I have struggled with the idea of a rule, as in a tool like a ruler, for many years,  The idea of measuring out one’s life into manageable portions and designating different activities for different pieces.  Making time for different activities, work as well as contemplative spiritual practices in a steady pattern throughout the day.,  I really resist that,  I want to be “free” to do whatever calls me in the moment.  But one doesn’t end up so free with that plan.  One ends up a slave to reactivity, the crisis of the moment.  I get a fair amount done, as I have a ruthless inner critic, and quite a sense of urgency for my major projects, but there is a sense of running myself ragged.

As much as I hate forcing myself to a schedule, albeit a moveable one, one that can be adjusted I find there is greater freedom in this approach.

Its a hard battle for me, and not one I have succeeded in yet.  I’m a compulsive over-worker.  I have a tendency to long workaholic stints.  I crave a long extended period to focus on my priority tasks, but frequently get sidetracked.  So, I end up working late, or on the weekend to “make up” for where I think I should be.  This approach profoundly doesn’t work, after years of doing it, I am approaching burnout, and there are always the lower priority tasks that never get done as they aren’t very “interesting” and these cause me a lot of grief with my colleagues.

So, I have been trying to take on George Kao’s “Joyful Productivity” approach, and also the almost 2,000 yr old tradition of Benedictine Monks, ‘Ora et Labora’, Work and Prayer, or the rhythm of praying five times a day in the Muslim tradition.   The first key concept of both thee programs I want to discuss is: When the bell rings- you stop.  In Joyful productivity this bell is a timer, in the Benedictine tradition, a bell, in the Islamic tradition, a call to prayer by the Muezzin.  One stops ones work immediately.  I remember being struck  years ago when visiting the Middle East for work, that my colleague, dropped what he was doing at the appointed time,  made a brief explanatory note to me as I was a Westerner that it was time for prayer, and got down and did his Salat in his office on a rug for that purpose, unselfconsciously.  Obviously the habit of a lifetime,

So, in that spirit, the idea is to set aside a segment of time for focusing on a task.  When the timer goes off, take a brief break to refresh myself, and reconnect with what I will call Source, or to use Jean Gebser’s term “ursprung”, (upwelling, springing up). I think of a bubbling spring I once saw on the slopes of Mount Shasta. As a southern Californian, I live in  a dry land, and the sight of water bubbling up from the ground, seemed quite miraculous to me. 

 I am not a monk, and don’t live in a culture, where stopping in the middle of the business day to pray is the norm, so for me, this works best as a very brief, largely inward ritual.  George teaches his “energy reboot” method which fits this bill.  I tend to use a brief, re-centering, in a manner taught to me indirectly from the Gurdjieff tradition, though Rev Cynthia Bourgeault’s Wisdom schools. The main point being to keep it to just a few minutes, and to involve the body, moving a stretching a bit as circumstance allow. 

I try to take longer contemplative breaks throughout the day, though these tend to get pushed to the beginning and end of my day, as I work in a cube in an open office area, though I do take breaks to walk and move around a bit, and can try to double some of those as a bit of chant walking practice time perhaps.  I will try to add that.

I’ve been working on adopting these practices, and am gradually adjusting.  It is not easy, but it works better than my old way of doing things. I also make time for the tasks I really dislike this way. 

How often have things not gone according to plan? You think you’ve planned everything and then the unexpected happens and all your plans have to be set aside or altered . . . or reconfigured. It brings to mind the story of the young Scottish poet Robert Burns overturning the home of a mouse while plowing his field. It certainly wasn’t what the mouse planned on when he built his home and it leads Burns to consider how humans respond to the unexpected with despair when they were hoping for joy. That story came to mind again recently but instead of despair, the unexpected provided an invitation to find something quite different. Let me explain.

Back in March, I completed my certification for a Guided Autobiography Instructors course. With my certificate, curriculum and resources in hand, I set out to find places where I could offer my services. I found one in a local retirement and long-term care facility where I’d been volunteering, offering a monthly storytelling session.

Thanks to a passionate Events Manager, we struck an arrangement whereby she would find six or seven willing participants and provide a suitable room to work. I would prepare and facilitate the 6-week program. 

Come the day of our first session, I felt ready. With my “Guide for Facilitators” and handouts ready, I entered the facility.

