Creating your future and why resolutions don’t work
The start of a new year is always an exciting time. Mostly, we look back at the year before and go over, reflect on and ponder what we did and didn’t do. More often that not, we decide we’d like more of what worked, and less of what didn’t. We then go to work on creating resolutions, aims or goals that will have us achieve that end. And it is, in my view, precisely for this reason – using our past experiences to determine what we do and don’t want for the future - that 35% of resolutions don’t make it past the end of January.
Frederick Nietzche once said “The future influences the present just as much as the past”. I would contend that the past actually has very little influence on our present, and it is the future that influences our way of being and state of mind in the present.
Think of it this way: on Friday of this week, I am going on vacation to an island. (This is a true scenario by the way!). It’s freezing cold and miserable here in New York, yet I’m excited because I know that at the end of this week I will be lying on a white sandy beach or on a boat with clear water, in the sunshine. The thought of that future is what’s lighting me up today.
Fast forward to two weeks time. No doubt as I contemplate returning to freezing cold New York from my beautiful island, I’ll be feeling a bit sad, a bit down perhaps. Again, what will be impacting me at that moment will be the thought of the future. What’s impacting us at any given moment is the thought of the future that’s coming at us.
Yet sometimes it can feel like it’s the past that’s influencing us today. How so? This is because we place our past – or at least our memories/thoughts/beliefs/opinions/judgements of the past – in our future. So when we look to the future, we think about all of the things that have happened to us before and we try to either recreate them or avoid them.
For example, I might decide that one of my resolutions is to ‘lose weight’. This might be because when I look back at 2009, I see that I put on more weight than I would have liked and this year I’d like to be slimmer. I decide that I never want to weigh as much as I did in 2009. It’s likely that I won’t lose weight. And if I do, it may not be for long. Why? Because what’s really behind my resolution is my thoughts and feelings about being bigger. So really I’m not focussed on losing weight, I’m more focussed on avoiding being big and therefore what’s really in my mind is ‘bigness’. It’s a subtle, but key difference. In tying my future actions to either getting away from or getting towards something from the past, it becomes inevitable that the past will repeat itself in some way.
We believe that resolutions are creating something new, when in fact we are usually just making some version of something that has already come before. That’s why people get easily discouraged and give up. The progress that they thought they would make doesn’t manifest and it simply feels like more of the same. That’s because it IS more of the same.
There is a difference between making a resolution that has the past as its centrepoint and creating an entirely new future to live into that has no relation to anything that has come before. I know that this is quite a radical way of thinking, and one that runs counter to what we generally conditioned to believe and are taught. However, if the past is always used as your reference guide, you can never truly create anything new.
What would you create for 2010 if you were starting from a totally blank slate? What would you create if you weren’t thinking about how something did or didn’t go in the previous year?
That’s what creating a future really looks like. So my question for you is what future are you living into? And what future are you creating in 2010?
Women are not victims in dating
“You don’t have to go looking for love when it is where you come from.” – Werner Erhard
Author Helena Andrews is soon to put out a new book entitled ‘Bitch is the new black’. The book is made up of a collection of essays which take a satirical look at the issues that successful black women face in the dating world. Last week the Washington Post ran an article entitled ‘Single, Black and Lonely‘ which contained an interview with Andrews in which she asked why it is that so many black women with Ivy League degrees and other status symbols are single.
I’ve written about this before and my position is still the same. One of the most fundamental things missing in this discussion is responsibility. Women – we are not victims!! It’s time for us to own that we create our own experience of life. It’s time for us to fully be conscious of, and own, the words that come out of our mouths and the thoughts in our head. It’s time for us to be the master of own ships, by mastering our internal world as well as we have done, and continue to do, our external one. Here is a quote which I love on responsibility:
Responsibility begins with the willingness to be cause in the matter of one’s life. Ultimately, it is a context from which one chooses to live. Responsibility is not burden, fault, praise, blame, credit, shame or guilt. In responsibility, there is no evaluation of good or bad, right or wrong. There is simply what’s so, and your stand. Being responsible starts with the willingness to deal with a situation from the view of life that you are the generator of what you do, what you have and what you are. That’s not the truth. It is a place to stand. No one can make you responsible, nor can you impose responsibility on another. It is a grace that you give yourself – an empowering context that leaves you cause in the matter of life. – W Erhard
If there’s a pattern of meeting/dating unsuitable men, there is only one common denominator: you. It’s not about the guys. It’s about what you believe about yourself and about men, and once you own that, see it, shift those beliefs and create new and empowering ones, things will be very different
Life is like a big play. As we go along, we write a script which contains different roles for different characters, including ourselves, and we fit the people who come into our lives into those roles. Unfortunately, most of us seem to forget that we created our own script. Luckily, though, the beauty of life is that your external reality fully mirrors your internal one, so you can tell what script you’ve written by paying attention to the words you say and by looking at what and who shows up in your life. If your conversations go along the lines of “there aren’t any good men out there/men are x, y or z/men are either gay/married/in jail/uneducated” and so on, it should not be a surprise when your experience fits those words.
