Jim and Renee arrived yesterday to join us on our big adventure. In honor of my birthday they created wonderful riding shirts for each of us. They had planned these shirts with my birthday in, mind but instead of simply focusing on me, the shirts broadcast celebrating life. I personally think everyone else on the trip will want one. They are great.
As always when we get together, we started chatting about everything and my latest blog on muchness came up. The concept was one that we all agreed was important especially in relationship to our trip and celebrating life. As we talked we realized life can as easily become about shouldness as well as muchness and that the real challenge is to recognize it when it occurs and to do something about it.
Most of us lose our muchness when we get to caught up in the shoulds and the obligations of life. It is easy to do. Whether it is a passion that becomes a job and suddenly instead of taking risks and learning the job, it becomes routine and lifeless. Or a relationship that slowly becomes more about doing what’s predictable and safe rather than what is desired, which thereby causes conflict or tension. We all make these small decisions and choices and though they may not seem that serious over time, the result is a loss of our muchness in exchange for shouldness.
It is what I like about being with friends like Jim and Renee. Together we talk about these things and confront each other about our patterns. Sure sometimes it can be uncomfortable. That is the problem with living with muchness, it can create anxiety and tension. Instead of being predictable, I am in the moment and may not do what everyone expects and thinks is ‘right’. When each of us is living that way, there is more potential for differences and conflicts. However, there is also more newness and possibility. So if I am willing to stay in that uncertainty and tension there is an aliveness and freshness to life that is definitely worth celebrating!
As we travel together for these next few days, I look forward to discovering where am I living my shouldness and how can I recapture my muchness and celebrate life by more fully engaging. This is a wonderful opportunity to discover and commit to the next part of my journey and be clear that it is not the shoulds that my life reflects but instead all the possibilities, i.e. my muchness.