urgency and acceptance
When I started writing about acceptance, it went in a rather philosophical direction, but I had another angle around urgency that I didn't come back to. The balance (integration of the polarity in actuality, but hang on a couple paragraphs) between the urgency of desire for future change and the acceptance of what already is - how should that show up in my approach to action?
I think I couple the expansiveness of "being found by the path" (as contrasted with bulldozing a straight line through the jungle) with the general state of acceptance. There's an essential openness-to-all in the stance that's required to be receptive to the subtle signals of (metaphorical) resonance, energy, discovery, connections. I want that, and it's something for me to embrace and swing towards after a career of joining sublime system-level epiphanies with a lot of bulldozing towards the future state in my visions.
So wouldn't that connect back to the dichotomy between urgency and acceptance? Slow down and be less urgent, accept reality more, wait patiently for the right rope to go taut between me and whatever "it" is out there? But, what I need to realize once again right now is that there's not a dichotomy. Polarity is both/and, not compromise between. I can accept the current moment fully, reality as it is, and still move with urgency towards the current energy, wherever it is.
What I don't want to do, and almost did, is to fuse "agile and iterative experimentation" with "urgency" and "careful research and lots of (up front) sensing" with "acceptance". Agile and rapid sensing sounds like what I really want!
I can hold a stance of openness and sensitivity while also acting urgently. In fact, that's exactly what I already know to be true via lean startup and agile. In fact, that's exactly how to proceed in a Cynefin-complex domain.
There's a separate question of how much the launching or "calling" of a community needs to get "right" up front in order to find the path of the incredibly high potential I'm dreaming of. The call contains both values and vision and feels extremely important. But it's a finger pointing into a complex space - how can it possibly be "right"? All my learning on learning and experimentation and agility comes right back into play.
So my lesson for myself tonight, once more for the cheap seats in the back of my brain, is this: A stance of acceptance towards reality and of openness towards direction/path is completely compatible with moving quickly, acting on incomplete knowledge, and valuing urgency.
Sometimes the urgent thing to do may be to stop, pause, and attune to new sensation. There is a season for everything under the sun. Integrating urgency is certainly not pell-mell constant motion to maintain velocity - speed does not equal value.
The world is, as it is, and, I accept my desire to change it.
-my reformulation
I am continuously sensing, and always acting. I want to inhabit both of those states-of-being intentionally and consciously.