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Observations from a life in motion

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#88: Tithing in attention and action

I sometimes meet well-meaning professionals who crave to support a cause but their desire is almost always coupled with overwhelm. Real-time reports of calamities and injustices show acute and chronic problems that need solves everywhere. But it’s hard to fully absorb them when our individual lives are bursting at the seams with commitments and responsibilities. Our response may progress from self-protection by tuning out, then perhaps to minor guilt for ignoring, and then into the calloused emotion of apathy over time where we simply turn off that part of ourselves. A progression that wastes human spirit and capacity.

Between the binaries of turning off or massively caring about everything, there is a third way that’s more practical and over time, collectively more impactful. We can invite ourselves to care for a very specific cause that speaks to us because of our personal struggles and tithe* to that cause with our attention and action. Despite our many spinning plates vying for attention, emotion and time, there are some pieces of news and information that seem to dig deeper in our psyche than others. The key to unlocking our causes is to sit in that discomfort long enough to figure out the common thread in the pains and triumphs that manage to imprint us. Marinating in this discomfort is also critical in activating the compassionate action that this world sorely needs.

I’ve also found that the unexpected precursor to this sought-after compassionate action is patience and kindness with self. Tithing in action churns up all sorts of fears of inadequacy and helplessness. It does no good if our actions flame out before taking root because of our very natural human fears. Patience and kindness with ourselves creates the strength to keep going despite obstacles. We keep reminding ourselves that there is no need to rush, that even the smallest actions amount to invisible impact, that this process can take months or even years. We make our actions small and manageable and our timelines longer. We remind ourselves that it’s not all on us and that there are others in it with us. Over time, these practices even out our focus from over-fixating on self or to a healthy dose of self-respect and agency in light of our general smallness. We start to focus less on ourselves and more on the collective. Imagine, if everyone did this, how big our small acts of tithing could become?

*A note on tithing for those new to this concept

There is a concept called tithing or dana across all faiths. It’s a voluntary practice where one offers a part of their income for use in the service of others or a cause. Of course, like any practice, this concept has also suffered misuse at times through guilt or exploitation. Regardless, the practice has immense power to orient us to generosity. In eastern philosophy (that I’m more familiar with), dana can take any form ― material or energy, the donor’s intent while giving is as important as the dana itself. The amount doesn’t matter; what matters is the posture of goodwill and generosity. We’re invited to cultivate a sense of hospitality, abundance, goodwill and faith with a focus on our spiritual growth and other’s benefit. This practice gets under our skin in the most positive way. It teaches a willingness to make others happy, to get in touch with our natural impulse to care that gets covered in the busyness of daily life, and most importantly in letting go of our craving for applause and attachment to specific outcomes.

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”― Pablo Picasso, painter and sculptor

#87: The actual distance

If we zoom out enough on any interactive map, the cities of Seattle and Portland seem to merge. The ~180-mile, multi-hour driving distance gets erased. Someone planning a visit solely from the zoomed out view of a map might think they can cover key West Coast hubs from Vancouver, British Columbia all the way down to San Diego, California quickly. They might dream of popping in and out of Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles along the way to get a feel. But of course, no one really does that. We know a trip like that would require more planning, time and resources. We know this because we have experienced the reality of navigating our own cities and countries, with their roads and delays. If we’ve left home base to explore, we’ve likely experienced upset stomachs from novel food sources, we know that the same piece of luggage can feel heavier as the days go by, we get the strain of finding and relying on an unknown doctor or mechanic mid-travel. In short, we understand the physical, mental and emotional fatigue that accompanies any significant exploration.

But we seem to forget this wisdom while planning explorations related to daily life. In imagination mode, our mind seamlessly zooms out to dreamily plan our days with vibrant work and social life. On a bright and sunny Saturday morning, after we are well rested, it can daydream that we’ll go from epiphany to functioning business in a couple of years. That from here on, we’ll wake up fresh and early everyday. That we’ll have energy to meditate and move in the morning, then give our utmost focus to work, and have energy left over in the evening for family and friends. We might even imagine everyone around the table sharing a lovely meal with laughter. In those moments, the mind is doing what interactive maps do. It zooms out to see the highlights but doesn’t factor in the actual lived-distance between them. It doesn’t see us getting offroaded by home maintenance, echos of grief, unexplained allergic reactions or a sick child. It doesn’t factor in those happy faces needing our support or that meal needing our effort.