We also need to shift what we believe relationships to be for and about. It seems that they have taken on a very self-orientated bent and have become about what we can get, what someone has to give and what they can do for us. I often hear women say ‘well I’ve got a job/money/a degree, so what is a man going to give me?’ That completely misses the point of what relationships are for, makes men into utilities rather than human beings with their own needs, feelings, thoughts and emotions and sets us up for disappointment since nobody can give us anything anyway. We assume that a degree is somehow related to our emotional maturity or readiness for a relationship, when the two have nothing to do with each other. Relationship is about sharing and giving, and if it’s not that, our relationship scripts need some re-examination.
And goodness help the man who isn’t exactly what we want them to be! I used to engage in conversations in which I’d complain that someone did x or y – until I realized that it was as ludicrous as getting upset with a cat not being a dog.
Of course, the idea of giving fully and sharing ourselves can be scary…We’re afraid of getting hurt and of being taken advantage of. And that’s understandable. It can also be very limiting. As we carry our memories of our past experiences around like a huge trunk on our backs, in the attempt to avoid such upsets happening again, we bring all that past with us into every new situation. Not much can be created with a new person when the slate marked ‘relationship’ is already full of the past. But if we can be responsible for our experience, we can also be responsible for the meanings we have attached to our past experiences.
This woman-as-victim in dating idea is becoming increasingly common, and it does nothing except leave women feeling powerless. All we need is to take full ownership of our experience, and even if we’re still single, we’ll be happily single, not sad and lonely like the women in Helena Andrews’ book.
The haves and the have nots
Last week, while I was on Reverend Al Sharpton’s radio show, I got into a discussion, both on-air and off-air about whether or not there will always be ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ in society/the world. I was discussing why that notion is so ingrained and believed to be just the way it is and what the impact of that belief system is on our lives, our society and the world.
I maintain that the world has more than enough material resources for everyone to be a full participant in life, and that we all have more than enough inner resources for that to be the case. In order for that to happen though, there’d have to be quite a fundamental shift in how we view ourselves, other people and the world. It requires a shift towards cooperation, partnership, inclusion, oneness and operating from a much higher sense of self than just our ego. If we really see that there is no separation between us on a fundamental level of being, we’d truly recognize that if there is even one person in the world who goes without, none of us really have anything.
This doesn’t just go for big ticket issues, such as everyone having access to a certain level of education, or everyone having access to healthcare. The idea of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ is pervasive and deeply rooted in our society – look at what’s happening with the current economic crisis and the financial system – and also has a significant impact on our own personal quality of life. For example, consumerism and consumption are based upon trying to get from a perceived state of not having to one of having. If you examine the way in which many of us interact with money (debt in particular), other people, celebrities, and even ourselves you will also see that notion at play.
We can already see the profoundly positive impact of inclusion in some areas of life. The democratization of the media – which used to be dominated by the ‘haves’ who had access to all of the information – has happened for this reason: now more than ever, people have access to the information they need, from a variety of sources, as and when they need it. The sustainability movement is also having us re-examine our attitudes towards the world, so that we are more conscious and create a world that works for all, not just a select few.
How does the notion of ‘have’ and ‘have not’ play out in your own life? What if we could make a shift to cooperation, and partnership both as individuals and as a society? How would that look?
How to eliminate inequality in the world + create empowerment, dignity and equity for all
Wow, it’s December already. I haven’t blogged for a couple of months. I’ve been writing away, but just not blogging. All of that is changing, however, and I’m going to be blogging at least 3 or 4 times a week.
This year has been a great year so far, and as I’ve written about previously, I’ve been reflecting on my work and what I do with it. Much of my work has focussed on the society/politics arena and I’ve talked a lot about race-related topics and so on. I’ve come to realize that my big concern in the world, indeed the issue that I’d really like to be solved in my lifetime, is the elimination of inequality in all of its forms and the creation of dignity, empowerment and equity for all.
The following questions have been on my mind:
- Why it is that, despite the US having an African-American president, African-Americans in general still face shocking social, educational, health and economic disparities?
- Why do racism and discrimination still exist in the world?
- Why is it that New York, one of the richest cities in the world and a global economic center, still has some 35,000 homeless people sleeping on its streets or in shelters and begging for money and food?
- Why it is that in Nigeria and other nations in the world, a fraction of the population holds all of the wealth, status, opportunities etc while the rest suffer and that this is considered, by some, to be acceptable?
- Why, despite the advancements that women have made in society, do women still earn so much less than men and still face discrimination based on their gender?
- Why, in America, are some people happy to continue to have a healthcare system that they know that millions of people cannot benefit from?
