Make a Life
Hey beautiful people,
Given all the time zone changes, please note that the earlier Collective Presencing session tomorrow is at 9 AM ET and will be starting at 8 AM ET as of next week.
Also, I have put my philosophical coaching practice on pause during my travels. I will announce some openings when I manage to cultivate a more stable daily rhythm.
Tomorrow’s events:
Collective Journaling w/ Peter Limberg and Co-Hosts. Daily @ 8:00 AM ET. Patreon event. 90 mins.
Collective Presencing w/ Ria Baeck and Co-Hosts. November 5th @ 9:00 AM ET. RSVP here. 90 mins.
Collective Presencing w/ Ria Baeck and Co-Hosts. November 5th @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here. 90 mins.
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November 4th, 2021
I am in the kitchen of our Airbnb, drinking a galão, with the crumbs of a recently eaten pastel de nata in front of me. These things are so yummy.
Rainy Lisbon is now sunny Lisbon. Camille and I have not explored the city much, given the weather. We also have been feeling fatigued the last few days. Now that we feel better, adjusted to the new time zone, we are called to stay in Lisbon longer, to explore the beauty here more fully.
There is no rush. Or sense of urgency. There is a niggling feeling though. The nice thing about these journals is that they afford a space for me to unpack any arising niggles, to process them, to integrate what is unexamined. So, what is up with these unexamined Portugal-inspired niggles? They may have something to do with this idiom I have been pondering: make a life for oneself.
This is different from the “make a living” idiom, which refers to making money to support oneself and one’s family. Making a living is about finding something that makes you money. Making a life is about finding something that makes you come alive. As it is described on a dictionary website: To establish or develop a career and lifestyle in which one is or feels happy, content, or successful.
I do not like the use of the word career here. The etymology of the word career: a running (usually at full speed), a course. The colloquial meaning being: a string of schooling and jobs that makes one employable in a given profession. I used to care about cultivating a career, mainly because I thought you had to. What reasons did I have for thinking this? Well, none really. I was just afraid of being shamed for not having one.
Having a vocation is something that interests me more. The etymology: spiritual calling. The Wikipedia definition: an occupation to which a person is especially drawn. All the things occupying me now: stewarding The Stoa, offering philosophical coaching, creating Beyond Self-Discipline, writing these journals - all feel vocational. Vocational work does feel like life-making work.
I rebelled my whole life against shame-enforced societal scripts that told me I needed to do something that I did not care to do, like settle for a lifeless career. This is most likely why I failed to excel at school or never was a star performer at work. I was basically a slacker in those environments.
My story to explain this back then - I was inherently inadequate, defective in some fundamental way, preventing me from fully showing up in life. My story to explain this now - I always had a connection to the daemon, never wanting to settle for anything other than what its whispers were telling me to do.
I do not know what story is more true, but the latter story fills me up with a sense of life, so I am going to run with that one for now, to see where it takes me. To see where it takes us. Another part of making a life is for us to find a home, or to use another idiom: put down roots. Spiritually speaking, I am coming home these days, but materially speaking, I have no idea where our home will be.
Is it back in Canada? Perhaps near Ontario, where our parents live? The east coast also looks good. The houses in Halifax are gorgeous and affordable. What about Europe? The history, the culture, the people - so much beauty here. My ancestor’s roots are here after all. They danced here, laughed here, fought here, made love here. They made a life here.
The last couple of days we have been stuffing our faces with Portuguese custard tarts and getting tipsy on Super Bock. Fun of course, but I do not want to live like we are in our 20’s, as if we are backpacking across Europe, to experience things for experience’s sake. No. I am driven to be here for a reason, one that is remaining mysteriously unclear.
The last part of making a life for me is, well, making a life. For whatever reason, God has chosen this to be a difficult task for us. This brought me deep sadness at first. This sadness was one of the catalysts for The Stoa being born however, which does feel like my baby. If we created a real baby when we originally started trying, The Stoa would probably not be here, as I would have put the existential horse blinders on to make the career thing work.
As a good Stoic, I have now prepared myself for all scenarios. I only have dominion over my own thoughts and actions; the rest is in God’s hands. Those are hands I have put my faith in. The daemon, His wild little messenger, is telling me to keep going, encouraging me to continue to try to make a life, in all the meaningful ways those three words convey.
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