It’s a silently harsh experience to fail ourselves because our dreams took longer than imagined to manifest. When in our life’s geography, the highlights aren’t happening so close together one after another. Our daydreams should come with a caution like some maps do: “This map is not to scale”.


“If you can dream — and not make dreams your master
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same”― If by Rudyard Kipling: writer, poet and journalist

#86: Influencers

According to a 2019 survey of 2,000 Americans ages 13-38, 86% were willing to try out social media influencing for work. Truthfully, at first, this headline fueled my cynical side but a quick look at the motivations cited helped me see people’s underlying humanity. People weren’t just motivated by making money or getting free products, they wanted to make a difference, have flexible working hours and share ideas with others. They also wanted to have fun. Fame ranked lowest on the list. There’s a market for influencers because people trust those that appear to be everyday folk like themselves vs. those with too much celebrity and fame. But there is a bit of a trap here. In the same study, only 12% of people considered themselves influencers.

Influence is the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something. When we think of the term “influencer”, our default is to think in a social media marketing sense given popular jargon. In this context, the influencer’s goal is to typically make us buy something. This is neither everyone’s passion and skill, nor should it be. I would hate to live in a world where every human became a walking billboard. Besides, lets not forget that each of us is an influencer with far more weight than we realize.

My life has been influenced by the everyday presence, words and examples of my parents, husband, aunts and uncles, siblings and cousins, in-laws, friends, teachers, mentors, co-workers, neighbors and acquaintances. I’ve even been influenced by strangers. I’ve absorbed the most profound lessons of love, compassion and generosity, of courage and humility, of patience and sacrifice. These lessons and experiences came silently and without fanfare or observers. When eventually I picked books from wise sages and they invoked these traits, I didn’t have a hard time relating because I had everyday examples. The realization that I was surrounded by exemplary people day in and day out made me more thankful, peaceful and joyous in my existence.

On the flip side, I’ve also been negatively influenced by others when I shrank myself after I was made to feel less-than. We humans have the power to do that to each other. Let’s never forget that our every interaction is an opportunity for influence and that we can choose to be constructive and generative. 100% of us are influencers.

Written in honor of my biggest influencer, my precious Mother. Happy birthday, Ma!

“My daughter is strong. My daughter is brave.”― My Mom, during my weakest moments

#85: Everyday reminders of belonging

When we think of belonging, we often think of a place, people, or culture that makes us feel welcome. We crave kinship and emotionally available humans. The implied focal point is usually the self and we gauge how another may create a sense of affinity in us. If we flip the coin though, we’ll see that the other side of this equation is us. These humans that we crave belonging from crave all of the same things back. If belonging has been a consistent desire across cultures and time, and everyone desperately craves it, what gets in the way?

Our modern lives reinforce a few recurrent themes:

  • We don’t decipher the need: Belonging was easier to achieve when we lived in close-knit collectives and became intertwined with others across generations through biological likeness and cultural shorthands. In modernity, we increasingly bump up against those with different cultural shorthands from us. We can’t always accurately decipher another’s emotional rhythm and don’t realize when we’re drawing inaccurate assumptions and conclusions, often in haste.
  • We don’t overlap enough in terms of time: Connection can happen quickly, belonging takes time. True belonging, the one where our roots go deep into the communal substrate, needs time. A few interactions are great but consistent interactions over a long period are what informs us that we aren’t just fair-weather companions. Belonging then, is a sense of affinity that is derived over a period of time through our seemingly small interactions with others. We now flit around more easily from geography to geography, job to job, relationship to relationship, and context to context. No one context gets enough of our attention unless we intentionally make it so.
  • The relational sheen wears off up close: The more we are with another human, the more sides of them we’ll see. There is more opportunity to witness messiness and sticking points. Every real relationship goes through moments of stress followed by the potential for shared sense-making. Belonging gets unlocked when we show up after these stressful moments for imperfect practice with a committed other. This implies two things: mutuality and showing up despite feeling inadequate. But if after these moments of stress, we turn to the endless online shelf of humans where the next shiny person awaits, we’ll keep repeating loops of shiny discovery followed by heartache without ever learning how to be in relationship.

