What’s driving you?

Pretend you are a vessel filled with commitments.  The original package comes with many pre-wired, commitments like survive, feed me, comfort me, and dozens of others.  As you grow, your surroundings add others. Be good, be successful, be happy, be wise, be careful and many more.  You even add some on purpose and as you grow older, you add even more, like figure it out, be smart, be cautious, be kind, be good.  If you are like most of us the process happens haphazardly and organically.  It happens whether you are aware of it or not.  How you prioritize your morass of commitments just happens and for most of us, it has family and culture stamps on it.   We give up ownership somewhere and at sometime and it is who we are, instead of what we do.  This allows our commitments to drive the vessel we are, on automatic, until we decide to take the controls back.  Taking the controls back is often called being present to the moment.  Most of the time, you and I are not present to the commitments operating the vessel without any oversight. 

You may have to stub your big toe to catch one.  

This morning I thought of an interesting exercise that will help you answer the question, “What’s driving you?” You may not be interested in the answer. Some of us are. Imagine the following.  You and your spouse meditate in the morning.  It has been chilly in the morning of late and wearing a light blanket cuts out the morning chill.  This morning is not chilly really and not warm, either.  She has begun and you closed the door to where she is.  A thought occurs to you. (Where did the thought come from, is another article.)  ‘I wonder if she is cold,’ says the little voice.  You have at least four acceptable actions open to you at this point.

 1.)  Do nothing as you pass by the closed door and smile.

 2.)  Open the door and check on her, close the door and smile.

 3.)  Open the door, enter, and place a blanket over her, leave and smile.

 4.)  Open the door, ask her if she wants a blanket, and smile.  

You may have other acceptable actions and I assert that yours and each of the above have a different commitment behind and driving the action.  Make up a story for each action.  You will discover some of your driving commitments.  You may also discover some of your commitments attached expectations.  Until you write down all your commitments, in an organized fashion, most of them will be using you instead of you using them.  Many of the first ones, especially the pre-wired ones, make any you add difficult to accomplish.  Frequently in this exercise, you will find diametrically opposed commitments.  You may even find some that are similar but have had different expectations attached.  Until you recognize the expectations, you have also given control of you, to them.  Yes, you are a machine, with rare glimpses of being present to your possible reality.  

Now you may return to the world. I did say pretend in the very beginning. I hope you enjoyed the show. Moreover, before we leave commitment I have one making $90K in nine months.  If you are interested in accomplishing the same feat, contact me and I will show you how!  You many visit www.iceburner.com/cashflow for the beginning steps.