indeed, I’m giving you permission, I’m asking you to consider loving fewer people, better. Let Love take on a heavier, more intentional meaning than when you talk about ice-cream or potato chips.
Our world is saturated with connection that lacks intimacy. Week after week, people tell me how brave and vulnerable I must be to write how I do on this blog or in social media. I share my reflections on an inner life and strangers halfway around the world are moved. I am moved because they are. I feel a sense of purpose in creating meaning for others. But I am not the meaning.
You see, I care about the people who read and engage with my words. I care that they are well, moving towards wholeness, being themselves, discovering bravery in intimacy and courage to use their own voices. I care, but I do not love you.
That’s ok. You shouldn’t need me to love you and you probably don’t. But some of us – the only care we receive is what comes back through those social media filters.
I can only truly love maybe 20 people or so. There are another 30 or so I love very much. There are another 30 – 40 beyond that I would feel their absence keenly from my world and be rocked by their tragedies. But I am an anomaly and almost none of those people experience my love through social media.
Most people only have room for 6 – 8 significant intimate connections outside their immediate family. That’s how many people you can truly love, engage and maintain intimacy with. I have a small family, I figure I get some extra numbers. I’m an extrovert, a writer and speaker. Part of my job is to connect with people. It’s almost effortless to collect people along the way and genuinely care about those interactions and outcomes. In the moment, when you’re there. And conceptually, afterward – even for a long time.
Anyone who lives in the present moment will find themselves well-connected to all manner of people; because we are able to give and receive in the moment of ourselves and others.
That’s life-giving, fulfilling and beautiful. It is the nature of Love when we are swept up in its outpouring to engage with others. It may be intimate for a moment but it is not lifelong.
With the exception of marriage (I still believe), our relationships are permitted to be seasonal. Not every fleeting connection was meant to last forever, but nowadays we accumulate relationships the same way people collect baseball cards. There’s always room for one more and always a new player joining the team. How are we ever meant to figure out the rules of engagement for every connection we make? How are we ever to find the time or the energy for all these connections.
Don’t get me wrong. Caring for people is great. Whenever you are able, care for someone. Caring is good and creates emotional connection, but Love will demand action too. We need to pare back our tribes so we can really care. To go deep again, not wide.
Love turns up in the middle of the night to a three word text message. Love is often invisible on Facebook, as a friend of mine reminded me. Caring for someone can happen in a moment; Love that follows through every promise grows over time. It’s a different kind of investment. You will learn this in the cruelest way when you realise someone you thought loved you, only cared. Then you will know what it is; to need to know the difference in how you love and how you are loved.
Loving some people and caring for others is kinda healthy. The ability to make connections deeper than Sunday coffee conversations and the ability to prioritize where you invest. More than checking Facebook status updates.
The trouble with navigating relationships in a world dominated by constant connection with people through social media, text and email – is that sometimes the ones you truly love are not the ones that dominate your time or your filters. Sometimes people get waylaid in their expectations and they want more Love than Care.
They forget that a Facebook or Instagram like
is not as weighty as a text message
which is not as weighty as an email
which is not as weighty as a phone call
and is not as weighty as your physical presence
when it comes to Love
because Love will always come with action.
Caring is enough, if caring is what I have to offer. But caring cannot get in the way of Love.
Hit Delete.
Facebook is an audience. A collection of people whom we’ve connected with. But my people, the people I love find themselves around my fireplace. The people I love eat my food. Still, the pressure builds to stay on top of triumph and tragedy through words and pictures on a dozen different channels. We love knowledge and some (most) are naturally curious. We love to discover what’s hidden or unknown. But a hundred connections that love real love and intimacy will never equate to the truth and power of being really known by a friend you love. Who hopefully loves you back. Those are sacred spaces, so you can’t have them or share them with all those people. No one has enough spirit for that. Except maybe Oprah. And even then, not even Oprah. She knows.
The power of real intimacy with a real person in comparison to the influence and energy of an audience. Neither is better, but they have different purposes and meaning in our lives.
