Generally, hearing life advice feels stale. I am less interested in words these days and more interested in where the words are coming from. However, sometimes advice does land well and shifts things. Last year, my friend and ad hoc wisdom guide,
, gave me the following advice:“Pay attention to what characters are living in this realm for you. They are the ones you are looking for. Everyone else is LARPing.”
I asked myself who was really living for me—my wife, parents, and brother. I then asked myself who I was living for. The same answer emerged. I have friends and mentors, who I trust deeply, and I feel like they have my back, with no games being played. Still, if shit hits the fan (SHTF), family is first.
The more I follow “my aliveness” - where life wants to take me - the more apparent it will become who beyond family passes the SHTF test. I believe aliveness-following leads to real communities, not just online ones. However, I have concluded that rushing into communities before getting right with one’s family is misguided. I have a good relationship with my family, but I know things can get better.
I know things can be great.
***
Like most kids who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, I had two heroes: Michael Jordan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I thought these men were what greatness looked like. The latter embodied the hypermasculinity I enjoyed in cartoons. Schwarzenegger was one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time, shaping his body into a work of art. He then became a mega movie star, smashing it at the box office, playing iconic roles like Conan the Barbarian and the Terminator. He even became a politician, winning elections for the governor of California twice.
His success in three different domains was the focus of the recent Netflix documentary, Arnold. I felt both inspired and saddened after watching the series. Schwarzenegger's "manifestation game" inspires me; he had a potent clarity of vision, allowing him to do things people thought impossible, which motivated him even more. Manifesting success feels like it is looked down upon in my philosophical circles, which is misguided. There is no wisdom without the ability to succeed in what one is called to do.
Being successful in some domains takes more work to vision, namely family. What saddened me about the documentary is it ended not with one of his successes but with a failure: an affair he had with his housekeeper, which led to the breakup of his family. He describes his affair as the greatest failure of his life:
Everyone had to suffer. Maria had to suffer. The kids had to suffer. Joseph. His mother. Everyone. I am going to have to live with it the rest of my life. People will remember my successes and they will also remember my failures. This is a major failure. I had failures in the past in my career, but this is a whole different ball game, dimension of failure.
All his successes were difficult to achieve: bodybuilding champion, box office star, and elected politician. It is illustrative that succeeding with family was one that was too difficult.
***
Focusing on those I live for has been confronting. Unlike goals with clear success criteria, getting right with the closest people in my life is hard to measure. Being with family can be painful, confusing, and demanding an emotional literacy not taught in schools; it requires me to become whole.
All the unspoken difficulties, the gaps in communication, and the places where I feel "unseen" are the places I have been visiting, which is unpleasant and humbling, making me realize how much of a fool I am.
I want success, and I will not shame that desire, but success without wholeness will lead to suffering for those I live for. Without a wholesome foundation, I will not be a true success, and no foundation is more wholesome than a great family.
