To “Be” All That You Want, Do This
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Do. Have. Be. Do Be? To Be?
No I am not talking about the Doobie Brothers. Or Hamlet. I’m talking about the struggle we have in ourselves. We all want to Be something, right?
Be happy. Be wealthy. Be beautiful. Be calm. Be secure. Be loved.
Oftentimes it feels unattainable. So we search for what might help us get there and we “Do.” We take classes, we diet, we put in Ring cameras, we take on side hustles, we scour the internet until 4am begging Google to provide the answers to our life. (ahem)
Or sometimes we feel we must “Have”
We date people hoping they’ll provide us security and love. We look for new houses, assuming that will bring us calm. We go on an acquisition spree hoping things might save us, like that new Breville espresso machine to energize us with joy each day.
If we act and if we acquire, will we be? If we WANT hard enough, will we Be?
Learning from Those that Are…
I visited friends this weekend and confessed to my entrepreneur pal Sanjay that I was feeling very anxious and unsure. I wasn’t “Being” the Heidi I wanted to be. Perhaps he had the answers as he seemed to both “have’ and “be” it all..
“What do you want to be?” he asked.
“Calm. Joyful. Secure.” I replied.
I then listed out all the actions I was taking in order to get to this end state and the things I felt I needed. A new house. A stable relationship. A promotion at work. A new color of nail polish. And 30 self help books…
“Why can’t you Be all those things now?” he asked. I was flabbergasted. Calm NOW? In a pandemic? While working out custody for my daughter living in a small rental ? Joyful now?
“Yes. I mean. If you work on those things now and can be calm, joyful and secure…then all the haves and dos will just come into place.”
“So If I am calm, a promotion will just land in my lap?” I asked him.
“Probably.” he said. “But it also won’t matter as much as you’ve already reached the end state. Stop searching. Start being.”
