Lexie Carroll > Recent Status Updates

Smooth execution is greatly facilitated by building in ample buffers and slack. Prepare early and amply. Don’t try to cram a ton of things in, and watch out for the planning fallacy (underestimating how long a task will take). As a rule, add 50% to your time estimates.

This book seems full of small self-contradictions. Fx editing: take a 2-sentence message and say it with 1. Example of furniture designer who made every piece have 2-3 functions. But then wait- “condensing doesn’t mean doing more at one”- but that’s exactly what you just illustrated with your last example. Then, he literally says “edit less.” Okay so do this thing, but also, don’t do it.

Beware the SUNK COST FALLACY- wasting time and resources on projects that just will not work, simply because you’ve already invested a lot and want it to work out. Seek out a neutral second opinion from someone not emotionally invested in the situation.

Sensitivity and sensation-seeking are separate traits, and one can have high levels of both. HSPs may like novelty, but they do not like surprises or shocks. The fundamental feature of sensitivity is the desire to process information deeply before acting. Thus, THE OPPOSITE OF SENSITIVITY IS IMPULSIVITY, not necessarily a dislike of novelty.

I’m horrified and even disgusted at Peter Drucker’s response (refusal) of an invitation to interview with a professor who he admired and respected, saying “the work of productivity consists of not doing anything that helps the work of other people, but spending all one’s time on the work the Good Lord has fitted one to do.” Selfish shortsighted isolationism at its finest. What a missed opportunity to learn.

CLARITY of our vision and COURAGE to actually enact it (including saying no) are needed to practice essentialism, especially in the brass tacks moments when tempting distractions arise.
( Story of Stephen R. Covey keeping his daughter date after invited to a spontaneous dinner with a past colleague).

If we find ourselves in what seems like a rotten or a painful situation and we think “well, how is THIS enlightenment?” We can remember this notion of the path being the goal- that what seems undesirable in our lives doesn’t have to put us to sleep or trigger habitual reactions. We can let it show us where we’re at, and how we might further wake up. Remember that ALL things are workable, not just some things.

The instruction is to relate compassionately with where we find ourselves and to begin to see our predicament as workable. We are stuck in patterns of grasping & fixating, which caused the same thoughts & reactions to occur again and again. In this way, we project our world. When we see this for what it is, even if it’s only for one second every three weeks, then we’ll begin to discover reversing this process.

We often forget to apply the teachings when we get stuck: when we are angry or brokenhearted, or in despair- times like this it seems meditation or the teachings don’t quite cut the mustard. One of the tricks seems to be having enough faith [in the Dharma] to bring it right into our nightmares, not as an unusable theory to distance us from major issues but as good medicine that is applicable always & everywhere.

“Protect the Asset”- the Asset is SELF. We can only give & produce if the self is taken care of.

***This principle also applies to how we see and utilize Earth’s natural resources. Earth is (not just) an asset (but can be thought of that way for this purpose). Overworking and pushing to the limit for immediate productivity don’t work for us, and it won’t work for (long term) sustaining of the Earth.

When we ignore the reality of trade-offs, and the fact that we cannot, in fact, do it all, then we unknowingly allow circumstances to decide for us. We have not leveraged our power of choice as well as we could, and the outcomes are usually disappointing. By trying to do it all we forfeit the power that comes with deliberate choice.

“No More Struggle” is the primary method for working with painful situations- global pain, domestic pain, any/all pain. We can stop struggling with what occurs and see its true face without calling it the enemy. It helps to remember that our practice is not about accomplishing anything- not about winning or losing, but about ceasing to struggle and relaxing as is. This attitude can spread to the rest of our life.

Essentialism is summed up succinctly as: “Less but better”
3 iterative steps to practice it:
1. Evaluate options
2. Eliminate the non-essential
3. Execute the essential

Life and death are in close proximity. To make you, millions of your father’s sperm died- millions of deaths, failure & unmet potential. All that death, right there at your beginning, woven in to your origin. We know we’re all going to die in the end, but death is also there in our beginning. Death is present in all of creation, every step of the way. The borders & boundaries are way more porous than we realize.

Spirit moves- the old (static) forms don’t work like they once did. The word “radical” has its Latin origin in “radix”, meaning ‘root’. The radical is not the person wandering off the path into deep weeds. The radical is the person who went back to the roots, the origin. Sometimes it’s the institutional tribe (orthodox ones) that lost its way, and the radical is rediscovering the true path.

