It was spring 2016 when I decided to leave my prestigious and well paid corporate job to cross the unknown sea (David Whyte) and found ReNEWBusiness.
Why is it that some people can be extraordinarily well-paid and work in pampered settings but feel empty, while others work in sewers and feel fulfilled? Is it because of having (or not) meaning?
This sense of meaning is, in my view, created not found. It isn’t magic — it’s something we must consciously pursue and create.
We can’t create (nor find) meaning in isolation, we can only find it when we engage in a conversation with the whole that is us and by including the world. Meaning is then created when our efforts lead to growth (in all the dimensions that make us human). Effort without growth leads us only to draining. I do not have a better way to say it than with poetry.
Which conversation are you not having? Are you refusing a conversation by hiding behind roles, rules and processes neglecting the humanity that those roles & rules should support? Learn to get closer to the intersection from where you can see and listen to what is under the surface. That, will cause the change you’d like to see in the world.
My work more and more is focusing on supporting others to re-discover a re-create meaning by valuing creativity, imagination, intuition, art (AKA heart).
Keats described poets as the humanists and physicians to all men. Poetry becomes the healing balm poured on society. Where this healing power of poetry resides? In its capacity to heal the wound of division, isolation, fragmentation and in the power of bringing us at the intersection where we meet unity.
Image by Mari Andrew
Poetry helps us to reconcile our fractured humanity. How can you start expressing all the fragmented parts of you more poetically? How can you engage in a lyrical conversation with them?
My wish is we all start living a more poetic life. A life where all we are sings in rhyme.