The Want to BE

First off, and against all convention, I suggest checking out this newfound (for me) and amazing song which has become my personal anthem for the Year. And, I also encourage checking out this from Eckhart Tolle. But, I also invite and encourage you to come back here with some added thoughts to share.

This Month in TUGtv

Rehumanizing how people serve, study, work and play together... I am an Educator, Speaker, Coach, Author and Creator helping Educators, Entrepreneurs and Emerging Leaders lead for a better world with Character, Purpose and Unity. And TUGtv is a work of Service around that. With that in mind and heart, in April of 2024, TUGtv offered:

• TUGtalks for April 2024, where I held cool and rich conversation with Samantha Fowlds MSc -Change Enablement around change and growth, positive psychology, and much more.
• Talk Reel, where Christine C.Ayling, Tammy Joy and I engaged in a wonderful conversation with Julianne Nagle (Healthy Food Savant) on food and health and more.
• And #hUmaNITY where Russell Zehtab, Zheng Li and yours truly held cool conversation with Melissa Lloyd around Humanity, Creativity and AI ... with a thoughtful dialogue unfolding.

In diverse ways, these three conversations centered on defining who we intend or want to BE. For me personally, I walked away from each conversation with an ever better idea around same. I do humbly encourage taking in each of these chats and dialogues.

Thoughts on Determination

I find the song noted above to be an anthem to Determination.

Being clear about who we want to BE ... is both born of... and forges such. The song linked sings of wanting more. But... for me, I do not take it as wanting more stuff. I hear it as wanting to BE more... of who we are! As I am driving or working out, and the song is playing, I feel a sense of wanting to BE the man I most truly want to BE. And, it is not lost on me that to determine something is to both ascertain or establish exactly, and to cause something to occur... both... to get clear, and to get at it. Hmmm.

The Wanting Thing

If Determination is both about getting clear and getting at it, then I consider these words of Epictetus:

• “The faculty of desire purports to aim at securing what you want… If you fail in your desire, you are unfortunate, if you experience what you would rather avoid you are unhappy… For desire, suspend it completely for now. Because if you desire something outside your control, you are bound to be disappointed; and even things we do control, which under other circumstances would be deserving of our desire, are not yet within our power to attain. Restrict yourself to choice and refusal; and exercise them carefully, within discipline and detachment.”

Hmmm, again. "Restrict yourself to choice and refusal; and exercise them carefully, within Discipline and Detachment."

And Understanding that over which we actually have control. That is a process of determining too. Hmmm, yet again. Eckhart Tolle has spoken to this I believe in suggesting that we can either accept something or change it ... and that all the rest is a form of madness. The flailing, railing and complaining is counterproductive. Accept it if it legitimately and practically and realistically is out of our control, or change it if we have such control or influence. That said, the Stoic, Epictetus also said,

• “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”

Few wants is not no wants. Moving from a myriad of maddening and even competing "wants" (many of which are out of our control) to our core wants is vital to living our best lives.

Who we want to BE is powerfully singular and focused in contrast "all the things we want to do". And, if considered soulfully, who we most want to BE is within our control. It is not external based, but internally centered. And, I suggest that the song to me is speaking of wanting to BE over DO, as Eckhart references in the talk linked above. I do humbly consider and suggest that our primary and foundational want needs to focus on our BEing.

So, What If?

What if our core want was to be BE the human being we soulfully want to BE?

What if we are already there? What if we are the sculpture already within the stone as Michelangelo saw it? What if it is about carving away to find what has always been there? What if indeed? What if, in deed? What if the DOing is simply a by-product of the BEing? What if we ate like the person we want to be? Indeed, what if we slept, laughed, breathed, drank, exercised and ate like the person we most want to be?

In Living the Epic Engage, I was exploring such myself really. But, I am thinking this Day, that my decisive action is to BE. My Audacious Promise is to BE. That said, I do think finding our best sense of being does involve exploring who and what inspires us. We can better explore our own sense of BEing and Character and meaning and Purpose, by inventorying who and what truly inspires us. In doing so, again for me, this Day and forward, there is an ever more clear and palpable sense and practice of Devotion... towards BEing.

Consider

What if we each got clear and devoted on our best sense of self and Soul? What if, indeed? Whether in how we eat and take care of ourselves, our how we bring our own Humanity to the world, or face change and growth... the first question I humbly suggest is "Who do I intend to BE, in Character and Leadership... at home, school, work, business, play and community?" My suggestion this Day is:

• Consider what Code you might choose to live by. Here is mine.

• From that, consider what Virtues are core to your own best sense of BEing. Mine include Love, Honor, Idealism, Unity and Zeal.

• Then, imagine what they would look like in Countenance and Gait, daily. Discern, decide and devote on that. Spend the time. The return on said investment is worth it. LP Jacks spoke to this I suggest.

• Then, having determined same... rock and walk that with action, habit and Purpose, and be your own hero.

The Promise to BE

In Audacious Promise, I wrote on same and made one. I am sticking to that. It was and is a Promise after all. But now, I am remembering to write the Promise as my Statement of BEing. So...

• I am that 100 kilo, lean, strong and healthy Stoic Baha'i Boy inside the Man who fiercely Honors and Loves those who matter most to me.... doing the work and Service that fiercely calls to my Soul. I meet Life and the World as such, ever the Student.

This is my personal Want to BE. What might be yours? Until next time...

Peace, Justice and Unity...

Barry Lewis Green, aka The Unity Guy with Epic Engage

• Rehumanizing how people serve, study, work and play together. I am an Educator, Speaker, Coach, Author and Creator helping Educators, Entrepreneurs and Emerging Leaders lead for a better world with Character, Purpose and Unity. That is my work for a deeper, cooler Leadership. In so doing, I bring my work as Master Facilitator with the Virtues Project? ... my experience as a Certified Facilitator with Personality Dimensions? ... and my Service as a Facilitator with the Ruhi Institute and as Practitioner of the work of What Color is Your Parachute? since 1982.