So maybe you need permission to let some people go. To hit delete from your Facebook friends list, or eliminate the noise from people you care about to focus on the people you love. Delete pointless contacts from your phone. If you’ll never call them, don’t keep their number. Filter out the needless information and curiosities that fill up your day/mind/thoughts and open your spirit again to deep Love. If you are really brave, filter your little black book of calendar engagements too.
Delete me, if you need to. I get it. I care about you too and I want you to do a better job of loving the ones you Love. I want the same thing. You’ve got permission to gather yourself back from the hundreds of little connections draining your battery and making obstacles for true love.
by tashmcgill | Nov 10, 2015 | Culture & Ideas
I think they should tell you, coming out of the womb, that nothing will turn out like you expect. To avoid expectations at all cost. Expectations are the most dangerous indulgence of the human existence. In every facet of our lives, expectations have the ability to cripple, blind and curtail us. Expectations box us in and limit our horizons. There is a difference between hopefulness and expectation. Expectation is mostly commonly associated with a specific outcome. We expect the way things will go or ought to go for us.
We grow up surrounded by suggestion of what is normal, what is common, what is expected of us. We’re instructed in the principles of good behaviour and reprimanded based on how we meet others’ expectations of us. We create expectations of others.
Our greatest hurts will come from our unmet expectations; our relationships will break down when we cannot communicate, re-create or do away with our expectations of each other. Expectations become prescriptions.
Expectations prohibit creativity and innovation because they force us into pre-established paths and ways of doing things. Expectations push us towards norms which perpetuate cycles. And life goes on and on in this way.
Until something breaks. Until expectations fail to be met and you must hit the reset button.
I always thought I’d seen too many friends hit quarter and mid-life crises purely for the sake of some overwrought expectations; ideas about who and how they should be. So I made a plan; to not over-engineer my game plan. I simply thought ‘strategize for the half you’re in, see where you get to and then plan again.’
Can you see it there? Hidden in my plan to avoid creating expectations for myself, was an expectation. An expectation that there would be a second half for me. At some point, I’d find my half-time or a natural reset button.
I thought it would be family; in the traditional sense of a partner creating a natural segue into the second half. I have never been able to conceive of what my life might be with a partner. I am selfish but not selfish enough to assume that I could create a life or a dream big enough for two or two plus two – however many kids might come along. So I resisted making the mistake of trying to find someone who merely fit into the plan I had already made. I only ever planned a couple of years in advance, always thinking I would meet someone significant and we’d design the rest together.
I like the idea of co-creation; a mutually agreed collaboration of the future. A reset button for the second half of the game.
Now I’m at the halfway point – in time, at least. If I live as long again as what I’ve lived to date – that will be a long life. Perhaps too long. Not because I’m old, but really because I don’t want to live lonely too long. I have enough tolerance for platonic and familial love for another 20 years or so. Beyond that, I’m not convinced. So I face designing the second half now. Determining what strategies will reap the richest, deepest rewards and leave a legacy worth holding on to for someone, before I die.
The trouble with expectations is that they hide in plain sight until you trip on them. You can be doing just fine until you hit the one pothole you’ve missed every other time and you find yourself flying through the air, headfirst over your handlebars. You have to be grateful for it; each time you have to pick yourself up from one of those rough landings; it’s one more freedom to afford yourself. One more prescription you are no longer bound to. These prescriptions do not determine whether you were a failure or a success, as if those concepts have any bearing on what it means to be a human being. These prescriptions are social controls. Who cares if you never see the Eiffel Tower if you never really had any desire to go to France in the first place?
Freedom from prescription is essential. Examine every corner of your life for the hidden expectations (your own or others) that you are trying to meet. From how you raise your kids or manage your time or even what you share or do not share with the world.
As I think about the next chapter of my life; I don’t want to spend a minute of my energy or spirit in meeting expectations or prescriptions. I don’t want to risk not living every minute of the second half. I’m in brand new territory, undreamed-of country. It’s a time for invention and creativity. I want to live in such a way that I am fully alive and engaged with my greatest strengths. Devoting as much as I have into things that matter most for my legacy, not the legacy others would write or choose for me. I think as a woman, I’ve been even more susceptible to believing I have to take these expectations supposed on me by others and figure out how to make them work.
