I don’t know what I am doing… but my life seems to be going in the right direction
Most successful people, if and when you ask them, they don’t have a theory, they don’t have a grand scheme of things, they are just doing what they are doing and it works. In one area of life…
Wherever they are successful.
Work, or health, or relationships, or money… etc.
It seems that the human condition is that you do something, and then make a rule from it: to do it again, fix it, or to never do it again.
Judging from the immediate result of the action, and never seeing the big picture.
My current project is to rehabilitate my legs… meaning: to be able to walk, long distances, and experience no or little pain.
The rest of my life depends on it. I’d like to move to a more economical apartment. I’d like to be able to go shopping, or to the Laundromat on my own power. I’d like to travel. Not having to depend on anyone.
So it’s important.
I experience pains, cramps, loss of balance in this process… and every time I ask Source: is this a good thing? I am asking for directions… lol.
Because I don’t know what I am doing.
That pie chart of all knowledge will not change its proportions.
There will always be three slices: 1. tiny slice: what you know that you know. 2. what you know that you don’t know. 3. what you don’t know that you don’t know… including all the b.s. that you and everyone around you think they know. Scientists, doctors, philosophers included.
So I am proud of myself when I can say, without any emotional reaction to the words: I don’t know what I am doing, but it seems to be working.
I practice humility
To make sure that my soul correction (Forget Thyself) doesn’t take over and in its imminent wisdom starts to think that I do know what I am doing, I practice humility. Not fake humility but real humility.
Real humility is
- accepting that I don’t know.
- Accepting that I am like everyone, even if in some areas of life I have better results than them.
- Accepting that I am a student who teaches…
One of the mental images that talked to me and I am manifesting is from about 30 years ago, the image of the man who climbs the ladder, and reaches one hand down to help the one who is climbing below him…
It’s the picture of humility, to me, and the picture of a life worth living.
Both people are climbing. So there is no do-gooding, welfare, “help”… no. This is what I call “support” vs. “help”.
Help makes you feel superior, support makes you feel equal.
It takes maturity to stop worrying about yourself, and start becoming someone who can afford to support others.
I measure this in the Starting Point Measurements, 19. To what degree you have access to your adult capacities %. The measure talks about having access… You have access to those adult capacities only when you have done most of the work on yourself.
In most areas. Health, wealth/work, relationships/society.
We do this work in the Playground. I first did this work in Landmark Education’s courses, especially in the Wisdom Course and the Partnership Course… where the methodology is to make collages around certain self-awareness topics, and see that you live in a world of made up rules of your own…
The methodology of collages is not very effective. Why? Because you rarely can look at something and see something new about it. It happened to me only a few times in my 4 years of being in these courses, doing hundreds! of collages.
The moment when you finish a collage and then look at it from a distance, this step is crucial! you either see the big picture or you don’t.
I think having been an architect was immensely helpful to me in this. You see, an architect HAS TO be able to change their cone of vision at will… from the detain to the whole and back and forth… so they don’t make the mistake many architects make… Beautiful buildings but unusable (Mies Van Der Roe, Frank Lloyd Wright, etc.) in one direction, only seeing the whole like a work of art ignoring or not seeing from the user’s vantage point, or “architects” creating ugly buildings that leak…
When I created the Playground, back in 1988, it was a class project, and it worked famously. I managed to go from unemployed architect to magazine publisher with its help.
It has gone through many incarnations since, and it is now working better than ever… partner calls, 30-day challenges, reading assignments, and tools like capacity activations, my Secret Weapon (the Big Bundle), predatory gene adjustments, tools from other disciplines (like TA), and the health products/consultation.
Because not much can get done if and while you are not healthy, or at least are moving in the right direction (up).
Health is the foundation… if you don’t have health, then you don’t have much, you can’t have much.
In the Starting Point Measurements I measure if you have enough energy to do the work.
- You leak energy…
- Your brain doesn’t work well enough.
- Your glands don’t work well enough.
- Your habits rob you of the time it takes to do the work. (See how busy I am? says one of my students)
What is the work that you have or don’t have energy for?
The work is to become an adult. An adult is not an age thing. An adult is someone who has access to adult capacities to make things happen, to cause their own success, their own health, their own fulfillment.
I just looked at what is the hidden and unconscious desire of some of my students… It is not always what appears on the surface.
For example seeking attention, seeking approval, seeking validation are surface things. Deeper inside there is a REAL NEED, a HUMAN NEED… that is masked by the surface need.
You want to locate your need on Maslow’s chart… only 30% complete or accurate! but a good start, and consider that in order to fulfill all your human needs, you need to upgrade yourself… and this is what we do in the Playground. Upgrading yourself.
