Thought leadership can be a new analogy or a new comparison. It can take familiar ideas and put them together in a new way. I love these unexpected and profound pairings. For example, babies and desire and fear:
“They set no goals. They require no discipline, adhere to no schedule. Fear of failure, regret, guilt for not practicing enough-these strategies play no part in their game plan or ultimate success.
Do you want a master class in motivation?
Watch babies. Using the strongest motivation known to human kind, they master the art of walking. How? Why? With what motivation? The answer to all 3 questions is the same. Desire-because they want to.
….Years ago, I visited a garden with a statue of a particularly jolly Buddha. Inscribed beneath it were the words, “Misunderstood desire is the cause of all suffering.”
Misunderstood desire, at last it made sense! We have all heard the familiar quote, “Desire is the cause of all suffering.” I had often wondered how someone as wise as Buddha could have thought that. How could desire ever cause suffering? Attachment and “misunderstood desire” do that.” – Mandy Evans
Reading this is like a deep exhale. Can you imagine the absence of fearing failure, regret, and guilt? I’d like to add “disappointing others” to that list. Fear of disappointing people is the prima donna of my fear landscape.
At dinner tonight, Steve and I were discussing want. What if I quit my job and business? I was musing, picturing myself as one of the black-clad servers at Pizzeria Bianco. What if I worked nights at a restaurant and spent my days leisurely reading, writing, taking walks, and doing whatever I fancy?
What would I WANT to do? (After a while, enough leisure reading is enough.)
What would that most integral, nurturing, joyous, genuine thing, DESIRE, propel me to do?
And the things I think I desire right now – wealth, recognition, fame, strength, different clothes – are they misunderstood?
When I think about a baby, putting one starfish hand in front of the other, crawling and looking up with a plump face wide open in curiosity, I want to cry in awe. It’s not for the 30 Under 30 List, or the Likes and Comments. There’s no forcefulness, no you have to because you have to.
It’s not for a prize but for its own satisfaction. The glow of yes, I did that.
I want. I desire. Can you feel its power??