I don’t really care about money beyond what I need to live and spend time with those I love. I don’t want to spend a lifetime chasing a pay packet for something I don’t believe it; despite the expectations of what someone of my age and skill should earn. I want to continue to do all the things that take my fancy and come across my path. Naturally, I want the freedom to ask any question of spirituality, science or philosophy and mostly; I want permission to never be done – until my last breath. If I am incomplete til that moment, I will be delighted to know I left the world still learning.
What does the second half of the game look like? Less chasing the ball and much more running with it. If there is anything I’ve learned from the first half of the game; it’s that anything can happen. You’re just more prone to miss those opportunities if you’re still stuck on how you expected to turn out.
So what if your body isn’t how you thought it would be or your career isn’t what you planned. Who cares if you didn’t buy a house before property prices went up. A thousand tiny thoughts we have each day that push our lives into boxes we never intentionally set out to live in – that’s the claustrophic nature of expectations. Be free to not be Instagrammable or Pinterestable. Be free not to be Paleo or vegetarian. Be free to give things up or not – but do nothing because it’s expected of you unless you have set your own mind to it also. There are plenty of things in this category. Exercise for starters. Sex for seconds. Hospitality for thirds. Caring for your spirit and faith. Figure out to make these things a healthy part of your game plan.
For me, the second half of the game is freedom. The freedom to know myself and not just the shallow self others have tried to make me. Freedom from all the definitions that have been put against my name. Freedom to be my True Self. It feels almost as if I’ve spent the first half of my life learning just enough to really get me started – but it’s already half-time. I’ve spent the last moments of the first half dismantling the playbook I thought I had to follow. The good news is, I think you get twice, if not three times as much out of the second half.
by tashmcgill | Aug 19, 2015 | Culture & Ideas, Spirituality
On the corner of my street there’s a street lamp shining bright on the intersection of suburban roads. There’s barely a car parked in sight; from the end of my driveway I can count just three. But there under the spotlight, is the corner dairy (a 7-Eleven of sorts), the bus stop and an Indian take-out store. In which the lights are blazing and the door wide open despite being 12 degrees celcius. ‘Well, they’re optimistic,’ I think to myself, my inner monologue dripping with cyncism.
It’s 9.00pm on a Tuesday night and I’m crawling inside to finish a fraction of what needed to get done today and the remnants of a to-do list going back to Friday 2 weeks ago. I’m feeling deflated and empty; I have been for days actually. Everything feels like a fight in which I keep getting ‘No’ for an answer and while I’m not losing – not yet defeated, I’m desperate for a ‘Yes’. For a win, for a step closer to the dream.
I’m close to throwing a tantrum in the face of the Universe. A grown-up one, with big words and everything.
I go out to dinner, to movies, for a wine or three, parties for kids and friends come for dinner and all of it’s good for a moment, until I’m back left with myself. I’d just like a ceasefire in the warzone I’m in, a truce where the Red Cross comes storming in to simply bandage the wounds and nurse me along a little. I’m so hungry for kindness and connection I’m almost like a child who wants to be indulged simply – because I do. I’m close to throwing a tantrum in the face of the Universe. A grown-up one, with big words and everything.
Not for anything trivial like love or biology or even the politics of sexuality and refugees, although I can make a pretty good case there. No, bigger things – like ‘why is meaning so hard to grasp and so much of life filled with meaninglessness’ and ‘why do we live with a sense of displacement and crave belonging’?
I’m almost convinced I could make a winning case to demand answers but the biggest battle I’m fighting is Me. Fighting to let go, to hold on, to give love and stay soft-hearted when I’d rather put up defensive offense. Battling to submit to other people’s methods, to collaborate when I love independence, fighting not to let go of my love of excellence and fighting the urge to say many times over, I call ‘bullshit’.
(I’m sorely tempted to call bullshit on inspirational social media posts, on mindfulness and yoga mantras, especially on religious politics and the politics of religion. I want to remind everyone that you’re just an entertainer on Facebook for an audience you determine and that the strong, independent woman is as much of a Unicorn as winning can be without someone having to lose.)
The biggest battle I’m fighting is Me. To find peace in the midst of ambition, a little give in a world of take.
