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 | Nov 6, 2015 | Culture & Ideas
Dear Self.
It’s no wonder you’ve waited every year for birthday magic to appear. When the sky lights up the night before, fireworks soaring over the horizon, it’s no surprise your heart beats with expectation, you dare to hope for a little wonder in the morning.
Year after year, the clock ticks in its own strange rhythm. Perfectly on time, but imperfectly cadenced. A syncopation that never quite lands on the beat. You turn another page, another year older.
In November every year, you give thanks and then count down til Christmas and the New Year – always wondering, hoping, praying that this year will be better than the last. In the coming year, you might be more yourself, find the peace that eludes you, the love you long for.
As if life is a jigsaw puzzle you’re stuck on, that you cannot complete without the final pieces – you’re hoping each year to find the cornerstones that will help it all make sense. Every year around November, when the change and the countdown to another chance at your 12 months begins – you consider yourself once more.
Self, you are more of you than you were 12 months ago.
When this year broke into dawn, you were still thinking of yourself as Incomplete but now you know you’re just Unfinished. There is more to come. There are many more ‘and thens’ to follow and you are unafraid. No longer trapped in fear of ‘The End’, you know there will always be an ‘And Then’.
You are embracing and becoming your True Self – learning to speak what you want and believe out loud. You could probably do with a lesson or two in not letting all those desires and emotions walk across your face. They walk like a herd of elephants, unstoppable. But your heart on your sleeve has felt like finally being able to breathe instead of forcing a poker face when you want to cry.
You read an article on the train that said it showed greater strength of character to cry than it did to merely comply with misery and the words felt like rain on parched earth. For the first time you felt no shame at having a feeling. When every tear you’ve cried in every year past has felt like the mark of failure, this year’s tears have been the current pulling you towards hope.
Earlier, you felt adrift – cast off from shore by trusted confidantes. This year, you’ve known betrayal and abandonment that echoed the fear you knew as a child but you stand, stronger because you realise the power of knowing.
Woman, unfinished but not incomplete – in knowing what is true and what is not you are able to embrace yourself and unshackle yourself from the burdens that anchored you to shore in unsafe harbours.
Adrift on the ocean is only a place for fear if you do not trust the wind and the wave.
Breathe deep. Go to the top of your mountain and watch the sun and the sea. Breathe.
Go and bathe in the river, until you emerge baptised again in Self and Spirit.
Be one with the land of your birth, the sea and the sky and you will learn you have nothing to fear from the wind or the wave.
This time last year, you counted some as friends that you no longer rely on. The unimaginable grief you have weathered with so few words. To imagine again what is lost to you, yet you carry on to smile for those who show no sign of understanding how they have wounded you. You have learned to not hold tightly by letting go.
You have learned again, the wonder and power of your own voice. That voice that never faltered in confidence when you were young. It only shook as you grew older and realised the great weight of air you had to project your own words through. You have learned that even when voiceless you found the courage to speak and therefore now, grown and strong – I’m begging you to just open your lips; the stamina and strength of your early defeat will carry you to triumph.
Not a triumph of acclaim, but a quiet inner conquering – to know that the False Self – so frail, insecure, afraid, stoic but also undone is now buried in the dust and dirt of the Valley. Only the True Self remains.
You learned there were some secrets for keeping and you buried them in a field; where only treasure-seekers will find them.
In the morning, remember that you are free from the shackles of pre-defined identity even though you remember the weight of the chains on your hands and feet.
You grieved your unborn children and your unknown lovers. Walked through failing at the tests you ought to have sailed past and continued walking. Head held high and making eye contact, stripping shame of its power in each step. You reconciled the more you grow in wisdom; the quicker you find your loneliness. But that is a comforting thought, because the truth you have always longed for is more evident now than ever. Your compass points true North.
You chased hope, lost it and kept walking anyway. You have wandered down the dark alleys and enjoyed the danger there.
You are more remarkable than anyone knows – precisely because of how much you let them see, when there is still an ocean beneath the surface of the sea.
In the dark and the secret, you have let others rest in your comfort, you have laughed and let others feel powerful in your weakness. You have shared vulnerability – you are gloriously wretched and righteous in perfect paradox.
The fireworks are slowing down. The night is about to reach into tomorrow. Remarkable woman, you are not a year older tomorrow, you are a year closer.
A year closer to a good death, preceded by an above-average life. The sum of day; not the minutes or the billable hours but the vast expanse of your ideas; a word spoken here and there. A year closer to finished, whatever that looks like. Another year of self-discovery and generosity to come. You are not undone or incomplete: despite the creases, wrinkles and the age of you.
You are Unfinished because you know what you do not know. Some of us are Done and still Incomplete; they have ceased to grow but you know, that roots must push out until they find water. A woman must turn herself to the sun if she longs for the light. She must find water when thirsty. She must go to the mountain-top and bury what is finished in the dust of the valley.
Tomorrow, you will not wake in the arms of a lover or be wrapped in magic as the movies tell it. Bouquets of flowers will not appear but small and beautiful encounters will be treasured as they unfold. As any day begins unfinished, you will begin again. The magic will be in you, even if you are the only one who knows. You will wake baptised again.
Not another year older, but another year closer. To the woman unfinished, there is more to come.
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.