Although I knew that I would be facilitating a group of seniors, I wasn’t prepared for how old they might be or what limitations they might have. Four out of the six were in their 90s, the oldest 98 years old. One is legally blind and uses a magnifying glass to read. She told me she was there to listen as she found writing too difficult. Another was near deaf. I had to put my face up next to his ear and shout so that he could hear me. All had physical limitations and some cognitive challenges. My training hadn’t prepared me for this. It was becoming obvious that I was going to have to reinvent the course agenda to meet the needs of this group.

What the group did have (that I don’t) was long-term memory. When I gave them a writing prompt to get them started, it triggered memories of their childhood homes. I was astounded at the level of detail they recalled. They remembered the names of the streets where they lived, the names of kindergarten teachers, of friends and neighbours. One woman from Northern Ontario remembered people living in sod houses, another from the prairies of Saskatchewan recalled her parents digging “dugouts” – holes in the ground to collect rain and groundwater for drinking and household use. I asked them to draw floor plans of their childhood homes and recall one room in particular that gave them positive memories. Most chose kitchens and described the meals their mothers and fathers made there. Most of the group chose to draw and add a few sentences but when it came time to share, they relied on their memories and spoken words.

While this was meant to be a memoir-writing course (with the emphasis on writing) I realized that telling stories orally was going to be our primary mode of expression here. Fortunately, as a storyteller in the oral tradition, I knew I could accommodate this kind of sharing. These folk might not be able to write multi-page stories but we’d share their stories one way or another. A colleague suggested I record their stories and have them transcribed and present them back to their owners.

I guess the lesson I’ve learned is that no matter how well-prepared you think you are, a situation will always arise in which you find yourself unprepared. Accept these situations as gifts – opportunities to learn and acquire new insights. Rather than complain or sink into despair because the situation wasn’t what I had prepared for, I saw the opportunity to call upon my other skills and experiences – my teaching and storytelling experiences, for example – and use them to adapt to the circumstances. Be prepared to be unprepared, for as the Scottish bard Robert Burns once remarked, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” or, as the more contemporary Murphy’s Law would have it, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” When it does, be prepared to be unprepared . . . and then prepare to discover something new.

When I was teaching, I prided myself on being organized and spent a lot of time creating detailed lesson plans. But there were times when I'd show up unprepared.

An older, wiser colleague once told me to treat those moments as gifts - opportunities. She advised me to look up above the classroom door and ask the "angels" for guidance before entering.

One day, finding myself in that position, I had no choice but to do as she instructed. While uncharacteristic, I asked for help, opened the door, and faced a class of teenagers. I confessed I didn't have a plan.

Instead of chaos, order descended. The class asked to use the time to talk and have a conversation with their teacher about what was on their minds. It turned out to be one of the best classes I ever taught - one I still remember over 20 years later.

So, who or what do you turn to when you find yourself unprepared?

The Soft Moon and Helsinki Bus Routes
Originality lies on the far side of unoriginality...

I set out on my morning walk as the sun began to rise, and the sky was still dark. The light of the moon was obscured by clouds, giving it an unusually soft appearance. Having captured my attention, I realized that this is The Soft Moon. 

Last month an unexpected article caught my eye while scrolling through the newsfeed. Luis Vasquez, a musician here in Los Angeles who my wife and I had witnessed his rise from his own obscurity to achieve a modicum of success, had died of a fentanyl overdose at 44 years old. He was a fellow solopreneur who performed under the name The Soft Moon. 

Earlier this morning, I read a parable about one of the principles of patience: "Originality lies on the far side of unoriginality."

Photographer Arno Minkkinen shares that of the two dozen platforms at Helsinki's main bus station, each bus from any platform takes the same route through the city with identical stops. 

Think of each stop as representing one year of your creative career. After three years of following a path to develop your creative direction, you're told that your work lacks originality. 

So, you go back to the bus station and hop on a different bus, but a few stops later, you're told the same thing. 

The pattern keeps repeating: nothing you produce ever gets recognized as being truly your own.

What's the solution? "It's simple," Minkkinen says. "Stay on the F'ing bus!"

A little farther out on their journeys through the city, Helsinki's bus routes diverge, plunging off to unique destinations as they head through the suburbs and into the countryside beyond.

That's where our distinctive work begins. But it begins at all only for those who can muster the patience to immerse themselves in the earlier stage - the trial-and-error phase of copying others, learning new skills, and accumulating experience.

The richer forms of uniqueness are reserved for those with the patience to travel the well-trodden path first. Originality lies on the far side of unoriginality.