We often get wrapped up in the idea of ego because our culture pushes us to “make something of ourselves”. It makes us feel like we’re not enough as we are and need to be shaped into something that fits society’s definition of success.
Education and the current system are often viewed as tools to shape us into a “norm,” even though what’s considered normal isn’t universally agreed upon and doesn’t necessarily represent the ideal we aspire to.
What is our ultimate role? I have often reflected on the roles we play within our neighborhoods and communities, compared to the roles we have in supporting our families. As a city planner and neighborhood specialist, I often thought about what it takes to encourage people to see beyond their own perceived needs and consider a broader perspective… To begin to see beyond just themselves. To see beyond the house or yard where they live.
At the time of writing the entry below, we had settled in Boynton Beach, and I was serving as the city’s Assistant Planner. My responsibilities included studying the comprehensive plan to ensure new developments blended well with existing neighborhoods. A significant part of my job involved reviewing site plans and providing comments to ensure they adhered to the comprehensive plan.
It was July 1995, and I was writing every day, adding to the next page of “My Travels with Lieh Tzu”, reaching number one hundred twenty below. My writing was leading me to places I’d never been, pulling me along and showing me that my day job was not who I truly was, but merely the means to get there.
We are not meant to be confined by the experiences of others or by pre-defined structures that fail to align with the reality we are destined to create for ourselves. Why and how education and opportunity often can define our path. Why internal expectations should always outweigh the external expectations of others.
To have a dream and the courage to go there. To have people say you or we can’t do this or that and to do or go there anyway. We are meant to be the portals of the impossible and to never stop striving to go beyond that voice within us that says – yes you can.
Finally, when I was teaching 19 to 21-year-old girls at the university in China who had come from farms and villages of western Shandong Province, most of them had never been away from home and my job was to show them that they could move beyond the horizon by learning English.
They instinctively understood that they were more than who they had been and were eager to see where education could lead them, with most of them aspiring to become teachers too.
My travels with Lieh Tzu / Interpolations along the Way
Chapter Seven – Yang Chu
120. Rushing headlong into nothing important
How can there be happiness in rushing headlong into something found outside us? What can be the true essence of knowledge except in finding that which lies only within ourselves?
What can be the purpose in becoming attached or obsessed with things and their aims or manifestations as Yang Chu calls them. The four things we all come rushing to in order that our destiny may be made secure by them. What can there be to long life, reputation, office, and possessions?
When with them comes fear and dread of spirit, other men, authority, and punishment. As we are found rushing headlong into nothing important as a man found truly in flight of things.
In flight of the dread of spirits upset at our obsession with wanting a long life. In flight of the dread of other men who are obsessed with reputation. In flight of the dread of authority and the illusion that office brings to one’s ego. In flight of the dread of punishments and the need for possessions and clinging to objects foreign from us. Keeping to this is it not said:
“As it is said that he can be killed, he can be given long life; the destiny which decides is outside him”.
However, if you do not go against destiny why should you yearn for a long life? If you are not conceited about honors, why should you yearn for reputation? If you do not want power, why should you yearn for an office? If you are not greedy for wealth, why should you yearn for possessions?
As you now rush headlong into nothing important. A man found truly in accord with himself and other things. As nothing in the world counters him, destiny which decides is within him. The only difference being how one sees himself and keeping to the saying of old:
“Without office or marriage, a man’s satisfaction would be halved. If they did not eat and wear clothes the Way of ruler and subject would cease”. Whichever way can it be? 7/26/95
Number one hundred twenty of one hundred fifty-eight entries.
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