I like John Lennon’s saying that life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.

I take from that that there are hidden agendas and intentions that make things happen, dynamics beneath the ones we usually think. This is an interesting lens to look at politics or our own lives. What’s hiding beneath those plans we make?

Could this be part of it?

The message isn’t the words and content we say but what we mean, revealed in the voice quality with which we say it. It’s not the action we do that determines the outcome but the quality of energy with which the action is done. Oppositional energy creates opposition. Disrespectful demands create refusal to comply. Similarly inner alignment and clarity bring coherence to the system and right action flows from that peaceful space when it’s needed. Respect leads to respect. Unheard dissent lead to further discord until they’re heard.

If that’s true it follows that the way to influence is to put more clear aware agenda-free energy into the system. It’s to co-regulate (get into transparent reciprocal relationship with) the other people and other parts of the system. If I’m not in such relationship but still demand that others do something, I’m unlikely to be successful. My demand refuses to meet the other as an equal. It implies that I know better, or even that I am better. It will be refused unless compliance if forced. If compliance is forced then there’ll be payback later. Life will happen while I’m making yet more plans. Of course we can never be more than relatively clear and transparent with our own dynamics.

Even so, often we just accommodate ourselves to the world and let the hidden stuff stay hidden. I know this from personal experience. It’s easier if it’s them that has to change for the world to be right, harder if it’s us. To the extent we know it’s us, we start to be a light unto ourselves. When that light is shining even a little bit, it inspires others and makes them feel anything is possible. Everyone can see it because that’s how we’re made. We’re as sensitive to that light as sunflowers. This understanding can jump from person to person. But if that happens, it’s a by-product, what happens below the surface while we’re busy making other plans.

Photo by Fleur on Unsplash