Most of this could be solved by hibernating for a weekend or three, resting in good company that doesn’t mind taking care of me a little. Strong, capable, independent as I am – I need a little reminder of what it’s like to play. To laugh. To feel good. To feel alive. A gentle reminder that work isn’t everything, even when it seems like it’s the only thing. I probably just need some good sex in good company, with a laugh or two.
And all this probably has nothing to do with the Indian take-out store on the corner.
Except the flashing neon ‘OPEN’ sign now flashes in the front window and sometime in the last week they’ve added twinkling fairy lights. Where the door used to remain closed it’s open to the street and there’s even a sign on the curb of the road. There’s a bus that stops across the road once every 80mins or so, and a tinny house on the opposite corner which is probably mutually beneficial. I’m not sure who they’re hoping will turn up. I’ve lived here five years looking at that same corner, same tinny house, same Indian store and all of sudden they’ve opened the door. The hopeful audacity of it. Open doors, defying belief and daring the neighbourhood to place an order. That if you try, they will come. If you stay open and welcoming, people will turn around and look after you. If you fight just a little more, ‘No’ might turn to ‘Yes’.
It’s easy to turn my cynicism audacious, to make the bullshit calls loud and clear. To turn up the volume on everything but hope. It’s harder to choose a hopeful audacity. A plucky bleeding courage that keeps on playing anyway. A hopeful audacity that compells me to put on my unicorn panties and rise again tomorrow. To keep on battling for a yes.
by tashmcgill | Jun 29, 2015 | Spirituality, Youth Work
When I was let go from the youth ministry job I had loved so dearly, one of the Board said to me, ‘Well, it’s probably for the best, your business seems to be going well so you should probably just focus on that.’
It’s taken me seven long years to realise that he was accidentally right. With stumbling words that pricked and stung, he cut to the heart of it and said something so brutally true my idealist heart didn’t want to believe it. And in the end, the only reason it stung was because my pride was on the line. Now I’ve learned, it’s exactly what I need to focus on.
I was 15 years old when I drank the Kool-Aid and believed that my life would only be truly meaningful if I was a minister, a youth worker, a preacher or teacher. Then (and only then) I would feel satisfied and worthy. My vocation was only meaningful in so far as it was meaningful to the Church. You can hardly blame me – I sat through my share of sermons focused on how to become world-changing or the world’s greatest missionary. I did all the courses and quizzes on personality and spiritual gifts. I took every leadership course because you’re only as significant as your leadership role and I was inspired and intimidated by every testimony I heard, wondering how I was to ever live up to the expectations. Maybe not when I was 15 or 16, but by 17 years old, those inspirational programs were a weight of expectation I had set myself. And ambition. It was ambition too. That’s nearly 20 years of ambition right there.
So I did it. I’ve been youth worker, pastor, creative minister and worship leader. I’ve been in Christian ministry writing youth programs, training seminars, hosting radio shows and music festivals. I’ve done it all, relentlessly believing that I was pursuing meaning in making a difference. There are not many things I set my mind to that I don’t achieve.
What kind of significance was that? I’ve always been ambitious. I want to change the way people think – but changing the thinking of the middle-class, largely white, Western evangelical church through Sunday services and events? That’s not enough for me. It’s never been enough.
Here’s the truth: I’ve wanted it all and tried to have it both ways.
I wanted to be significant in the Church and to her people but I want it in the world too. In fact, I think I want it out there more.
My old friend’s hard truth stings me here. It’s not because the Church doesn’t please me. It’s my ego that wanted the Church to love me back.
Like an unrequited love, I wanted her to need me just a little bit more while I pursued the attention of the world. So much so that every commercial success I’ve had, I’ve tried to turn back into something for the Church. Because if the Church doesn’t find me worthy, how could God and what does any of it mean?
I’m finally accepting that we’re a bad romance because of me. It’s not that the Church doesn’t want me. The Church doesn’t always know what to do with me but the truth is I want more because the Church is not enough for me. I want the world. I want to influence world leaders and titans of industry whether it’s through the ad business, strategy, politics, TV or hospitality.
