The myth of Sisyphus has always been always a favourite of mine. Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to spend eternity rolling a huge stone to the top of the mountain. No sooner would he reach the top than the stone would fall down and hed have to start all over again. It was, I guess, the Ancient Greek equivalent of housework. Once upon a time, my 'existentialist' - aka depressive - leanings led me to interpret Sisyphuss richly deserved punishment as a metaphor of the human condition. I didnt know he was actually an all round bad egg, who debauched, tortured and killed his fellow human beings, blamed his wife for his wrongdoing, and lied to the gods Nor did I know that espousing beliefs of this kind led to a rather bleak experience of the human condition. Still the image of the uphill struggle with a giant boulder is a powerful one. It relates closely to the way a lot of people view change: change is the huge boulder that we try to shift with our puny human forces. Like Sisyphus we strain every muscle and sinew in our attempts to shift the immovable rock, but our efforts are virtually predestined to fail. So we conclude that change is just too hard to do. (Although we see some people achieve it.) In reality, it is the way that we go about change that is wrong. How To Do Change is -like How To Build Successful Relationships and How To Believe In Your Own Worth one of the many useful things that nobody ever teaches you in school. The old adage that no teacher would ever tell you: It at first you dont succeed, try something different holds the key. Because it is well nigh impossible to achieve change through brute force, it makes sense to try a different approach; namely, leverage. If our burdens, baggage, blocks and problems are, indeed, like a giant boulder, then it makes sense to ease the end of a plank under that solid mass, so as to destabilize it and start it moving. The thing to do is focus on the end result you want shifting the boulder rather than becoming fixated on the amount of force you need to deploy in order to do so. Sisyphus had to roll his boulder up a mountain, but he deserved that because he was a vicious, devious, dead snit. The rest of us only have to get our boulder moving. We can choose whether we roll it uphill (why'?), along level ground, or downhill into the nearest lake or tip. Once it is moving the whole process becomes simple anyway. So what do you use for a plank? Anything that serves to destabilize even one belief that crushes your spirit will do it. Just challenging one destructive belief, by repeatedly affirming a positive one, either out loud or in writing, is enough to set the boulder rolling. Its not Formula 1 racing. You neednt expect the boulder to go from 0-60 in 4.2 seconds. That wont happen, at first. Given its size you can expect it to gather momentum slowly. But gather momentum it will. And it doesnt even matter which destructive belief you start with. Leverage is leverage. The laws of physics apply. Period. So where will you start? If youre not sure, you could always start with that hoary old chestnut: I deserve better. That typifies the old approach of trying to displace the boulder with main force. I deserve the best, on the other hand, provides the leverage to move the boulder. Even better, using leverage leaves you with heaps of energy you can profitably dedicate to other areas of your life. What do you want to do, that youre not doing now, with all the energy you will free up through leverage? (C) 2006 Annie Kaszina |
