The value of being and the price of doing
2023 is hopefully the year I fully accepted the consequences of the insight that the most valuable I have to offer is being rather than doing.
My being is expressed in serenity when all around is in turbulence, clarity of meaning in complex contexts, sense of purpose where there is none, trust when not knowing, silence when there is nothing to say. All this is most valuable and therefore priceless. I have to give it for free.
My doing is expressed in the design and facilitation of intentional change processes in complex and turbulent environments. This I can put a price on, as long as those buying want the doing to be coherent with the being.
The interface between being and doing is best expressed in the old prayer:
"God, grant me serenity to accept what I cannot control or change, courage to control or change what I can, and wisdom to discern the difference."
So yes, this is what I ask for 2024.
I want to thank all the colleagues and clients that have suffered me the years I have been struggling with this, until finally accepting that if I put being before doing I might never be able to work for money anymore.
As a most trusted and dear colleague told me in a conversation at the beginning of 2022:
"Wtf? Who in the professional field cares about who you are?" ???? ... ????
Picture of a puzzle in the pavement, muddy, scattered pieces, missing pieces, trampled pieces, broken pieces, no vision of the whole, ... as was the puzzle I was trying to figure out the last couple of years. I took the picture a couple of weeks ago close Zionskirchplatz in Berlin, while I was walking to the church where Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached when he was detained. He has been for me a man to emulate since I heard about him in 1975.
My being is expressed in serenity when all around is in turbulence, clarity of meaning in complex contexts, sense of purpose where there is none, trust when not knowing, silence when there is nothing to say. All this is most valuable and therefore priceless. I have to give it for free.
My doing is expressed in the design and facilitation of intentional change processes in complex and turbulent environments. This I can put a price on, as long as those buying want the doing to be coherent with the being.
The interface between being and doing is best expressed in the old prayer:
"God, grant me serenity to accept what I cannot control or change, courage to control or change what I can, and wisdom to discern the difference."
So yes, this is what I ask for 2024.
I want to thank all the colleagues and clients that have suffered me the years I have been struggling with this, until finally accepting that if I put being before doing I might never be able to work for money anymore.
As a most trusted and dear colleague told me in a conversation at the beginning of 2022:
"Wtf? Who in the professional field cares about who you are?" ???? ... ????
Picture of a puzzle in the pavement, muddy, scattered pieces, missing pieces, trampled pieces, broken pieces, no vision of the whole, ... as was the puzzle I was trying to figure out the last couple of years. I took the picture a couple of weeks ago close Zionskirchplatz in Berlin, while I was walking to the church where Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached when he was detained. He has been for me a man to emulate since I heard about him in 1975.