Living in Real Life

I know people all over the world online.  I have friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter, and connections on LinkedIn; now I even travel in the right circles on Google+.  I have meaningful conversations and meetings with people I have never actually met.  Sometimes it feels harder and harder to distinguish whether what happens online or what happens to me in real life plays more of a role in shaping me.

I also spend time with people face to face.  As a spiritual director and leadership coach, I listen to people’s stories and help them become better at what they do.  It is striking to me how many people, even though they are sitting right in front of me, do not appear to be living in real life.

People are shaped, not so much by their experiences, as by their own understanding of their experiences.  People who have gone through similar events but perceive themselves differently will draw very different lessons from what has happened to them.  I talk with people whose lives have been changed by events that, to me, seem almost ordinary.  I talk with others who have endured extraordinary pain or suffering, and have taken away lessons that I would never have seen.

Much of what I do is to help people appreciate things in new ways.  It is easy for us to become constrained by the ways we are accustomed to seeing things.  We make assumptions about ourselves and those around us, and those assumptions are reflected in the descriptions we use.  We often list the things we “have to” do, and rarely talk about the things we “get to” do.  We have choices in our real lives, but we often lose the energy of those choices by focusing on our obligations and limitations.

Leadership is about helping people experience the possibilities and opportunities of real life; we often turn it into making people do things they do not want to do.  Leaders recognize the best selves of those around them, and create ways for those best selves to grow and express themselves.  It is not idealistic or theoretical; it is real.

Are you living in real life?  What can you do today to create opportunities for more real life?

[Image by 4nitsirk]