Position title: Anne’s Life Manager
Job description: You are to manage Anne’s life such that she would have what she considers a good life – interesting, pleasing, insight-rich, independent and intradependent, meaningful to herself and others. You would foster her self-care such that she would have the well-being and wherewithal for other-care. (From caring for and serving others, she gains much of her meaning in life.) You would assign tasks based on awareness of what Anne can control, not on what she can’t.
To apply, please send a list of suggested tasks.
List of to-dos from first applicant
Begin relaxing for a restorative night’s sleep by reading a book or listening to an audiobook one hour before you want to fall asleep.
Consciously shop for groceries in small quantities of foods you love, that you’ve learned you feel refreshed after eating, not sluggish. Accept that you do not enjoy cooking, foods mixed together, or throwing away food that has gone bad. You won’t have much in your refrigerator, and that’s okay. When you get hungry, you feel almost sick. You will eat the first thing you see in the refrigerator to feel better. Put easy to open, already-prepared, healthy food front and center.
Continue your already-solid workout plan and schedule since it gives you pleasure and the strength and endurance to do what you love.
Allocate funds for a weekly massage. You were raised in a family that patted and hugged all day, every day. Your settings are set for nurturing touch. That’s an unmet need in your solo life.
Accept the expense of a security system. The purse theft rocked your world. A sense of security is a basic need.
Make a phone call per day. You’ve laid the foundation for finding a position by sending introductory letters and emails to potential employers. Now it’s time to ask for interviews. Money = power + security.
Write your own stuff first. Before you write for work – which requires you to constrain yourself to focusing on others, anticipating their objections and conducting discerning research to refute them – write freely and expansively while listening to your inner voice. You love this. And it strengthens your heart and mind, deepens your insights, and helps you be aware and present for this day.
Wow, she’s good…
I was amazed by the insightful, thoughtful, compassionate suggestions offered by the applicant for the manager of Anne’s life. I felt known and understood, guided without being judged. She seems to be available 24-7 and have knowledge about what people need and what actions will meet those needs.
And I saw immediate results from her suggestions. Many challenges presented themselves yesterday, but I felt better able to handle them from within myself vs. attempting to control others outside of me. I found myself feeling distressed in the company of others’ distress, but I tried foremost to understand them, rather than trying to make them think and feel in ways that might distress them less. I know I don’t have power over another’s inner state, but, in times of distress, acting on that knowledge has been hard for me.
Job description for the manager of one’s own life
I, of course, wrote this faux job description and application letter myself early yesterday morning and just finished typing it for this post. I cried some then and now. I, of course, know these things and do them some of the time.
What is it that keeps me from letting my inner wisdom manage my life all the time?
If I turn within and focus on my own self-care, I surrender forever my illusion that, if I just look outside myself and attune to others more deeply and work harder at it, I can control what others feel, think and do, and then they will be happy. Unfortunately, they’ve never written a job description for me. I’ve been using the gifts of my heart, mind and energy to guess.
The irony is that all the people I want to be happy in my life probably have to do the same thing I just did: Write a job description for their own life manager and fill it themselves.
. . . . .
Update: Having read the post, a former student recommended to me via Facebook The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun
