“We have to be candles burning between hope and despair, faith and doubt, life and death, all the opposites.”*

“So maybe you aren’t any happier, you just think you are.”**

Not everything is measurable.  Happiness for example.  Well, at least not by the means we try to employ.

As Gretchen Ruben came to the end of her happiness project a scientist friend asked if you had used some systematic measurement.  She replies that she hasn’t and goes on to say it’s not that she thinks she is but feels she is and to know is more than thinking.

We can think all we like and we can miss how we feel.  I don’t mean the simple feeling of happiness and sadness but the more subtle feelings of connecting with some thing deep within us, or those of disconnection.  Noticing these more nuanced feelings and knowing how to interpret them helps us move forward with a more hopeful and imaginative worldview and life-path and away from destructive one.

Elle Luna writes for ‘Anyone looking to follow the energy deep within their chest but aren’t quite sure how to.’^  This joyful excitement within reconciles me with a universe of possibility over and against a world of measurement.^^

All things working together rather than measuring this against that.

(*William Brodrick, quoted in the Northumbria Community‘s Morning Prayer.)
(**A scientist friend of Gretchen Ruben’s, quoted in The Happiness Project.)
(^From Elle Luna’s essay The Crossroads of Should and Must.)
(^^Terms used by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander in The Art of Possibility.)

“Listen to the silence.”*

‘When all property is privatised, faith is privatised and all men feel fear at the boundary of the self.’**

Before the hustle and bustle of emails, meetings, events, errands … all the “to dos” of the day, before the day begins, I come to the silence.

I connect with a larger story, so hoping the smaller stories don’t take over: I read how ‘even the most technical of ideas needs to be framed inside a greater narrative.’^  It’s what we’re doing, consciously or unconsciously, whatever we do, all the time.  I just feel the best stories appear when we turn our attention towards them and ask some questions.

I find myself wondering whether the greater story for me means I must explore what life in all its fullnesss can be, and this with others.

This is pulling and pushing me acrosss the boundaries I’ve established in my life, whether because of the things I’ve pursued, or in protecting against the “other.”  I am pulled from the egoic to the ecoic, from bad dreams to good dreams, which will always include the other, the world and the true self.  ‘Bless and you will be blessed,’ counsels Paulo Coelho.^^

‘It is grace before, during, and after.’*^

Grace – ultimately the gift another shares with us out of the essence of their being – only exists when crossing thresholds.  It has journeyed from others to us, it works in us in possibilities and transformations, and then itss shared by us to others.

And now I wonder what an open-border day will look like.

(*Frances Roberts, quoted in the Northumbria Community‘s Morning Prayer.)
(**From Lewis Hyde’s The Gift.)
(^From Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler’s Bold.)
(^^From Paulo Coelho’s Aleph.)
(*^From Richard Rohr’s Eager to Love.)

I’ll tell you a story
About Jack a Nory;
And now my story’s begun;
I’ll tell you another
Of Jack and his brother,
And now my story is done.*

Today is a gift.

I can miss the truth of this because of all that needs to be done but today isn’t so much about time as it is a chapter or sequence within a story.

‘Perhaps we could temper the course as commodity with the course as story.’**

Psychology professor Joshua Searle-White and and associate professor of theatre Dan Crozier suggest thinking “of [the lesson] as a story that you will help unfold for the students,”* but this notion of  “embodied narrative” is important for anyone, whatever their walk of life and work.  We can turn any commodity into goods into services into experiences into transformative experiences.

So this is more than a day; this is our story.

The day doesn’t happen to us, a clock running down.  We play within it – with our imagination and purpose.  Even just to say this makes us more aware of the possibilities we can bring to a day, to the people encounters and meetings and demands within it.

‘A machine, like any model, ought to propose rather than command … Against the claim of perfection we can assert our own individuality, which gives distinctive character to the work we do.’^

The joy or blessedness of a day is not something that comes from outside us but from the very centre of our being.

