Somehow there are strong and somewhat invisible under currents in our cultures, families, societies, institutions, companies, countries, governments and more that build a strong set of standards that we feel we 'should' live by. Of course these come from way back in history and are still created and reinforced to this day. They underlie the way we understand ourselves and determine much of how we behave, what we do, how we relate to others and how we make decisions for our lives.
Most of the time we don't get to see these or examine these under currents, they are in the background of our lives. We think out of these places and yet we don't realise that's what we are doing until we bring them into the foreground to be looked at carefully and we see just what we are up to.
One of these under currents that informs our thinking is that the value of anything is determined by how it performs and you know that value by measuring its output or performance. If you can't measure it, it's not important. If I can put a number on it, it has some validity. When we are in the middle of this, we understand ourselves to be people who are only valued in terms of our exam grades, our earnings and the results we get.
This way of seeing the world certainly doesn't answer the question of relationship because what measure do we have that assesses the value added to life in having healthy, nurturing, inspiring relationships. This way of seeing says that education has no value in and of itself - I have to get something from it, a result has to be produced. How does this way of looking at the world deal with art, music and beauty ?
The other thing that is left out here, and also what the story of science leaves out too, is the inner experience - which we all have and which is what we spend ALL of our time in as a human being. This way of looking at the world, where only measurable things are valuable, leads to behaviourism where the attempt is made to reduce all human life to a set behaviours - we all know that we are far more than simply how we behave. We then omit 'what it's like to be me' - and the consequence of this is that I am never enough. Performance means that there is always more I should be, always more I could do, or achieve. It also means that there is always someone better than me, because this is the world of comparison and measuring ourselves against something.
This current is so strong and to this point, I often hear people saying: "but who am I without what I do ?", "What am I worth without my job ?", "My school results are bad - what does that mean about me ?".
I am in the middle of noticing what happens to me when I live purely from this story about human beings. I am seeing what effect it has on my life when I live from this way of seeing. I am noticing what it leaves out, what it does to my dreams and what I can't see about others because I am thinking through this filter. Too often we take the results of something to be who someone is, or who we are.
In looking closely at this in myself, and seeing what's left when I take the results oriented, money oriented, job oriented, standard oriented story away in all areas of my life. I find myself in the moment of aliveness that is me, and then the point of being here is simply: being here.
I am not sure how well we can break away from these stories about what human beings are, given that they are so deeply in our culture, education, families, language etc, because it's being perpetuated all around us. Adverts constantly tell us what kind of bodies we should have. Performance reviews at work constantly tell us that we should be producing better results. Schools tell us that if we do not get a certain grade at 11+ we are not allowed in. Facebook pictures of our friends are seen through this filter, so we end up feeling like our lives are less happy than others. LinkedIn profiles are viewed through these filters, so we feel less successful than our peers.
While these themes remain in the background, they have a deep and profound hold on us and subtly and strongly determine the kind of lives we live. Unconsciously we live in these terms and because this is so contrary to the nature of being that we are, of course it causes pain - mainly through comparison - either to others or to a standard set by how we perceive that things are widely measured.
When we step out of these ways of looking at ourselves and others in the world, of course the more prevalent, deeply entrenched story of what is expected of us by the wider system will try to pull us back in again. Our bodies will react to not being so deeply immersed in this - people around us will react strongly to have us reenter the way of seeing where everything feels familiar.
Of course it matters that things get done, but if we only live from this place, it reduces us to something that is way way less than our wholeness as human beings. And it means that we see others in a way that leaves out who they really are. And of course the feelings of meaninglessness, emptiness, confusion, shame, inferiority, superiority, arrogance, self-consciousness and many more are experienced. This has been around so long, and it's running us, it's living us.
The danger of living in this story about what we are here for and how a successful, happy life is measured is that we start only to relate to people through what they've done, what others have done, what we've achieved and this means that we see people through the lens of a load of standards - and we never get to see THEM. We see ourselves through the lens of a load of standards - and we never get to see OURSELVES.
