The “Economy” is an eco-system composed of mutual interdependencies. It features worlds within worlds and therefore resists singular statements. For example, you can declare that “the economy is bad,” but at the same time, there are always people who make money during recessions and even depressions. The “Economy” is not just something “out there,” or something directed by big corporations or federal regulators. It is also a most accurate reflection of who and where we are as a people, and it tells us much about our own inner workings.
As I described in April, I’m sharing some ideas and practices that can help to rebalance the terrain, that can allow us to sidestep the more destructive aspects of a toxic economy: wage slavery, seeing others as objects, dependence upon the whims of markets, and being constantly caught in hope and fear.
This round: Honoring Your Mission
You can honor your mission, not as some romantic, escapist excuse not to take responsibility for living here and now, but as the willingness to do what you came here to do and to trust its unfoldment in the here and now. When I talk about “mission,” I am not seeing it as the ego-based notion that “I am special,” or that I have something great to do with my life.” These are inherited notions of scarcity, the desire to “be great,” for example. After all, everything and everyone is already “great” and our real job on earth may very well be to wake up to this fact.
By “mission,” I specifically mean living for something greater than oneself, listening to the “callings of your blood,” as Herman Hesse once put it, of keeping death in view as the great equalizer that teaches us humility in face of the ego’s tiny sphere, a humility that still charges our days with significance because that is all that we have: to do our “work” and to do it “well,” with generosity, compassion, care, and impeccability. This kind of attention alone can assure one’s keeping above the fray of negativity, for when you do things fully and well, when you put all of yourself into what you do, your work will always be in demand.
Instead of trying to plot a course through difficult times, can we be open to synchronicities; to the unexpected meetings between souls? There are invisible pathways of manifestation that defy market conditions. They often appear as luck, but luck has little to do with it. Rather, it is a question of trust. There is a place that needs me and a place where I need to be. Can I see these places coming together?
