Rule #6 is don't take yourself so seriously. That is, according to the authors of The Art of Possibility by the Zanders, a husband and wife 'team', co-authors. Guy gave me this book about two years ago. He gave it to me again (intentionally) this past Christmas, and I'm reading it this time.
Remember levity.
So the book espouses ideas about garnering more and more and more possibilities in life. It's about contributing to ourselves and to each other. It's about successes they have had with students; their successes and the students'. It's about noticing the difference between our calculating self and our central self.
It's an easy read; one you can pick up and put down, flip through and find a nugget to roll around in your heart and mind for a while.
How easy it is to take myself less seriously and not seriously at all! How freeing it is. How useful and how available it is.
Rule #6 is about Letting go, loosening up, laughing at a lack of laughter at ourselves. I'm enjoying the process of not taking myself so seriously. What's so serious anyway?
Sometimes I think poetry is serious, but is it?
Mockingbirds, by Mary Oliver
This morning two mockingbirds
in the green field were spinning
and tossing the white ribbons
of their songs into the air.
I had nothing better to do than listen.
I mean this seriously.
In Greece, a long time ago,
an old couple opened their door
to two strangers who were,
it soon appeared,
not men at all,
but gods.
It is my favorite story--
how the old couple
had almost nothing
to give but their willingness
to be attentive--
but for this alone
the gods loved them
and blessed them--
when they rose out
of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles
of water from a fountain,
the light swept into all
the corners of the cottage,
and the old couple,
shaken with understanding,
bowed down--
but still they asked for nothing
but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled,
as they vanished,
clapping their great wings.
Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning--
whatever it was
I said I would be doing--
I was standing
at the edge of the field--
I was hurrying
through my own soul,
opening its dark doors--
I was leaning out;
I was listening.
Perhaps, it's really not so serious, this life. Perhaps it's all simply beautiful. Like falling snow.
And the Zanders are clear: there are no other rules to remember.
Just Rule #6.
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