Life in a M. C. Escher Staircase

Right now I am in the process of ripping apart my past to find a way to my future.

Contained within my past is a modus operandi that I conceive holds back my ability to act effectively and efficiently. To get to the future, I think I need to understand my past.

Maybe you identify this same tendency in you? I am certainly not alone in this…

I introduced this quest in my last blog How To Hijack Your Life Back and my conclusion was simple: using adversity to motivate your success (a “going away” motivation) necessitates a return to adversity in order to get motivated.

Like: after a successful diet, do you start eating crap again till you get fat and need another diet?

You are living in one of M. C. Escher’s staircases – you feel you're going up until you recognise you’re going down upon seeing you must go up again. It’s an infinite loop.

I have been wondering: how do I jump off this reiterative Escher staircase?

I wasn’t always this way, that was one insight I had.

Back in the days when I had no inkling of business, didn’t care about money, and had no children who fundamentally relied upon me – life was different. I was carried by the wind of my impulses: I loved to take risks, push the envelope, shock people. I also lived in a time when jobs were easy, money flowed and Alexander's discovery was still relatively fresh.

Then I got a family: now it was 1 + 3 to provide for. That takes focus, and more attention on money. Yes, money is the marker between my past and my present.

Many of those I teachers I work with in building their practises have similar issues. Their motivations are plainly not geared towards making extra cash. They want to make a difference or build something or change the world or support people or gain respect or have fun and be creative: when you ask about how important making money is – that’s like, 3rd or 4th down on their list. For some it is last.

That was originally true of me until I my kids came. Then fear of pushing a shopping trolley around the streets of Kyoto became a strong motivator to make my ATA school a success.

That’s my current a narrative, and I am not even sure how real it is. It does fit, and it does explain stuff, like losing motivation often. The obvious way to test the truth of my narrative is to set up “going towards” motivation by selecting a mission that motivates me under all conditions.

Do you have a life mission that functions under all emotional conditions?

Here’s the problem: I thought I already had that. It certainly appears to outsiders that way, and yet the shocking realization of late is, well – actually: I don’t.

I do say things like: building a culture of success in our Alexander community. Or giving practical access to Alexander's discovery for everyone on the planet. Or more simply – taking Alexander's discovery mainstream so “Alexandering” becomes a verb in the Oxford dictionary. And I do believe in those things.

And I don’t leap up in the air and shout eureka! every time I think about one of them. If I even think about one of them. I don’t “feel” inspired, even as I solidly work towards them. Dangerous.

I realised in my blog - Do You Have Singularity of Purpose? - that my company goal (which passes for my life goal) needs to be crystal-sparkling clear. This clarity is the power of a new “going towards” motivation. However, the question I ponder now, as I see it come up again and again with members of ATSuccess, what makes a motivation stick? It’s easy to make up a life mission. It’s not so easy to maintain it faithfully until death.

How can you generate a mission so true to you that you are utterly captivated by it?

Alexander anticipated the “be your true self” movement in his second book CCCI, and laid down the ground rules for getting there. In Part III, Chapter I ”Knowing Oneself”, FM claims that to know your Self is to know your needs.

Interesting question.

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