- In fact, why is it that the world itself is so unequal?
- And, most importantly to me, why is it that despite technological advancements, increased knowledge, more information and more ’solutions’ – giving money to homeless people, new laws and policies, aid to foreign countries etc – these issues have not yet been solved or have, in some instances, worsened?
The vision
I believe that we can live in a world in which everyone has equal opportunities. This doesn’t mean that everyone should be the same or have the same things, but that everyone can at least have equal access to getting what they need, at the very least.
I believe that everyone in the world should have the opportunity to eat well, be well educated, accumulate wealth, live in a decent house and so on. I believe that everyone on this earth can and should have a good quality of life and that the disparities and gaps that we see now – where very few people have access to everything – need not exist.
There is already enough food to feed every single person in this world and apparently enough money in this world for every human being to have $1million. Yet, every day almost one billion people go without food, 25,000 children die every day from hunger and some 80% of the world lives on less than $10 per day. How is this so? And, more importantly, is there a solution?
The solution
Yes – there is a solution and I believe that the solution to inequality is the same whether you’re dealing with racial, social, educational, economic or any other type of inequality.
For the most part we tend to accept that things are just what they are. We often fail to see that everything in life operates according to a system and that all systems are man-made and created, primarily through language. Life is always what we say it is, and it is that way until we say that it is something else.
Generally when an organization, individual or government goes to work on a problem, they do so at the level of what can be seen, at the surface level, rather than tackling the root, that is the system – the various belief systems, conversations, thought processes etc – that actually keeps on reproducing and manifesting the external events. If we were to examine the systems at work in the world, we’d see what’s really going on, we’d be able to shift them and then solve the issues once and for all. As the saying goes, if you want to change the fruit – the outcomes and results – change the root.
When I talk to people about ending inequality I hear responses like ‘it’s not possible to have an equal world’, ‘it’s survival of the fittest’, ‘not everyone can be the boss, there have to be some workers’ and so on. The idea that is prevalent – the general conversation of society – is that the world is inherently unequal and that inequality is what’s normal.
We believe in dualities: that there must be rich and poor, that there must be those on top and those on the bottom, there must be some people who suffer and others that do well, even at the expense of those who suffer. In fact, if you look at the nature of consumerism, it is based on people trying to scale the totem pole so that they can be the ones at the top rather than at the bottom. That’s the system, the conversation, that is at play in the world. Is it any wonder that we live in a world that reflects that?
If we started to create an entirely new paradigm for the world, if we started to create, engage in and commit to an entirely new global conversation about equal opportunities there would be a fundamental shift.
I would not be surprised, for example, if healthcare disparities and inequalities continue even after President Obama successfully introduces healthcare reform. Likewise, I was not surprised that racism has continued despite having him in office nor that it continues despite there being other high profile and successful black people and different legislation in force etc. Racism has survived, and will continue to survive, because the system at work – the current conversations that the world has about in-group/out-group and the need for some to be on top and other not – will always give rise to inequality.
Imagine if, rather than going to work on just the healthcare system, President Obama tackled the notions that it’s ok for some people to have things while others don’t, that it’s ok for some to suffer and others to have everything, that it’s acceptable for people to die every day because they are not well off enough to have the basics… What if he really looked at those conversations, and started to unravel what it is that keeps them in place? Because none of that is fixed – it’s all created and human beings created it. And once we have unravelled the systems that don’t work, we can create new ones that do!
In conclusion
We need to shift the context in which inequality arises and work to create justice, dignity and equity for all. Racism, discrimination, hunger and other disparities are simply external manifestations of a context, a conversation, a system that we live inside of. Since we live inside of systems and conversations, let’s create ones that uplift and empower all of us in the world and ones that produce the kind of world that we’d like to see.
What do you think? Let me know!
Opinions, opinions, opinions: what’s the point of them?
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about my role as a writer particularly when it comes to commentary and op-ed writing. I am always asking myself if my writing is part of a solution, or part of the problem – the “problem” being a society in which everyone has something to say, but few offer or provide solutions to address the issues that they talk/debate/complain about. The latter you see is much harder than the former.
We currently live in a commentator culture, in which everyone not only has an opinion but has a channel through which to express that opinion. We are all experts and enjoy our armchair theorizing on what everyone – from heads of state to a Z list celebrity – is doing.
I have spent many column inches and airtime talking about the shoulda, woulda and the couldas of life. And don’t get me wrong – I enjoy it! But I also ask myself how much of a difference it makes. As someone committed to making a tangible difference in the world, I’m becoming much more interested in, and committed to, work that provides solutions to an issue and is forward thinking.
My focus from here on is on solutions-orientated work. There is conversation that sparks discussion, and that has its merits. I am also concerned, however, about what happens to the very issue that we are discussing and debating about. For while we are talking about it, it still continues. If nothing changes to the issue, what difference has debating made?
