 My friend Paul Heft, in response to my article about the difference between what you're meant to do and what you're meant to be, wrote:
As soon as you use comparisons or quantification ("uniquely good at") you are talking about doing,
not being. "What is X good at doing" is a fine utilitarian question for
an Intentional Community (IC) to ask of its members, and especially
candidates for membership, in order to decide how to best use their
talents and capacities. One may be good at farming, or parenting, or
leading, or planning, etc.
The
English language is wonderfully loose, but let's not confuse that with
"being", as in being genuine, being compassionate, being a friend,
being aware--which are each aspects/modes of being yourself.
Being yourself is not an activity, or a set of capacities for action
(talents, skills, knowledge, etc.) Being yourself ("authentically
nobody-but-myself") is, perhaps, resting in your true nature (once you
have managed to see through the conditioning that generates personality
along with its biases, defenses, beliefs and rationalizations).
In
that position I suspect you might feel at home wherever you are, and
from that position you will do what you know is appropriate. Where can
you call "home"? What you do uniquely well, and love doing, which
enables others to change for the better, might not belong in any
land-based intentional community. (It seems that the ICs we discuss are
land-based, such as farms and ecovillages--with the exception of the IC
being created in Second Life.) Instead I see you serving a large number
of communities and organizations, and in return receiving material
support from them. This is analogous to an itinerant preacher or
circuit judge, except you may be able to do a large portion of your
travelling through cyberspace rather than across the land. I suspect
that, even as you help others identify and live well with the land, you
will identify with something much larger (Gaia?). Your home may be
merely a home base, from which you will travel in service, and to which
you will return to take pleasure in dear friends and familiar
surroundings. In that case you will not be tied to a particular habitat
like a farmer, or a hunter, or a bear, or a salmon.
I still think we ideally need to know who we are meant to be, before we can really expect to know what we are meant to do.
Paul uses the examples of being compassionate and being aware. These
are, I think, capacities of being. Some of us are just better at being
these things than others are. We can of course work hard to 'be' better
at these things.
I would love to say that my distinctive
capacity, what I am uniquely good at being, is perceptive, aware, but I
know that is not true. Some of my distinctive Capacities are
intuitiveness, what is called 'lateral thinking', and
pattern-recognizing ability. While they can be applied in what I 'do',
these capacities are, of themselves, elements of my being, part of who
I am. I would do them even if I had no 'use' for them.
If I were to let-myself-change to become more aware, more perceptive,
more sensual, that would become part of who I am -- and I aspire to be
that. But it is not (yet) who I am, and if I try to live as if it is, I
am not going to be happy; I will be constantly feeling as if I'm
letting people (and myself) down. I don't think I'm playing fast and loose with language here, though I may be communicating badly.
The second part of who we are, I think, is what we love being,
what I called in the earlier article Joys. If I were to be honest, I
would admit that I love being popular. That means I love appreciation,
and that I will be driven to do things (like blogging in public) that
(hopefully) draw that appreciation to me. But that is part of who I am,
not of what I do. I love to be stimulated (intellectually, emotionally,
physically). I love to be at peace, feeling connected with
all-life-on-Earth, and that drives me to do all kinds of things (like
avoiding bad news, and being anxious in the very crowds whose
appreciation I crave.) It is possible, though difficult, to learn to
love being things we do not currently love being, though I think it is
difficult.
The third part of who we are, I believe, is what we
need ourselves to be, and what others need us to be. In my earlier
article I called this Intention, but perhaps a better word would be
Requirement. This includes things we already are (if they are needed,
valued) and other things that we will have to become if we aspire to
fulfill our own and others' needs. My intuitiveness is something I need
-- I rely on it and trust it immensely -- but I wouldn't say it's
needed or valued by others. Awareness is something that I need to be,
for self-fulfillment (I know because I long to 'be' in the moment, to
really see, to exist in 'Now Time', to be connected to
all-life-on-Earth). What others need from me (I think) is sensitivity
and patience, qualities of being that I am not good at and don't
especially aspire to be (perhaps I am afraid that if I were sensitive
I'd be hurt and stressed too easily, and if I were patient I'd 'settle'
too easily). These things just aren't me.
The chart above (an analogy to my Gift/Passion/Purpose three-circle chart for deciding what you're meant to do
for a living), shows the Sweet Spot in the middle that, I think,
corresponds to true happiness. I've filled in the qualities that I
think represent me. What would you put in each of the circles: What are
you good at being, what would you love to be; and what do you need
yourself to be (and what do others need you to be)?
Everything in any of the circles is, I think, to some extent, a part of who we are or intend to be.
The more qualities that are in that central Sweet Spot the happier we
are. To become happier, we strive to find people who need and value our
Area 2 (unappreciated) qualities, and we strive to come to appreciate
these qualities more in ourselves. To become happier, we strive to
acquire competency in Area 4 qualities. To become happier, we strive to
appreciate and enjoy our Area 5 qualities. Success in any of these
efforts moves these qualities to the Sweet Spot in the centre.
What
we're good at being often determines what we're good at doing. What we
love (or would love) being can correlate to what we love doing. And
what people need us to be can determine what they need us to do. So the
Capacities/Joys/Requirements list (what we're meant to be) should offer us clues about what our Gifts/Passions/Purpose might be (what we're meant to do).
The things that I am
that make me happiest (being articulate and provocative and
imaginative), for example, map pretty closely to the things that are in
my Gifts/Passions/Purpose Sweet Spot (expository writing, facilitating
self-change in others, imagining possibilities) -- what I think I'm
meant to do for a living. But
these are all fairly introspective, intellectual qualities and
activities -- perhaps not those of someone aspiring to start an
Intentional Community, and lead the charge for better ways to live and
make a living? In learning more about who we authentically are
(nobody-but-ourselves), and about who we are not (the qualities
'adventurous', 'courageous', 'perseverant' and 'persuasive' are
conspicuously absent, for example, from my chart) will a better
understanding of who we are meant to be, and what we are meant to do,
emerge?
And once we have this better understanding, will we be able to better figure out where we belong, where is home, to us?
Paul
suggests that perhaps 'home' for me (and for others in our increasingly
tiny, global, unreal world) might be just a stopping-off place, not a
place where I make a living at all. Even if flying all over the world
is ecologically irresponsible (and will soon be unaffordable), perhaps
my place for making a living is in a virtual world? If that's the case,
perhaps I'm freed from working on the land to embrace the whole Earth
as my 'home'.
It's an interesting idea. But my intuition says
that's all it is, that, as physical, visceral creatures, our home is
some tangible Earthbound place. Paul may be right that technology will
one day separate the place where we make a living from the place we
call home. Perhaps it will even separate the place where those that we
love live, physically, from the place we, individually, call home.
Somehow,
though, I doubt it. The essential enterprises of all species are all
about providing the necessities of life -- love, food, learning, play
-- and these can all be provided, as long as we are not reckless in our
numbers and consumption, easily, and are best provided close to home.
Now all we need to do is figure out where that is.
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
