The Cultivation of Insight

When I recently spoke on Career Day at my teenage son's school, I focused my comments on three life lessons I thought highly relevant to the students: staying flexible through and looking up from the job for opportunities; building and maintaining a personal network; and remaining a lifelong learner. These are easy to say, but even though I believe in them, I find them hard to practice. But when I come back to these ideas, I realize that they point for me at something very deep, which is my own tendency to get caught up in my activities, my personal story, and my own environment. I like to see things in a way that reinforces the identity I am most comfortable wearing. This is clearly nuts! It is when I lift my head up and look around with intention and clarity that I can see how narrow my view has become, and start to see other perspecives. From that place I can begin to look at what is going on in my life and in society at large, and start to ask, "What is really happening here?" "What is going on?" When my life is on a smooth glide I have time and space and these thoughts come up often, but even when life is not as steady, they run in the background. It is from this place that the seeds of my novels grow, and it is the source of my spiritual practice. It is an important place for me to nurture, and it is from here that I can cultivate insight into my life and the world around me.