One of the amazing tools we have is Hillel’s ((Jewish sage from 2500 years ago who summed up Jewish law in this sentence: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the entire Torah, and the rest is its commentary. Now go and study.”))
Some of his other famous and surviving lines are:
“Do not judge your fellow until you come to his place.”
“Whosoever destroys one soul, it is as though he had destroyed the entire world. And whosoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the entire world.”
“Where there are no men, strive to be a man!”
“My humiliation is my exaltation; my exaltation is my humiliation.”
“Don’t trust yourself until the day you die.”
“If I am not for myself, who is for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”
“Learn where there are teachers, teach where there are learners.”[/efn_note] his lines that serve us here: “If I am not for myself, who is for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” We learn to provide ourselves with what we need.
I want to matter (as opposed to be taken for granted)
I want to be special (as opposed to be like everyone else)
I want to be winner (as opposed to be worthless, a loser)
I want to feel safe
I want to have the liberty/liberty to be myself
It is really difficult to dig out the one crucial thing a person wants… because life and the internal world is like a Grand Central Station… chaotic, layer upon layer.
The biggest issues are created by the fixes… all fixes are the next bigger problems.
So you don’t know… What are you going to do?
I remember me and my mother crossing the street on the first day of school. It was 1954… I stopped and told my mother: “I can’t go to school. I don’t know how to read and write!”
The Playground is like elementary school… and you don’t know how to read and write… It is a school to learn it. And like me, you are afraid because you don’t know how to do this or that.
Of course you don’t…. This is why you are going to school. To learn it.
I watch people and what strikes me most is they all expect to know things without learning. Really?
Some are intuitive, but most are not.
Some can take the stairs 3 steps at a time… others have to learn every step…
Your style won’t matter, as long as you get where you want to get to.
Everything you need to know
Everything you need to know, unfortunately, is hidden in the “you don’t know that you don’t know” slice of the all-knowledge pie.
In every area of life.
Everything I do, everything I teach, comes from that slice of the pie.
Because if you continue doing what you have always done, you’ll get where you are heading…
and between you and me, that is not a happy place for any of us.
Not for you, not for me, not for the famous, so-called successful people you know or know of.
The human condition, the Valley of the Shadow of Death, takes over the moment you start doing things from what you know.
The truth value of what you know is, at most, 10%. Meaning 90% not true, not true for you, not right for you, a dead end, or a path straight to ruin.
Brilliant and high truth value books, like Feelings and Words by Margoczi, or The Art of Hunting Humans by Sidney Mazzi 1
But reading a book, even seeing yourself in the book, will not change you… insights are a dime a dozen. 🙁
Only actions change anything.
Sometimes speaking is an action. Not all kinds of speaking… talking about something, for example, won’t change anything.
But the kind of speaking that goes on in the partner calls can and often does.
Ultimately I’d like more students in the Playground.
I have quite a few people on the fence about it. They have confessed it to me. You are ready when you are ready…
Every new Playground is more expensive, more expansive than the previous one… because it does the job better and faster than the one before.
You get more, and more is asked of you. The more you give the more you get. For example if you do the 30-day skill building experiment like it is a spiritual practice, you get tons more, than if you do it like you have to do it.
I have have put MYSELF back into the Playground, laugh if you must. Now I also have weekly partner calls to look at issues I never addressed that have kept me a whimpering child, or a slob, powerless, or unhealthy… hapless in some circumstances.
It’s the best thing ever! lol. I love it, I dread it… exhilarating. I wish I have thought of doing this before!
OK, enough talk…
What is the offer? What do I want you to do after reading this article?
Start where you are.
Find out where that is…
Start with your health…
Why? Because if your health is low, you don’t have energy to climb the steps…
You can improve your health while in the Playground… for some people that is the path… when you see that others move faster than you… others with better health, better habits than you, you are more motivated to get well…
So if you need a lot of motivation, the Playground is excellent for you.
Find out where your health is… Get your Health MeasurementsHe says: No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your age. Relax — This won’t hurt.
- Sidney Mazzi is a problem solver for businesses and the founder of change management consulting firm Mazzi Limited. As a professional investor, Sidney has worked for over a decade in finance, investments and business strategy for private equity funds and their portfolio companies. He describes himself as ” an extremely skeptical executive.”
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During his spare time, Sidney enjoys studying the intricacies of the human mind. And, by authoring The Art of Hunting Humans, he took on the massive challenge of writing a book about psychology, self-knowledge and wisdom that is fun and easy to read. Sidney currently lives with his family in New Zealand.