In our modern context, everything―except the desire for belonging―has changed. We don’t have overlapping histories, biology, norms and time. We are surrounded by countless potential sources of belonging but they come with bodies, identities, mindsets and experiences unlike ours and with time as limited as ours. We don’t always depend on the same set of people and contexts for both survival and thriving. We rarely get to know all of another, often seeing them in a specific context which is reduced and distributed. We hardly get to see the integrated whole of each other, even when we’re emotionally close. Finally, we encounter a lot more people which cultivates the behavior of “infinite-swipe”. If not this, then there’s always another and then another.

The repeatable outcome is that it’s easier to surf the surface of humanity without dropping anchor. Easier to accumulate judgments and faulty stories about others. Easier to hurt each other and move on without realizing that, in the process, we changed ourselves for the worse. Easier to feel compelled to guard ourselves, and easier for everyone to end up guarding themselves to the brink of isolation.

But tuning back into belonging isn’t overly difficult work, it’s just uncomfortable at times. It requires everyday attentiveness and responsibility. It’s a psychological shift to reorient our focus from short-term material accumulation to the humans in front of us. To bypass the inclination to compare, acquire, and dominate. To remembering that every single thing we get to do, dream about, and achieve is enabled by humans we know and those we’ll never know.

We have rich ancestral wisdom to help us here. While modernity has added layers of complexity, forgetting our connectedness is not a new problem. Our ancestors too felt the need to remember. For instance, versions of the golden rule―treat others as you want to be treated―appear across all cultures. Some additional examples:

  • The African philosophy of Ubuntu is summarized as “I am because you are”.
  • The Zulu greeting Sawubona means “I see you” and it’s common response Shiboka means “I exist for you”. They remind us to recognize each other’s worth and dignity.
  • The same Indian greeting Namaste is used while bowing to the divine and greeting other humans.
  • Ojigi, the Japanese greeting, is a physical bow and a signal of respect, gratitude or apology in social and religious situations.

I’m certain we have timeless wisdom in every culture to remind us of our interconnectedness. These greetings, rituals and philosophies aren’t antiquated. They are psychological reminders and everyday shorthands to break the circuit of self-absorption, fear and disconnection. They help us turn to each other as lovingly and fully as we want to be turned to, to accompany each other as we want to be accompanied.

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”― Edith Wharton, writer and designer

#84: Personal sensemaking through etymology

Words are sensemaking tools, a common knowledge base that we count on everyday to communicate with each other and to think quietly inside our heads. However, interpretations evolve in the hands of the collective where every use and misuse carves and re-carves meaning. Etymology is the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed over time. Every once in a while, I’ll look up the etymology of a word to better grasp its evolution and subtle references. These exercises help me make sense of the world by shining a light on the push and pull of culture and society. Sometimes I prefer the older meanings.

I’ll share three words here as a thought experiment: Competition, chaos and professional. See if these help with your personal sensemaking.

First, a quick note:

  • The portions with etymology may be hard to read. They aren’t complete sentences and are interspersed with italicized root words. 
  • This is a good resource to look up roots and meanings of words.

Competition:

  • Current meaning: The activity or condition of competing, an event or contest in which people compete. Interaction between organisms, populations, or species, in which birth, growth and death depend on gaining a share of a limited environmental resource.
  • Related word: Compete, which means to strive to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others who are trying to do the same.
  • Etymology: From com- ‘together’ + petere ‘to strive, seek, aim at, rush at’. From Late Latin competere “strive in common, strive after something in company with or together”. In classical Latin “to meet or come together; agree or coincide; to be qualified”. Revived from late 18c. in sense “to strive (alongside another) for the attainment of something”. Use in market sense is from 1840s, in athletics sense attested by 1857.
  • Read more: For competition, and compete
  • Notice: How the meaning evolves from “strive after something together” to >>> “to strive (alongside another) for the attainment of something” to >>>  “to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority” in the economic sense.
  • Reflections: The classical definition makes me think that one can stive towards a goal alongside dedicated others and could potentially move fluidly between competing and collaborating. That if one fails to achieve what they hoped to, they could potentially gain strength from others working towards the same goal. Competition as defined originally orients me towards the goal and task at hand while the current definition seems to focus more on goal attainment so the individual can thrive while limiting others. The goal feels like a means to a self-serving end and when one loses, as we often do, the loss feels existential. Doesn’t the classical definition feel more psychologically strength-inducing? 

