“It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents: joyous positive and despairing negative – whichever is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it.” — Sylvia Plath
“There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind - you are the one who hears it.” — Michael Singer
So far in life, I've applied for two jobs. Both were at London property consultancies. Like the companies themselves, the applications were identical. After lectures one cold February morning, I hit CTRL+F, replaced the company names, and submitted both in a rush. As reflected by my submitted CV, I was not a stellar student and was the last in my student house without a job. The pressure was on.
As chance would have it, both companies invited me to interview. However, with the first, Savills, I was stressed about getting the job. I had poorly slept before; I was probably hungover but can't remember. My bike had a flat, so I was late for the train. I reached the office panting, off-colour, and on bad form. Was the world transpiring against me? The interviewers knew it, too. Shortly afterwards, in a curt email, Savills said I'd been "...unsuccessful. However, we wish you the best of luck with your future".
With that email, after some cooling off, I embraced a *surrender* mentality and relaxed. Without a job, I could re-trace Leigh Fermor's hike to Constantinople; or traverse the PCT. Could I become a writer professionally? Imagine if I had!! My mind rambled through the world of 'other' opportunities, and the rejection freed me from the obligations of a graduate job. I was excited.
So, a week later, when I turned up at the interview for the second job opportunity, this time at Knight Frank, I was a different man. I slept well the night before, had a light breakfast and arrived early.
But, most importantly, I arrived with a universe of other possibilities in my rucksack. I felt relaxed, unencumbered and present. I probably flirted with the HR woman (what was I like back then!) I was in such a dream-like state that I left the presentation with the clicker in my pocket, ruining the chances of all subsequent interviewees who had to rush back and forth to the desktop keyboard. Despite (or because of?) my casual approach, I got the job. My life changed instantly, and I had something to do after graduation.
Different people
In some senses, I was the same person going into both interviews — they had the same CV sitting on their desk and met the same pink-cheeked boy in an ill-fitting suit. Both boys were scarcely 21. However, it was a drastically different person, too. The first was inward-looking, closed and self-consumed. The last? Laid-back, calm, and, frankly, sentient. The two people were within a week of each other.
Often, these two people appear within hours or moments of one another. Sometimes those feelings last for a fleeting second, and sometimes we go for weeks and months in one state or the other. It's so shocking and yet so typical that we ping-pong between being closed and asleep to open and awake. We're present and alive when we're awake: It's the most beautiful feeling.
Energy is rare
Five years ago, I attended a silent meditation retreat in Tushita, in the foothills of the Himalayas. I made the last-minute decision to go on Mont's recommendation. I sat and quietly watched over the forests of the Kangra Valley, filled to the brim with happiness that I could feel but hardly explain. In the still silence, I felt the raw natural energy burn — it expressed itself as ecstatic joy and was overwhelming.
And I wasn't the only one. At that same retreat, we met a Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama (rinpoche is literally a "precious one"). He was in his eighties, and several other monks supported him as he took his seat in the front of the class, with a shaved head and wrapped in his orange shroud. Despite his small stature, his message was as intense, and he laughed loudly from deep within himself, commanding the room. His natural energy kept him in flow; another lama later told me he hardly slept as he didn't need to.
Our energy is as rare as it is brilliant. We don't know when our energy will peak or peter out. It's worth remembering we can be both asleep and awake, on different days, with different people. The more time we spend nurturing our raw energy, the more dynamism we can bring to our lives.
If only I had a teaspoon of that same careless, confident rinpoche energy in that first interview at Savills, I might have been offered the job!
My week in books
The Consolations of the Forest by Sylvain Tesson. Hector H and I read this in Berlin last week. It was a re-read for me and was no less brilliant, although Tesson drinks a lot throughout! He is an excellent and engaging writer, and I want to go to a cabin in Siberia more than ever now... A quote: "To love is not to celebrate one's own reflection in the face of one's double, but to recognize the value of what one can never know."
The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. One of the best books I've read all year. Singer's OG book, The Surrender Experiment, is a joy, and this is as inspiring. It's a bit like Awareness by de Mello. A quote: "Your inner growth is completely dependent upon the realization that the only way to find peace and contentment is to stop thinking about yourself."
Hector Hughes and I are having a monthly book clubby-thing, where we read a book a month: This quarter, the topic is ‘war’ (!). This month, July, we’re reading The Art of War by Sun Tzu — correct translation linked. In August we’ll read On War, and September it will be The History of the Peloponnesian Wars. Reply to this email to join us.
Live well,
Hector