Like many die-hard New Yorkers, I’ve been dismayed by the news of people fleeing the city for the suburbs.
In fact, that’s what my next-door neighbor did three months ago.
We were perfectly friendly––a divorced dad, he brought his two kids to Belle’s birthday last year and I invited him to another party or two as well––but we never spent that much time together, particularly with the pandemic.
At the end of July, he told me he was moving and I wished him well.
I’m not privy to the details of his relationship with our common landlord but…let’s just say the evidence doesn’t point to a walk together holding hands through a lush meadow.
In fact, it felt like he was departing in haste.
After he left, during my five daily walks with Belle, looking down from the roof, I was constantly dismayed to see he’d left several large plants on his terrace.
Most of these were long dead but there were a few that I thought still deserved a fighting chance. (#2020BeDamned).
Anyway, after my tree fell over and Robbie and I set it upright this July, I discovered that the fence separating our adjacent terraces consisted of slats that could easily be lifted up.
I could, in other words, deconstruct the boundary between our terraces in about five minutes.
Although it was tempting to expand my outdoor space by 50%(albeit temporarily until his apartment was rented), I focused on the mission at hand: saving the plants and shrubs I still could.
With that accomplished, I noticed that his patio door was swinging open and, my curiosity getting the better of me, I decided to see what was happening inside his vacant apartment.
It had been two or three weeks already and clearly the management didn’t know he’d evacuated the premises.
The apartment was bare, except the refrigerator and cupboards were full of food.
But, taped to the fuse box I found something that’s revolutionized my life.
Namely, a list of rules for when his two kids were visiting.
(Note: he was a very smart tech guy, but English was NOT his first language.)
Inspired, I took these rules back over to my terrace, rebuilt the slatted wall, and immediately framed them.
Now, I require all visitors to read and agree to them, substituting “Edward” for “Papa,”of course.
First, almost everyone reading them re #2 says: “There’s always a reason I’m crying.”
Second, it’s pretty clear that if you have to make a rule like #9––“no throwing ball on Papa”––that when it comes to being an Authority Figure, Papa is probably a real softie.
I also rather like #4 “no talking together”––which I think probably means “at the same time”––but whenever I step away to get another bottle of wine, I point out to my guests that the conversation seems to be continuing without me.
Besides the fact that I do think the world would be an infinitely better place if we all honored rule #5 (“No argument with Papa / Edward”), I’ve been contemplating the ways rules are functioning in my life lately.
Most obviously, there are all sorts of new rules about social distancing and what standards we’re going to find safe and acceptable.
I can still have a few people over safely on my terrace outside, for example, but the winter is fast approaching.
And during this intense time, I’ve found that a certain number of my own self-imposed rules have made my life so much better.
Daily exercise on my roof, for example, as well as teaching a Zoom yoga class for the last 212 days straight has kept me (relatively) sane.
Other rules of mine I’m breaking constantly, however, mostly those around my deeper creative work goals and minimizing my vices.
(I’ll let you guess what those are; feel free to be creative).
I also deal with this topic of rules and accountability several times a week with the clients I’m coaching creatively.
When work isn’t being accomplished, is that just our normal moderately self-sabotaging drama we need to address?
Or do all our expectations need to be re-written?
Do we need to keep up our self-imposed disciplines no matter what…?
Or are we living in a time of such strangeness and fatigue that it’s cruel not to cut ourselves as many breaks as we can?
I don’t really have an answer for this but I think the hallmark of 2020 might be that we all need to make our own rules, ones that take into account the times and our need to evolve with them.
That’s part of what I writing about in my new course and book, and what encourage clients to do.
Finally, in these complicated times, as always I turn to the Sufi mystics.
Over 600 years ago––unlike Papa / Edward––the amazing Hafiz declared that, rather than ten, there was ONLY ONE RULE that mattered.
ONLY ONE RULE
The sky
Is a suspended blue ocean.
The stars are the fish
That swim.
The planets are the white whales
I sometimes hitch a ride on,
And the sun and all light
Have forever fused themselves
Into my heart and upon
My skin.
There is only one rule
On this Wild Playground,
For every sign Hafiz has ever seen
Reads the same.
They all say,
“Have fun, my dear; my dear, have fun,
In the Beloved’s Divine Game
O, in the Beloved’s
Wonderful Game.”
Namaste for Now,
- Free download of Belle’s Book is HERE.
- Recent Wealth & Purpose podcast interview HERE.
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