As you become more aware of the Disquiet (articles about the Disquiet here) in your life and its costs to you and others, there is frequently a wish that you didn’t know about it.  OR a greater desire to go back to “simpler times”.  We all fantasize about the times when we weren’t suffering and life wasn’t so complicated or hard. I frequently get messages like this:  

How do I get back to the person I was and really and truly enjoyed?   I use to love life, had a lot of fun, and truly enjoyed who I was. Very little of that still exists”

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I am repeatedly amazed at the power of the blog. In the 10 months and 110 posts, I have heard from people from all around the world. Almost 400 comments have been posted here. And I have received hundreds of emails.

The Disquiet has hit a nerve. People resonate with it. Men are nodding in recognition to their struggle with it. Women see it in the men in their lives. (more…)

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My good friend and business coach, Dawud, recently asked me on his bog about my current learning edge.  It’s a great question.  I think of learning edge as the place where I bump into the outer limit of something I can do or understand.  It causes me to have to lean into it and stretch a bit.  And that is uncomfortable - that reach beyond what is known.
While uncomfortable, it is required to grow.  I think it’s required to just live fully. 

So my edge? Right now it is how to be open to not believing I know the truth.  Sounds kind of philosophical, but I mean more in the day to day stuff.  I keep discovering I operate as if I know what is right or how it must be in situation.  My son and I hit a bumpy patch and I know what needs to be done.  I see the truth - it’s that simple.  (more…)

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Last week’s article about not waiting to live your life brought in a guest’s comment that really speaks to working with your Disquiet. You will see his post below.

Frank wrote the following:

I am flirting with retirement at the moment. I switched jobs from a high paying software development job where I spent my days in my cellar office, alone with no one to talk to and only an occasional call about “new software problems” to resolve… to something totally different - selling stairlifts. I meet interesting people everyday, do something that directly helps people. Clients range from the Rich and Famous (authors Steven King, Ann Givens Siddons) and a bunch of CEO’s that have more money than God …. to interesting and wonderful people who can barely scrape together two cents.

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“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation” -Henry David Thoreau

That greets you on the home page to this site.  I think that captures the Disquiet beautifully.

But it’s not the whole story.  There is another aspect to the suffering with the Disquiet.  That’s what I call “magical thinking”.   When I was up to my ears in hating my job and my life, I kept steeling myself each day by muttering to myself through clinched teeth that all the suffering was for the future.  If I kept plugging away, I would then have enough money, seniority, retirement, or something that would allow me to live my life on my terms.

Sounds pretty puritanical doesn’t it?  Live a life of Hell to get rewarded in the afterlife.

I hear this in many of my clients as well.  When our sense of OK’ness and success is so dependent on external factors, we are doomed to a living Hell.

It just does not work that way.  First of all, life doesn’t turn around and pay you a bonus for being miserable, like frequent flier miles for suffering.  For those who view life as something to survive, it will be just that - a never ending sequence of disasters and hardships to navigate.  For those who can learn to see that life ‘lives’ through us, there is another way to experience and relate to life.  It is about now, this moment.

David Deida in his book, “The Way of the Superior Man“, writes:

Most men make the error of thinking that one day it will be done.  They think, “If I can work enough, then one day I could rest.”  Or, “One day my woman will understand something and then stop complaining.”  Or, “I’m only doing this now so that one day I can do what I really want with my life.”  The masculine error is to think that eventually things will be different in some fundamental way.  They won’t.  It never ends.  As long as life continues, the creative challenge is to tussle, play, and make love with the present moment while giving your unique gift”.

So don’t wait until the kids are off to college, or retirement, or some other external guidepost to begin living.  Life is very very short and it’s waiting to live through you now.
Oh, and by the way, read David’s book - it is a great navigational aide for navigating your Disquiet.

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To continue an ongoing discussion that emerged from an earlier post: I wrote about humility being a necessary part to work with the Disquiet (read here). Adam at Monk at Work came back with a great comment that led me to write about the Disquiet not as a sign that something’s wrong but a wonderful Geiger counter of sorts signaling you when you are out of synch with your deepest values and callings (read here).

Adam built on this at his blog and came up with 3 important action steps that could be very useful when working with the Disquiet:

How to Follow the Lonely

If you’ve got a feeling that you’re missing something, doing something wrong, or you just feel bugged about your course through life, then you just may need to “follow the lonely.”

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