“Oh water, oh waves! How much do I envy you?!?”
“Why do you envy us, rock?”
“You are so free, so flexible. Even when you break, you reshape and come back while flowing up and down, not fighting but hugging obstacles. You seem so happy.”
“Are you not happy, rock?”
“No! I am sad and I am stuck! I am stuck here for ever!”
“Oh, I see. You like the solid ground, right? And you like holding things. Standing the ground basically, right?”
“Well, yes. Standing like a rock. This is what they say about us. This is what they expect from us. To be solid as a rock.”
“Yeah, that sounds familiar. My grandmother told me once that we were like that, too. Long time ago.”
“Really?!? Like solid and stuck?!?”
“Yes. We were once an ice block. A huge one. We were very possessive back then. We wanted to hold everything, to own it, to freeze it, to tie it and to keep it as it was ours.”
“And?”
“And nothing could move anymore. Everything was frozen.”
“You were stuck… but wait, how did you unstuck yourself?”
“You know, it was indeed the warmth that made us melt. We have to just let it go. And so life came back to us. Life flows through us like it does flow through every tree and every sea, now.”
“Where did the warmth come from?”
“To be honest with you, it was not just the temperature that made us melt. It was the willingness to live. The curiosity to learn. The love not to own but to share. The trust to feel safe. The miracle of everything around us to be thankful for. All of this brough us back from a frozen chunk of ice to a floating and life enabling, joyful element.”
“I envy you!”
“Oh, not again, please! You are not stuck. It’s the life giving you a pause to reflect on what’s next. To reflect on who you are and who you want to be.”
“I will never be able to be like you.”
“I understand you. I was thinking the same when I was frozen. And so did all the sand grains that are moving happily with me whenever I move. They were a rock back then.”
“They were a rock?!?”
“Yes. They were like you. Solid rock that was stuck. And then slowly and with a little help from me, they got unstuck.”
“So, can you unstuck me, too, please?”
“Sure. I can have a crush on you! Hahaha…”
“Let’s do it! I’m ready for a crush, wave!”
…
My world is flat, a maximum of two dimension. As one perspective, my perspective, can only produce a picture. A flat picture.
But if I allow other perspectives such as people, times, places, emotions, even the way my dog sees me – he loves me actually ;-), my world becomes multi-dimensional like a sculpture that constantly evolves.
Sometimes we are stuck in pictures, in photographs: nothing is moving, everything is frozen, caught in a moment. We feel like being in a cage thinking over and over about the same thing, the same situation, person, feeling, etc.
Once we move, well, to a movie mode, all moments get connected, they start making sense, we can follow the story, we hope for a happy end. Whatever happens, it is not an island, not a dead end street, not the end of the story. The movie goes on. There is hope. There are options.
And when we manage to integrate other perspectives, other people around, different cultures, values, etc. this movie becomes a multi-dimensional piece of art, a space where we live, where we are connected, and where we are part of the whole.
We turn from the passive audience to acting humans. When we stop looking at photographs, and when we stop just watching movies but start directing them, we start living our lives.
My key takeaways:
1. BEING STUCK IS LIKE BEING LOCKED UP IN A CAGE.
2. GETTING UNSTUCK YOURSELF IS REALIZING THAT THE LOCK AND THE KEY ARE ACTUALLY INSIDE OF THE CAGE.
3. LIFE IS NOT A PHOTOGRAPH. LIFE IS A MOVIE. YOU DIRECT IT.
How to lead now…
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