A few days ago, I went to a job fair – which is corporate speak for a type of cattle call – in which you get ten minutes of a recruiters time to make your case for employment, against the 500 other people who also showed up that day, people younger than yourself, better looking than yourself, arguably more qualified than yourself.
In those ten minutes I chose to attempt to lie convincingly – that I wanted a telemarketing job – that I would be the right fit, the best choice, the one who would be a smooth cog in their profit machinery.
I haven’t lied well for a very long time now….
I didn’t that day either. When the recruiter asked me why I wanted to work for the company, (when I knew that I didn’t), my answer fell onto the table like a fish out of water and grasping for air, (despite my best efforts – or perhaps it is just that my system has such a strong reaction to lying that it felt that way to me, and yet may have been quite normal to her, I do not know).
It brought forward, into my central line of vision, the process I am currently engaged in. I want a job, period…or more precisely a flow of income. And toward that end, I have applied to be a night turn-down-bed hotel employee, for which, speaking English was a large plus, a cab driver, something that I would quite literally be afraid of doing, a hamburger jockey, and many other odd and ill suited jobs.
In this post-following-my-dream world in which I am living, it doesn’t seem too large a matter what type of work I do… as long as it meets my minimum standards for keeping myself, and my dogs, sheltered, and fed.
I can barely reach back far enough in memory, to a time in which I did not live my life based upon the dream of speaking at the front of a room filled with people, after all, it first entered my consciousness when I was only seventeen years old. Thirty nine years with one focus, one desire, one constant imaginary companion…and should you be shocked by that, and think that surely I would have given up prior to this…you would not be factoring in, the level of will I brought to bear upon the notion.
I always had just enough opportunity, and just enough encouragement to keep the dream alive, and thus to continue to bend my thoughts, and hopes, and wishes, and imaginations, toward that end.
I have, over the years, left a considerable amount of collateral damage in the wake of my fierce will to win at this one driving desire.
The only time I truly succeeded at it, ended with the senior minister quitting her job and leaving the church I was speaking at…and I have often wondered what role I played in that decision.
Back here in Phoenix, I experienced two very strong and often quite painful internally competing energies. My Teacher – whose purity of purpose was so profound – that my continuing desire to be the center of attention, began to be felt as uncomfortable as a hair shirt worn in olden times to chastise and flagellate a sinner into repentance, compared to his deep, abiding, and quite selfless service.
My Teacher’s influence, coupled with a friend who owns a very large spiritually focused school who could at any time have put me in the “front of the room”, but chose not to – no matter how many times I asked her, caused a great deal of raw and demanding growth for me. (Over time, watching her do so for many others…caused me to feel rejected and resentful, and in turn to behave toward her in ways that I am now ashamed of. To her credit she did not run from me, and now, absent my “dream” and its pull on me, our relating is quite harmonious and easy…or at least it is for me.)
I felt, at times, great pain over her decision to reject my request…but now I see the worth of it, in more ways than I can describe.
There seems to me to be a near avalanche of people who want to be the next superstar spiritual advisor, all of them, like I once did, hoping to become the sensation that the world turns to for guidance and direction.
I believe that this egoically driven desire, that found it’s way into my heart 39 years ago, and is now showing up almost every where one looks… is the, as yet, still unrealized and thoroughly un-ripened drive for survival. Which is fueling a coming change in consciousness, without which, it seems clear we may well perish.
For myself, I have a brand new and quite unfamiliar normal to attempt to integrate.
I notice that I feel quite bereft of outer direction. What kind of work to do, where to put my energies, how to make a living, even what kind of hobbies to engage in, all seem to float around unmoored and without coherence.
I know, only one thing – I definitely, do not want another “dream”.
I have come to find the concept a suspect one.
If the very potential of our survival depends upon the development of a consciousness that can reach beyond the egoic concerns of “what about me”, and “how can I get what I want”…(attention, applause, approval)…then seeking a “dream” may well be an impediment to our continuation as a species. After all, it is the felt experience of “me and mine”, that causes us to project that energy out upon the world, and begin to using our great frontal lobe to dominate and destroy the very habitat that supports and enfolds us. We think in terms of “my” self, and “my” body, which is a very tiny step from “my” world, “my” things, “my” success, and “my” rewards.
And all that “my”, runs counter to the demands of survival and harmony with the world around us. We have it exactly backwards. I suspect the world tolerates us, waiting and watching to see if we can grow beyond our need for attention. Waiting to see if we can mature beyond the desire for more, and better, and bigger. If we can’t, she may well scrap us off like a small and irritating bug and continue on with some other developing brain.
We imagine that our will is dominate, we tell ourselves and our children that we can forge our own path, create our own desires, make manifest our wishes…with out the slightest recognition that it simply isn’t true. If for no other reason than the eloquent truth of Oscar Wilde, who said, “the only thing worse than not getting what you want, is getting what you want”.
We “win” just enough to keep the dream alive, get just enough encouragement to keep selling the idea that we can manifest what we want, do what we will, own what we choose, and in the doing…defer the pain that we are here to deal with.
I do not mean to imply that our will cannot shape events, our sick and injured world is testament to the reach and capacity of our collective wills. I do mean to imply, going after something just because we desire it…is a very suspect, and quite possibly, dangerous motivation.
But no matter our technological dominance, there has never been a time in recorded history where as a species we felt more adrift, or more despondent…despite the glossy advertising to the contrary. And I, personally feel, that the “dream” we are all so encouraged to pursue may well be playing a large part in the dis-ease we see all around us.
To dream of tomorrow, to spend all of our energies DO-ing so that we may get somewhere other than right here and now, is a dangerous prescription and runs counter to every spiritual and ageless wisdom tradition the world has ever produced.
My personal dream kept morphing into some new and slightly unrecognizable pattern…just enough change to keep me from seeing it clearly, to keep me from seeing the shame of it, the illness in it, and the sadness that surrounds it.
To attempt to build a future, that can never come is a waste of unparalleled proportions. I am saddened and shamed that I spent so much of my precious time, doing exactly that…
As I said, I feel quite rudderless, and not just because I have no income…but much more than that, I have finally matured to the place that I can lay down the hope for a future that has no basis in reality.
If I am to turn down hotel bed sheets, if I end up driving a cab – (not very likely), if I become one of the telemarketers I routinely say no to when they call my home, then I will do so with the greatest commitment I can bring to bear upon the process.
I am done looking to the future for some better outcome. I am going to live in the present, and allow the current to take me where it will. I am going to let go the “me and mine”, and live in the mystery of it all.
No doubt, I will falter and fall occasionally, but I will not fail. I will not fail, because I have finally drawn deeply enough of the courage of the Impersonal Self, to be willing to walk cleanly away from the “me” that has had my life imprisoned for nearly fifty years.
Perhaps you will join me….?
With Great Love,
Adayre R. Miller
10/12/11
photo courtesy of flickr photo sharing and Helga 262 to see more of this artist’s work please follow this link
http://www.flickr.com/photos/britta_585/23746167/
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