We can sometimes exchange one rigid form, one fundamentalism out for another. Leaders, teachers, gurus, authority figures, systems, structures, institutions, codes, movements- they can serve helpful purposes at stages. They showed you the way, discerning with you (or FOR you). Until you grew & those forms became traps. Not necessarily because something was wrong w/them; It’s more about earlier v. later than rt/wrng

Forms work, until they can no longer contain the new thing happening inside us- the new expansion that doesn’t fit in the current form. The same form that can be new, exciting & liberating, can over time become limiting, stifling & conflicting. A form helps, until it doesn’t. The problem may not be with the form, but rather with looking to it to continue to give you what it can only give you for that stage/time.

The less our speech and actions are clouded by opinion, the more they will communicate, not only to the people who are polluting the rivers, but also to those putting pressure on them. This nonaggressive process requires enormous patience. Do everything as if it were the only thing in the world that mattered, while knowing all the time that it doesn’t matter at all. This leads to more appreciation and less burnout.

We can sometimes pick up a belief that it’s our job to somehow get people from where they are, to where they should be. From one place of believing & acting to another place. When you wish someone were in some other place, and you see it as your job to help them get there, there’s a weight that comes with that. It’s draining. Behind this is the delusion that we can change people.

The revolutionary Truth at the heart of the Jesus story is that there is another way to create change besides aggression and violence. Jesus is executed for insisting that there are other ways to change the world: love, solidarity, generosity, compassion, praying for your enemies [and speaking truth to power]. He insists these other forces in the world are more enduring & powerful than revenge.

People fall again & again for the ancient seduction of empire. [Many American Christians] are deeply enmeshed in & actively propping up the very thing Jesus came to set people free from. Biblical authors eschewed grand empires/powers that had oppressed them. Unquestioning support of war & militarism by self proclaimed Jesus followers reveals a spiritual bankruptcy at the heart of dominant American Christian culture.

History is usually told by the winners, who tell victorious stories about how they won. But the Bible is a series of poems & stories told by people who have been conquered again & again. They’re suspicious of empire, masters of self critique, & show their leaders with brutal honesty. They warn against empire. This ancient collection of poems & stories is more revolutionary & dangerous than anyone realizes.

The book of Kings details how Solomon builds a temple using slave labor. These people were slaves in Egypt, God liberated them, gave them a new way to be a nation- caring for those in the same position they once were. A few generations later they’ve forgotten & are building a temple to honor the God that liberated them from slavery, using slaves. They’ve become the new Egypt- they’ve become the oppressors.

The Bible was written by people living in the Middle East who had been repeatedly conquered by one military superpower after another. Time & again they were on the receiving end of a horrific amount of imperial violence. Thus, the writers of the Bible are very suspicious of dominating empires. There are endless warnings about what happens when these empires get ahold of weapons and their insatiable desire to expand.

The Bible tells an old, old story about a small group of people, and yet as you dive into that story the implications & insights for our world & time are endless. Time and time again Jesus and the prophets call out the corrosive politics & practices of empire- presenting a new vision for humanity based on generosity and compassion, instead of greed and violence. What is political is spiritual- there is no division.

Professionals would interview Rob and ask him a variation of this: “you’re a spiritual leader, but you seem to keep growing and evolving.” The first time it happened he laughed in response, explaining: “isn’t that the point? To keep learning and growing? How broken is the system when that’s unusual for a spiritual leader? Isn’t that the job- to keep learning, transforming, following it where it leads?

Many pastors end up living split: as a spiritual leader, many ppl expect them to be already ‘arrived’, which precludes growth & progression. They have their professional religious persona (the one that kept the donations coming in), repeating the approved doctrines & dogmas, protecting the boundaries & maintaining institutional stability; and then there’s their true self: Hungry, curious, uncertain, doubting.

The form (the teaching, the truth), when absorbed & embodied, moves you BEYOND the form. No matter how well you get the forms right (the definitions, the explanations), it’s still possible to miss the intent of the form. The goal isn’t the form itself, but an experience with Spirit. You can have every form imaginable, but without the animating, propulsive energy of Spirit in it, is just an [empty] form.

Spirit needs form. And form needs Spirit. Both are needed. We need forms: guides, reference points, traditions, lineages, sculptures, texts, prayers, poems, stories, songs, rituals, practices. Reminders. They help us access, and experience, Spirit. We have transcendent moments in life where we brush with the divine. Our feet are on the ground, but we’re flying. Our hearts are beating, but our souls are soaring.

The Mystic has had a direct experience. The Mystic knows personally. The Mystic doesn’t need an institution, or a system, or a dogma to tell them what they have already experienced. The Mystic doesn’t need an authority figure to validate what they already know is true.