I want to be the place and person people come to ready for truth, ready to eat, drink, laugh and make decisions that really change things. I’ve got a long way to go. There’s just a spark of wisdom in me now but I intend to stoke a raging fire. The world is just beginning to catch alight.
Confession: I’ve spent many years being or trying to be bi-vocational because I’ve wrestled with my lack of meaning and significance outside of the Church. Slowly, I’ve done less and less inside the Church and the Church wants (needs) less and less of me. I’ve struggled to find a meaning. I’ve screamed, cried, raged and fought to be held on to, I’ve wanted so badly to find meaning there because I haven’t wanted to be one of my generation who have given up. All the while being almost ungrateful for all else I’ve been able to do. While I’ve wanted more from the Church, I’ve almost failed to see everything I’ve been given.
Still, here’s a little snippet of what I’ve been working on the past few years:
- Digital strategy and lead for New Zealand’s largest global exporter Fonterra
- I work for the greatest digital agency in New Zealand (Digital Arts Network), part of a global advertising agency (TBWA\Worldwide) that kick ass, two years ahead of my planned schedule
- I lead the Tourism New Zealand digital work including business planning, digital and content strategy on a daily basis www.newzealand.com
- I was able to work on and then lead the brand refresh for 100% Pure New Zealand, the longest running and most successful tourism marketing campaign in the world, in a ground-breaking piece of typography and fully integrated digital design system
- Oh yeah, I did get to work on this amazing Bible project thanks to Marko.
To Be Good At It
I want to be good at the business of Church. I can’t stand not being good at anything I set my hand to but truthfully, it’s time I wholeheartedly accept the advice I was given all that time ago. Focus on finding – no, making meaning in what’s in my hand.
A few clarifying statements
- I’m not leaving the Church
- I still love the Church
- I still want to influence the Church
- I’ll influence from outside, not inside
We revisit the things that matter our whole lives, over and over. So truthfully, pieces of this understanding have been emerging throughout my life for a long time. I’ve written about medicine men and chiefs before, knowing full well I’m a medicine man. I’ve been hoping by some miracle, I was still going to get the ego fix I wanted and the Church would chase after me with open arms, claim me as her own. So I’m revisiting again, embracing her again – no, not the Church, but She who is I. Wondrous, mysterious, powerful, wise and intense creature that she is. Medicine woman, earth mother and messenger.
I have wanted the Church to be my ahi kaa, the home fire. Here’s the truth though – I take my ahi kaa with me and any one who gathers around my table, my fireplace, my whisky circle or round my boardtable sits there with me. There are a few other fires I want to go sit beside too.
“Kia mura tonu nga ahi kaa mo te matemateaone”
Keep the home fires burning, so loved ones will always return.
The beauty is, I think the Church will still want to hear my stories when I come through her gates.
She’ll still like my provocative, challenging ways and wrestle with what to do and say.
I’ve got a long way to go. There’s just a spark of wisdom in me now but I intend to stoke a raging fire. The world is just beginning to catch alight.
Kure kwandinoenda, asi ndichakusvika chete – Where we are going is far, but we will eventually get there.
by tashmcgill | Dec 14, 2014 | Culture & Ideas, Family
This is the second in a series of reflecting on lessons learned. I’m sharing them because I think it’s really important to consider how we learn from those around us. It’s about actively engaging in the learning process, throughout our lifetimes.
I think it’s universal that the relationships between mothers and daughters are complex. I know mine is, but in a good way.
When two women which such high-powered EQ co-exist in a variety of roles over decades, there is simply so much to navigate. The roles of nurture within a home, parenting, then be-friending, supporting, challenging, disciplining and helping create self-awareness – all these roles have become shared in our relationship. I’m grateful for that. I’ve learned a lot about how to love and serve a wide range of women in my life from this relationship with my mother. I’m also lucky to share some aspects of that relationship with my sisters, although no child has the same parenting relationship there is certainly plenty to learn and observe from our shared experiences.
As with Lessons My Father Taught Me, these are my words to describe what I’ve learned from a woman who raised me, teaches me and inspires me still.
- Fix the problem that starts with you.
