CFC INSIGHTS: HAPPY THANKSGIVING IN AMERICA… EYE CONTACT
Its Thanksgiving season in America this week.
I finished the New York City marathon a couple weeks ago! I have run a bunch but this one may have been my favorite (so far).
In running the New York City Marathon for the fifth time a HUGE element for me of the experience is the joy of experiencing high fives all along the route. And I make eye contact with my many partners in this. I want to connect for that fraction of a second to see the person actively. I was able to enjoy 16 high fives with police officers all who moved from somewhat stoic to smiling and in on it with me. Very encouraging to experience that with them.
One man stood out.
About mile six.
He was YELLING to us all:
“Don’t be afraid to be GREAT! Don’t be afraid to be GREAT! Don’t be afraid to be GREAT!………………………”
I suspect he is still out there at either mile six or in someplace else on our planet in his own way day-to-day “yelling" “Don’t be afraid to be GREAT!”
He showed ZERO signing of stopping his encouragement of us all just because the runners would all eventually pass by his “station” and all the fellow spectators would return home. And here 15 days later I am still absorbing his message.
Each morning I journal. I study. I consider ways I get in my own way. I do so largely with joy. The way I see it, if I can learn more about what might get in my way such as “pride” (as just one example) and then be less captive to it and thereby be less “separated” in my experience and thus more “one with” other humans than my morning routine leads to an annuity! Won’t ever go away! So I typically wake with JOY to study, think, write.
I have studied the topic of shame with loads of joy! Absolute joy. What I think I am seeing in “shame” is that the damage shame can cause is less that I still remember shoplifting at age seven at the corner grocery or tripping someone at age 10 in the hallway who wouldn’t resist or being just mean to many people in high school or using my brain to outwit and embarrass a senior trader in front of all at age 24 — that IS all there for me — but far worse is that I think I am seeing that “shame” can create a day-to-day back beat of inadequacy, unworthiness, doing it wrong, being bad, falling short, letting others down, and on and on and on AND bringing THAT space to others as we go so we unwittingly day-to-day live in this “norm” with others in an unrecognized complicity! Maybe we seek others out in part because our “stuff” matches up well with others “stuff” more so than our possibility for generating greatness as the man at mile six was imploring!
I heard the definition of "another person” is someone that triggers things in us! ;) Funny… maybe cuz its so true! Suppose we weight how we “love” based on not being as “triggered” by this person as the next! Who knows…
But I think I notice there are moments when love in its infiniteness displaces our "stuff" and ANY sense of inadequacy or unworthiness or falling short blah blah blah!
I love weddings!
I love hearing of babies being birthed.
I love stories of “senseless” and “illogical” compassion.
I love seeing our friend Kathleen GLOW when she told me of her upcoming Thanksgiving in Chicago to be with so so many loved ones all together.
I love my wife Kelly complimenting strangers at lunch Saturday because she loved their glasses when she didn’t “have to”.
And I love when Neo doesn’t hesitate in the least when picking the red pill in The Matrix. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9vGMMPM5Lg
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I experience so many moments as…
…“gaps”…
…when all is right with the world and any “stuff” is crowded out by love. And those gaps let us know not just that those special moments indeed exist when a baby is born and our heart warms but they seem to me perhaps like signals of a space that is possible at every single moment even if we aren’t close to that as reality today.
Back to the man YELLING:
“Don’t be afraid to be GREAT! Don’t be afraid to be GREAT” and my making eye contact with him…
While I was so encouraged by this message from him that I COULD be great and he was offering me full permission to BE that thing on the day of the marathon, today I have a different thought of his message. I now interpret his message as a single message to us all collectively not “just” me as the self-oriented individual! WHAT MAKES the New York City Marathon so so GREAT is that 50,000+ people come from all over the world after allllllll their training to agree to be runners that sets the stage for MILLIONS of people to participate from the sidelines MANY giving high fives, thousands of people to volunteer, thousands of people creating music in bands along the route and MILLLIONS more poeple are sending texts and pictures before – during - after the race to wish great fortune, or, specifically, my son Eamon tracking me from Ghana and texting back and forth eventually leading to one of text from him which said: “more running, less texting”.
Or, specifically, me being adopted for the day by one of my favorite organizations RESTORE such that I could feel the joy of solidarity with them, with donors who sponsored them and get to sport a pretty cool looking maroon tank top to boot! Sweet!
I have suggested for 25 years that the day of the marathon is the best day each year in New York City because of the not-so-random but rather incredibly predictable one day flat-out “norm” of deep kindness… inadequacy of so many forms gives way to love… and look what happens… my oh my.
I think it was the collective inspired pop-up community two weeks ago that was GREAT.
It seems to show us what IS possible at every moment.
Imagine a New York City Marathon — If you might for a moment — where it was, literally, JUST me and JUST that man at mile six yelling JUST to me:
“Don’t be afraid to be GREAT!"
Forgetting that it would be weird for it to be JUST me and him for a second…
…it would also NOT be GREAT. Not that much of an accomplishment frankly that would merit attention.
I think he may have been YELLING at us all to be GREAT and create GREAT as a collective. That we COULD do this thing together if we weren’t afraid.
Happy Thanksgiving
Pip
“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think of the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion is starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed but I don’t see that. Seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it is not particularly dignified or news worthy… But its always there. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, old friends… If you look for it I have a sneaky feeling that you’ll find love actually is all around.”
From Love Actually