I did some traveling this summer (always a good time for ‘soul searching’), and thought of a ‘mission statement’ for my practice:
Using self-inquiry and meditation to live on my own terms.
Catchy, right? Sort-of? I realized that this is what I do with what I learn from my practice. So instead of pretending that it’s all about esoteric spirituality or banal self-help, I drafted that short statement.
The logic flows like this:
- What do I want?
-To live on my own terms.
-To have time and energy to devote to people and activities I care about. - What does that mean?
-To not have to answer to too many unnecessary higher authorities.
-To do things I can stand behind, rather than doing things someone else can stand behind.
-To help people uniquely using my core skillset.
-To manage my time wisely. - What is the opposite?
-Busywork.
-Answering to an anonymous or uninterested 3rd party.
-Serving an ideological agenda or goal I’m uninvested in personally.
-Worrying about unnecessary trifles.
-Competing with others.
The fundamentals:
self-inquiry—>
self-knowledge—>
intention—>
action—>
result—>
recalibration—>
repetition—>
self-discipline—>
self-respect—>
reward—>
repeat ∞
Like spirituality, this is an internal struggle. It’s not too much of a struggle; it’s really more of a game. But it begins with an open-ended question, a semi-conflict, that must be resolved: what is the best way to spend my time?
That leads to digging deeper, figuring out what your true intentions are, your strengths and weaknesses, the innate natural fire beneath your proverbial ass. To prevent the train of thought from becoming a train-wreck of thought, you have to sit on it for a while. But for me, this eventually led to the fundamental goal, a goal beyond anything material: owning myself.
When I first started working for myself, I used to joke to my friends. They’d ask, “How’s it being self-employed?” and I’d say, “It’s not bad, but my boss is a real asshole.” But like all jokes, this came from a place of genuine truth: insecurity. It’s easy to let someone else be the master of your domain, to submit to an authority, to say, “I don’t have time for the things I love— I’m too busy”. We see the way sycophants and bureaucrats operate— when they make mistakes, they can usually pass responsibility down the line, either to someone below them, or someone above them. But when you own yourself, all success and failure falls upon one entity: you. You are both the sole liability and the sole asset.
Self-ownership isn’t just about business or professional life. When insecurity chimes in, we always look for ways to diffuse responsibility. When we’re unwilling to work on the ugly parts of ourselves, we blame our spouses and friends for their lack of understanding. When we hit a psychological or spiritual roadblock, we buy into various political or religious systems, finding scapegoats for our problems. There are as many examples as there are people. We are all the same in this way. When we feel vulnerable, we decide to stop taking responsibility, when (ideally) that’s when we should actually start taking responsibility.
When we doubt ourselves, we decide that someone else is responsible for our discontent. In doing so, we ‘lease’ ourselves to something outside us, and stop owning ourselves.
Now, it’s possible to make a great life while being owned by someone else. It’s also possible to fail miserably while owning yourself. But the ‘goal’, for me, is not as simple as just ‘self ownership’. It’s more about breaking past the barriers of diffused responsibility. The easiest way to sum it up is like this:
If I can find a way to take complete responsibility for my life, know myself, and act on this knowledge, I will be a stronger person for it, and I will treat others better.
That’s really the essence of self-ownership, not becoming a card-carrying Libertarian or quitting your job and sailing to Bimini. With self-knowledge comes self-acceptance, and then self-discipline, and self-respect, and so on. This is the practice element of spiritual practice. We’re practicing. It’s like a rehearsal dinner with a party of one. Once we get it right, we can apply our knowledge to our personal and professional lives.
To be a good ‘master of self’, we have to start with knowing ourselves. From there we find workable strategies. We also know what we care about, and can subsequently devote enough energy to these things to feel both productive and fulfilled. The balance is very important.
For those interested, see the ‘follow-up questions’ for this post here.