This item is reproduced with permission from Trevor Hill. It is from his Inspiration at Work newsletter, #77,.
I felt it to be such an important message for those who, like me, once prayed at the altar of a corporate god, that it needed to be broadcast far and loud!
Enjoy it, and remember:
Even if you win the rat race, you’re still a rat!
Do you ever feel that you want to break free from the limits around you?
Many readers wrote in as part of a recent survey to say just that. They describe it in different ways such as ‘get out of the rut’, ‘shake my thinking’; ‘get on a new path’; ‘move in ways I never dreamed of’; ‘start making something happen’. In each case the essential message is the same.
What happens as we mature can be seen in a story of mine revolving around two different books. Back in the days when I was a typical angry young man, I first read the classic ‘Middlemarch’ by Mary Anne Evans (writing under the pen name of George Eliot). At the time I was particularly struck with a passage describing Dr Lydgate:
For in the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little. The story of their coming to be shapen after the average and fit to be packed by the gross is hardly ever told … till one day their earlier self walked like a ghost in its old home and made the new furniture ghastly.
This acted as a warning to me and I resolved never, ever to be caught like this!
Rolling forward thirty years, I was reading David Whyte’s ‘Crossing The Unknown Sea’. In it he argues strongly for the outlaw – like a sort of Robin Hood – that lies within each of us:
To preserve a sense of freedom even in the midst of
rules and regulations is to preserve a part of our
identities …to live happily within outer laws, we must
have a part that goes its own way, that is blessedly
outlaw no matter what the outward conditions.
As I was reading this chapter, the passage from Middlemarch returned to my mind from years earlier. Reading on in Whyte’s book and turning the page, suddenly in front of me quoted there was Eliot’s exact passage! A shiver of coincidence ran down my spine and the hair tingled on the back of my neck; it was as if I had been confronted by younger self!
This was my loud wake-up call. The key realisation is, of course, that when we feel frustrated or stuck in our current situation, it is our outlaw that is trying to waken us. It is this rebel side that offers escape. Whyte again:
With a healthy outlaw approach … we look to the edges
of things; no one really knows what we are up to. We see
with the eyes of those who do not quite belong. We are
dangerous again, and glad to be so
If you are tired of playing safe and want to wake the rebel in you, arrange a conversation with your younger self. This may sound wacky but it can be a profound experience.
The first thing to do is to choose a period from your past when your rebel was clearly active.
Next you can arrange to meet the person you were back then. Where you have your meeting is up to you; use your imagination. You could choose a quiet room and invite them to use an empty chair; go for a walk and imagine a companion; or maybe visit a location from your personal history and listen for their voice.
Once you have set up the meeting, ask them:
- What was important back then?
- What is still important now?
- What surprises them that you do now?
- Where do they think you have compromised?
- What do they think you do that is the real you?
- What are you missing?
- What do they suggest for your future?
At the end of the meeting, thank them and end on good terms. From now on, and over the following few days, jot down the ideas that come from your rebel and take bold action on at least two of them.
So, for example, if your rebel reminded you of something important that has lapsed in your life, now you can take action to reinstate it. Your rebel is not tentative or apologetic so make your action bold and courageous. Another example is if your rebel points out where the real you is active. Then you can take bold action to do more of this.
Your rebel will help you break out from the rut you were stuck in. After taking the action prompted by the ‘meeting’, check back to see how the rut appears now – you are likely to have a completely different perspective!
And you will have some momentum to keep going.
Your rebel is alive and well.
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