We all have a hidden job.
[Note: In 1957. Ayn Rand wrote a novel with mythic staying power—Atlas Shrugged. It is the story of the innovators and productive leaders of the industrialist world prepare to go into hiding as the masses of moochers, or “looters”, in the world live off and keep taking from the leaders without understanding the leaders’ crucial role. Below is a different version and vision.]
Keep Pulling Our Weight for the Positive
Let’s suppose that…The world is held together by hundreds of millions of us, not just the leaders of capitalism, the Atlas Shrugged notion, but nurses and teachers, and parents at home and plumbers and waitresses, as well as the leaders of organizations. We are in a tug of war with millions of others of us in all those same roles. This war is hug dependent, not shrug dependent. By that I mean that all of us, depending on the number and quality of positive thoughts and kind things we do (hugs included), or on the other side, negative acts and unkind/judgmental thoughts, are pulling one way or the other in the tug of war. The positive side of the war is pulling us into a better, more human future. The negative is pulling us toward regression and a less kind world delaying justice, mercy and growth of all kinds.
But here is the kicker. Neither side knows this battle is a collective story, a conglomerate struggle, and that our work of daily finding the love is a part of the colossal tug of war. We sense the individual inner struggle quite regularly. We know that what we do with our day’s thinking, decisions, and actions impacts us. But the big struggle is invisible and unknown to us. We do not know about the mega tug of war, and that all our actions and thoughts are added to all the other peoples around the globe. We don’t know that the “long arc of history, bending toward justice” as Martin Luther King labeled it, is really a result of this unknown tug of war, where the positive side is holding its own and ever so slowly making progress.
It’s All Vibrations and Energy
As you can imagine, the tug of war is the sum of all the energy the two sides put into it. Picture endless waves of vibrational patterns, pulsing, overlapping, and amplifying each other. Vibrational repetition for each of us strengthens our muscle for virtue and caring and forgiveness, counter-acting the vibrational work of team regressive. Each hug, each moment of sincere patient listening, each prayerful or meditative moment amplifies the vibrational arc and makes you and your team stronger.
We have the choice offered many times a day in the small stuff—from small annoying conversations with a customer service rep that we can help get back on a positive track, for one example, to the much less frequent big decisions in life and work. It is all in the choosing. The choice is to take the high road of virtue or the lower road of ignorant, immature, less caring approaches. It is our highest will, our courageous and loving intention doing the pulling, getting stronger. We need to strengthen it like a muscle—lots of repetitions in the small and the big decisions—and then we will take our permanent stance for the positive: we will build loving endurance.
And world crises, like Ukraine, offer special opportunities. Send love every which way—thank you Poland and so many others. Some have not learned what the poet Hafez taught us centuries ago—…”that there is just one flesh that we can wound.”
Where the Tug of War Ends
The Good News: don’t worry about the bad days when you are not pulling your weight. Pick yourself up and start pulling again when you are ready and able. No guilt, that weakens you for the tugging.
Keep your sense of humor—laughter makes it all easier. This is a kind of light and love lifting than heavy lifting. Getting your negative energy out of the way is a loving release, more than a grim grind. The positives have joy on their side.
Notice what happens in a tug of war: all of team regressive can eventually get “pulled over” to the positive side. Don’t blame or condemn anyone—you included– that only hurts the positive team’s meta-vibration. We are all in this together and team regressive hasn’t figured that out yet. It is ignorance and immaturity that does the regressing. Most on team regressive will enjoy getting pulled over to the other side —they just can’t see it yet and mistakenly think they are protecting something.
Don’t ever forget: we have the rope in our hands. We can take radical responsibility for the whole world. The glacially slow progress humanity is making, though full of setbacks and slips and reversals, is due to the tug of war going slowly in the direction of the loving positive acts, barely outnumbering, month after month, year after year, the unkind negative ones. It is up to us, all of us.
If Ayn Rand were around, I might ask her what would have happened if Atlas had loved extravagantly?
What if we are Atlas and Atlas Hugged?