(*Jackanory is the  name of a British children’s TV show that had celebrities reading a story.  The English nursery rhyme was first published in 1760 and jackanory became Cockney rhyming slang for story.  Today’s story isn’t told by a celebrity but by you.)
(**From Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber’s The Slow Professor.)
(^From Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman – reflecting upon Denis Diderot‘s thinking with the appearance of the machine that produces something more perfectly than a human can.)

Or, following our golden phizzwizards rather than trogglehumpers.

Meaningful work resonates with who we are and what we can do; it also resonates with others, making a difference.  Doing work for as much pay as we can get, acquiring and possessing things is often an exchange of Plan A for Plan B.  It’s not that we do not believe in meaningful work but we don’t think it’s possible for people like us to find it.

I have sat with enough grieving families to know the measure of a loved one is not in how much they acquired but the quality of their relationships:

“We have forgotten our collective ends, and we possess great means: we set huge machines in motion in order to arrive nowhere.”*

‘The character of our work is shaped not by accomplishments or possessions but in the birth of relationships’.**

When it comes to developing their businesses as places for more =meaningful work, it costs virtually nothing for this quality to be increased in our workplaces: for companies to engage the heads and hearts as well as the hands of employees, and as we as the wallets of customers.

“From now on, we is keeping as still as windy little micies.”^

The best way is not to wait for someone to invite us to do some meaningful work but to begin exploring and employing ourselves in what is meaningful for us.

Find your dreamwhisperer: someone who will listen very carefully for the whispers of your life – golden phizzwizards – and also for the things you need to avoid or let go of – trogglehumpers.^  Create your story or plan for including these meaningful things in every day – whether this is in your workplace or when you’re at home or both.  Experiment or prototype every day.

Of dreams, the BFG says, ‘They is always invisible until they is captured.’^

(*Jacques Ellul, quoted in Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.)
(**From Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.)
(^From Roald Dahl’s The BFG.)

‘What initiative, if taken on jointly, could help shift the field of your system to 4.0?’*

‘So transformations cannot be extracted, made, delivered, or even staged; they can only be guided.’**

4.0 means everyone is involved, contributing, leadership shifting like the exchanging lead in the V-formation of geese.  4.0 is a connection to others, to the future, to the world, and to the Self.

And transformation comes from within, beginning with a dream.

“This is where all dreams is beginning.”^

Dreaming allows us to move beyond our present competence and makes a fool of rote obedience, imagining who we can be and what we can do that is more than we can do today.

Whilst dreams come from within, we often need a place for those dreams to be heard and to grow.   And there’s no better place then a group comprised of those who have followed their own curiosities and interests, developed skills and turned these into daily practices. Such “Dream Collectives” are beginning to form and make space for others to explore their aspirations and begin their own journeys.

Above all, they know ‘we shall lose that life which remains unarticulated.’^^

(*This is the last of sixteen questions from U. Lab Portobello explored since the 10th November.)
(**From Joseph Pine and James Gilmore’s The Experience Economy.)
(^The BFG in The BFG.)
(^^From Lewis Hyde’s The Gift.)

‘How might these observations relate to the institutional transformations (inversions) around you?’*

‘The first step to acting like an entrepreneur is to look not at the writing on the wall but at the spaces between the writing.’**

We are each curious in a different way, everyone interested in different things. We may see things others do not.  More likely we will think differently about what we all see.

Don’t get hung up on whether you are or are not an entrepreneur.  Your curiosity and interest means you can be entrepreneurial.  There is so much for you to yet explore, the empty space between what others are doing.

This is where the future will shaped – by companies, organisations, and tribes, and sometimes individuals.  This is about exploring abundance more than fighting over scarcity. And we can all begin today:

‘The greatest gift you can give a person is to see who she is and to reflect that back to her, when we help people to be who they want to be, to take back some of the permission they deny themselves, we are doing our best, most meaningful work.’^

(*From U.Lab Portobello.  This follows the question: ‘Try to summarise an observation on your opening over the past weeks.’  My observation was that significant things emerge from our listening to the experience of others, always exploring, and how we’re intelligent together **)
(**From Linda Rottenberg’s Crazy is a Compliment.)
(^From Bernadette Jiwa’s Meaningful.)