So from here on, you’ll be noticing a different tone and approach to my writing and indeed any other work that I am engaged in. I hope you continue to enjoy reading!
What happened to politics for the people?
This evening President Obama made his highly anticipated address to Congress. With the healthcare reform plan having come under so much fire in recent weeks, the president had a great deal of work to do tonight. He did a great job in clarifying his proposal and came out strong in setting out his vision and principles.
Most importantly Obama took on the rabble rousers who have been engaging in serious – and unfortunately effective – distraction tactics. Those like Sarah Palin who said that the healthcare reform plan will include ‘death panels’ for the elderly, and others who have made similarly wild claims. The president made a very pertinent point and one which I have been pondering for some time now. Why is it that petty political point scoring appears to be more important than what’s good for society?
Politics affects the day to day lives of everyday people in a significant way. As such it is not a game; people’s live are not to be played with. The politicians – as well as others who have an influential voice in our society – who are using their platform to spread misinformation and distortion are totally irresponsible and I hope that tonight they were reminded that they have a role of service to play that is much, much greater than their own personal or party agenda. This is not simply about who wins elections, but about whether or not people live or die.
This is not to say that everyone need to agree with everything that the president says. No. It makes society a better place for there to be healthy and productive debate and discussion. But that discussion must exist to progress the conversation, rather than be a purposeful and calculated hindrance based only on zero-sum orientated ideology.
There are some people out there who don’t like the president. That’s fair enough. But I hope that, moving forward, they will put their own personal desires and egos aside and not destroy their country in an attempt to destroy their political opponent.
I’m now writing for TheGrio.com
As you can see, I’ve been pretty busy! I’m now also writing for TheGrio.com – a newly launched website targeted at African Americans. The site features incisive, thought-provoking, and insightful commentary.
Here are some recent-ish pieces of mine:
Is Clinton’s visit to Africa about power or partnership?
Beer summit looks great, needs more filling
What we need to hear from Obama on healthcare
Sotomayor hearings an exercise in divisive politics
Black British film renaissance
On a recent trip back to London, I attended a couple of events that made me feel really pleased. One was the launch event for The TV Collective, a newly launched group aimed at Black and Asian professionals working in the TV and Film industry. The event – a conversation between Pat Younge, formerly head of American-based Travel Channel and soon-to-be Chief Creative Officer at the BBC, and Channel 4 news presenter Krishnan Guru Murthy – was well supported by important figures in the TV world. The Collective, started by TV producer and good friend of mine Simone Pennant, is growing in prominence and is ruffling some feathers in the industry which can only be a good thing.
The other event I attended was a film screening hosted by Rapture Films, a monthly faith-based black film community in London. Although they show predominantly African American movies (many of which the UK doesn’t get to see) for now the aim is to also feature the work of black British film makers.
It definitely felt like something was in the air when I went back to London and I was happy to see people really taking the bull by the horns and moving forward from the ground level. A sinking economy forces people to get creative.
I wrote a piece on it for The Guardian entitled ‘Black British film making gets a boost’. Enjoy.
Follow The Collective on Twitter here
I’m now writing for The F Word
I’ve also recently joined the collective of talented female writers at The F Word, a British feminist blog. There’s an engaged, intelligent, thoughtful and active community there so it’s stimulating as a writer to write for them.
To be honest, I had never really considered myself a ‘feminist’ as such. I’ve just always believed, without labelling it, in the power of a woman. In any case, I have always considered being black as more significant than being a woman. However, our world is still very gendered and there is definitely a unique intersection between being black and a woman. It’s not like I can choose one or the other.
Furthermore, the feminist space is still considered very much the domain of white, middle class women so I think it’s important to have other voices in there although I have not really talked about the black female experience as yet.
Here are some recent pieces for your enjoyment:
The Western woman’s body is still subject to regulation
Feminism doesn’t mean tying women to their careers
Women’s preference for curves is nothing to be happy about
I’m back again!
I’ve been away on a hiatus… but I’m back in force. I must admit that I have been sucked into the abyss that is Twitter (follow me!) and am just dragging myself out. There really is something to be said for micro-blogging.
In any case, I have still been writing. So here are some pieces for you:
The Guardian – Stop the publishing white wash – In this piece I ask why there is still the widespread belief that black images don’t sell.
The Guardian – Why so serious about Obama as Joker? – In this piece I argue that although cultural sensitivity is necessary, joking about the president is to be expected and, indeed, welcomed
The Guardian – Don’t let the beer summit go flat – Here I wrote that President Obama shouldn’t let the’ beer summit’ between himself, Henry Louis Gates, Sergeant Crowley and Joe Biden be a waste of time
The Guardian – What happens to black men in America – Why the Henry Louis Gates’ affair was just an expose of what black men go through on a daily basis