Reflecting on the observations of a wise friend

[sabrinamari]

One of my very insightful friends (divalion) wrote this to a group of us on another website:

"...from my observations of this group alone, I see mile markers in the change process that nearly all of us have had in common regardless of what it is we're changing, things that aren't obvious when you're setting out-- like, identifying a new venture or project in the direction of the change one is making, lots of joy and excitement and initial success, and then a period of extreme hardship, derailment, or failure with it-- an expansion followed by a difficult contraction---that seems like it might actually be a necessary part of the process..."

I think this is an important observation. The moment my friend proposed this kind of thought for the first time, I thought "Yes. Yes. Yes."


And there are so many Yeses in my life right now that I am beginning to feel pink, healing flesh around the ragged edges of the Nos. It's still tentative, tender and sometimes achey, but I am beginning to feel the puckering that comes from the pull of healing around the edges of a wound.

My job now is to protect that tender, healing edge, and to learn from everything I've experienced, so I don't repeat my mistakes any more than I have to.

This is tricky, because the human animal loves to repeat his or her favorites mistakes over and over again as manifestations of deep, underlying patterns. And the more intelligent we are, the more skillfully we cover this truth up, using our clever clever minds to explain to ourselves why we're not really doing it again, and why this time really is different.

I actually think that the smarter we are, the more intelligent we are, the more vulnerable to this pitfall we become---because we use our intelligence to become so skilled at talking to ourselves, at subtlety pulling the wool over our own eyes, that we practically ensure that we'll wake up in the middle of the same old mess again sometime down the line, in pain and shock and sorrow.

High intelligence is not helpful in solving this kind of conundrum. Too often, it is invoked unconsciously in ways that hold us back.

What is needed is insight, compassion, and most of all, wisdom, and wisdom is very, very different from intelligence. I think persistence is also needed, and courage: courage to look at the truth.

I wish I had a dime for every exceptional man or woman I know currently living out an intelligence of +10 and a wisdom of -2. I wish I had a dime for every time I myself have lived in exactly this place.

The trick is how to get out, finally.

******

One more thing: my first financial mentor, Phyllis, taught me that the persistent idea that self-made individuals create their wealth all alone is a fallacy. "People don't get rich by themselves," she said. "People get rich in groups." She said this maybe thirty years ago, but I have never forgotten it.

I think it's true.

I also think people don't get wise alone. They get wise in groups, with others to bounce off of, brainstorm with and, yes, repeat their patterns with.


People get both wiser and wealthier in groups.

Comments

[spiffnolee.livejournal.com]

Starting a project, having new relationship energy, then a major setback. Yeah, that sounds like a familiar pattern. And how you start often determines what happens after the setback.

True, too, that intelligence equips us with the sophistry for self-deception. I learned this from the rehab my father went to.

I don't think it's possible to be wise alone. It would be meaningless. Like the hermit who lives without sin--so what, if there are no other people around. Wisdom is about how to live in society.

[divalion.livejournal.com]

The other beautiful thing about observing these patterns among members of a group-- rather than in isolation-- is that it becomes more possible to let go of some of the emotional attachment to wherever you are in the process.

Or at least that's my experience. Having been through some crash & burn, some failure, some drawing inward, I'm finding it easier to become excited about "let's see where this process leads next!" rather than dwelling on the setback. Suddenly I'm in a lab experimenting with my team and fascinated by findings, instead of alone in a desert walking away from wreckage and hoping I can survive.

This is cool. =)

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

"Suddenly I'm in a lab experimenting with my team and fascinated by findings, instead of alone in a desert walking away from wreckage and hoping I can survive."

That's just how I feel, too. We have one big lab experiment going...