I’ve previously shared about when my friend Alex asked me what it meant to me to be Human.  How I went away to think on this some more. How it took me a couple of weeks to respond. Then – ta-dah:

To be human is to live with creativity, generosity, enjoyment.

What is your response? There are as many great responses as there are people.  Enjoy the question.

‘Joy is the product of abundance; it is the overflow of vitality.  It is life working together harmoniously.  It is exuberance. … We cannot make ourselves joyful.  Joy cannot be commanded, purchased, or arranged.’*

Such joy is not without difficulty, sacrifice, and pain; indeed, it can be more exquisite and nuanced when more has been overcome.

Joy can be the treasure at the end of an adventure.  Celebration is what takes place when something we’ve done ends well, it becomes a “party” we can invite others into.

Journey into your creativity, experiment with generosity, and bring your joy to others.

(*From Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.)

Not you.

If life is like a game of Snakes and Ladders, you’ve figured out that it’s not about the fate of the die thrown but about your choices.

When it it comes to exploring upwards this life in all its fullness you have determined to avoid the snake of early judgement – instead, you hone the skill of suspending what you know in order to discover more.

You’ve also become sensitive to the snake of cynicism – noticing when it’s begun to coil itself around your heart, forcing yourself to keep your heart open towards others rather than turning away.

And you you have grown wise in avoiding the snake of fear – knowing that keeping moving requires small steps rather than mighty leaps.

‘”Nothing is growing except for one icky-poo vegetable.  It is called the snozzcumber.”  “The snozzcumber!” cried Sophie.  “There’s no such thing.”‘*

‘Try to summarise an observation on your opening over the past weeks.’**

Of snozzcumbers: Sophie found out something new as she listened to the BFG’s experience of the foul-tasting vegetable.

Of explorers: There is a universe of wisdom to be discovered and we’re all explorers:

‘I have found the most difficult and most rewarding challenges of my work is how to be both a mapmaker and a traveller.’^

Of communion: We need more than just our thoughts to be intelligent and we need each other to be wise:

‘For Antonio Damansio, all thinking and all emotion is embodied.’^^

“These are people who see a domain but not the path.  The fact that the path is not clearly defined is what excites them.”*^

In the room together more than online, where conversations with purpose and playfulness take place, a universe of possibilities opens.

Communion is to integrity and wholeness and possibility – that is, connection to others and all things – as confession is to humility and gratitude and faithfulness.

(*From Roald Dahl’s The BFG.)
(**From U.Lab Portobello, building on this question: Where do you feel the crack (opening) to a field of the future?)
(^From Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly.)
(^^From Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together.)
(*^John Hagel, quoted in Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler’s Bold.)

‘Where do you feel the crack (opening) to a field of the future?’*

‘”I is a dream-blowing giant.” … “A dream,” he said, “as it goes whiffling through the night air, is making a tiny little buzzing-humming noise.  But this little buzzy-hum is so silvery soft, it is impossible for a human bean to be hearing it. … Every morning I is going out and snatching new dreams to put in my bottles.”‘**

For some forty years, I’ve been trying to make to sense of some words about my new song.  I’ve held on to them because I have a feeling they are important to me but am not sure how.  As I listen for whispers at the beginning of the day, I hear my song in a children’s story – of all places.  This is a personal reflection but it’s also about you, because I’m a dreamwhisperer, listening for the “secret whisperings of the world”** in your life, listening for the crack, the opening, the thin|silence.

I share these whisperings, wondering what you’ll make of them, may do with them – these tiniest, most vulnerable possibilities of your future.

(*From U.Lab Portobello.)
(**From Roald Dahl’s The BFG.)