It used to drive me crazy as a teenager and young adult. Now I try to ask myself the question before I need Mum to – it’s a really powerful question. In any situation or conflict that didn’t go my way or I found myself in some sort of trouble, she would ask, ‘Well, what was your part in it? What did you do to get that reaction?’. It’s possibly the smartest way I started to learn the power of self-awareness, when to think before speaking and when to risk it regardless. It’s an incredibly powerful tool in forgiveness and reconciliation to be able to humbly own your own part in any conflict. There is rarely any shame in being responsible for your own actions, when it comes to making an apology.
- If there’s something you want, there’s always something you can do to get it.
As much as my dad has taught me to always believe and look for hope, it’s my mother that has taught me to always consider what actions you can take to pursue the result you want. She’s an expert problem solver because of that, always looking for action you can take to move you closer to the goal.
- Just tell the truth and then we’ll deal with it.
There’s not much to say about this. Other than, I’ve learned this is most valuable in relationships. Too often, it is in relationship with others that we struggle to be most truthful about what we think, what we feel and how that might affect each of us. So this, is possibly the singular most important thing, because it goes hand in hand with a promise. Just tell the truth (and I will be graceful enough to receive it well) and then we’ll deal with it.
- Let your brain rest on it, great solutions sometimes need time.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I have talked to my mother about a problem or challenge I’m facing, only to have her call me back the next morning or email with a solution I never would have considered. From time to time, she’ll even say – ok, let me think about it and I’ll call you tomorrow. I’ve learned that our capacity to come up with creative solutions is often most effective when we let our instinct and subconscious have a few hours to wrestle with the problem first. Often now, I’ll come back from a meeting with a client and just need to sit and think about the information. It’s digesting time. It’s time for the genius within to do work.
- Creativity, hospitality, traditions and atmosphere welcome people in.
I’m sitting at my mother’s house right now, surrounded with Christmas decorations. This is the first year in a long time we haven’t thrown a traditional Christmas decorating party with our extended family and friends. Mum has a knack for creating environments that people can enjoy, for hosting with enthusiasm and creating traditions that welcome other people into them. I realise that I carry many of these traits from her – annual parties, traditions and creating atmosphere for people to enjoy. I learned from her and I hope to teach my family the same.
- You make your family and then you choose it.
Maybe it’s because we have a small and geographically dispersed family, or growing up in the church but for whatever reason, our extended family counts more friends than blood relatives. But they are close as close can be. Mum has consistently welcomed people into our family life, including our friends as we’ve grown. From that I’ve learned the value of investing in the children of your friends and known the peace that comes from making a family of friends, even as a single person.
- Always look for opportunities to connect people.
Mention the word ‘networking’ and people sometimes visibly shudder. It conjures images of self-serving, rapid business card exchanges and a set of shallow, transactional relationships. I prefer the word ‘connecting’ because that’s what Mum does in her professional life and her work life. She is constantly connecting people to one another for no personal gain, but in a way that enriches others. I’ve learned from her that connecting other people is a rewarding process from which goodness comes.
- Be generous with your time, your love and your money.
There’s a fine line between living a life of true generosity and living a life of obligation. From my mother, I’ve learned to give what you can, when you can. To make choices about generosity wisely is something I’m still learning, however I think the more you connect with giving something away for the sake of someone else and less for yourself, it matters less.
- Be active in your creativity and in your rest, so that you add to the world.
My mum is a maker and a teacher. Of course, that’s not her job. But if you were to ask what my mother does, I would tell you she makes and she teaches. What makes her a good teacher? She offers what she knows without pretence. She shares her knowledge willingly. She makes constantly – whether it’s foodie treats (no one can beat her strawberry jam or tamarillo chutney), quilts, scrapbooks, room renovations – you name it, she is constantly making. She adds to the world. So I try to make, create and rest by adding something to the world.
There’s a way of living which is earnest, good and generous. It’s wholehearted and passionate, a force of nature and I aspire to live in that way too, in the steps of my mother.
Delete me, if you need to. I get it. I care about you too and I want you to do a better job of loving the ones you Love. I want the same thing. You’ve got permission to gather yourself back from the hundreds of little connections draining your battery and making obstacles for true love.