Chaos:

  • Current meaning: Complete disorder and confusion.
  • Etymology: Late 14c. “gaping void; empty, immeasurable space,” from Old French or directly from Latin chaos. From Greek khaos “abyss, that which gapes wide open, that which is vast and empty,” from *khnwos, from PIE root *ghieh- “to yawn, gape, be wide open.” Meaning “orderless confusion” in human affairs is from c. 1600. Chaos theory in the modern mathematical sense is attested from c. 1977.
  • Read more: Chaos
  • Notice: How the meaning evolves from “that which is vast and empty” to >>> “orderless confusion”
  • Reflections: Personally, the classical definition of chaos feels like an invitation to step into the gaping void and create something fresh. The mention of the yawn invokes the subtle connection to boredom, which can be a stepping stone to creativity. Compare this to the modern definition that tunes me into my helplessness vs. the sense of agency and creativity.

Professional

  • Current meaning: Engaged in a specified activity as one’s main paid occupation rather than as a pastime.
  • Etymology: Mid-15c., profeshinalle, in reference to the profession of religious orders (see profession). By 1747 of careers, “pertaining to or appropriate to a profession or calling”, especially of the skilled or learned trades from c. 1793. In sports and amusements, “undertaken or engaged in for money” (opposed to amateur), by 1846.
  • Related words:
    • Profession: “Vows taken upon entering a religious order”, “public declaration”, noun of action…“declare openly”.
    • Profess: “To take a vow” (in a religious order), “avowed,” literally “having declared publicly”, “declare openly, testify voluntarily, acknowledge, make public statement of”. From pro- “forth” + fateri (past participle fassus) “acknowledge, confess”, akin to fari “to speak,”.
    • Amateur: “One who has a taste for some art, study, or pursuit, but does not practice it”, from French amateur “one who loves, lover”.
  • Read more: For professional, profession and profess, amateur
  • Notice: The evolution from “vows taken upon entering”, “declare publicly” and “appropriate for a profession or calling” to >>> one’s main paid occupation
  • Reflections: Three themes jump out at me from the original meaning –
    1. Declaration and taking vows: In the west, people publicly take marriage vows in front of loved ones. The idea is to make your commitments known to self and others so when you falter, you have something to anchor back to. Professionally, vows seem to have been reserved for those practicing religion, medicine or law, i.e. professions with a higher fiduciary duty. But all professions are undertaken in the service of others (vs. amateur, which is mostly for oneself). Vows seem helpful in creating both an internal grounding during times of struggle and a public commitment in how we want to show up in the service of others. We can fashion our vows for our vocation however we want, even if they are said mostly to oneself.
    2. Practice and action: The meaning implies that we will pursue something actively as opposed to passive interest. We move towards what moves us.
    3. Money:  Of course one has to sustain themselves through work but our modern lives push us to make professional decisions primarily on the last-mile transaction of getting paid instead of upstream engagement and commitment. Research shows that people are willing to earn less if they get to do more meaningful work, so it’s clearly not all about the money. The modern definition makes us think so. 

The etymology for all three seems to have one thing in common ― the old definitions felt expansive and humane. They invoked us to step into broader and better parts of ourselves. The current ones feel constrained and transactional. They invoke us to step into fear. Meanings evolve in response to society but society also evolves based on the meanings we create. Reduction happens gradually, with enough repetition, and it impacts our day-to-day. 

We don’t have to go digging into the meaning of every word but if our life is being commandeered by a word, it’s helpful to zoom out and see if it might be more liberating to anchor our thinking to a more expansive definition. 

“In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better.” ― Edward de Bono: Maltese physician, psychologist, author, inventor and philosopher