I’ve come to believe that piling up as many DOTS as possible is the essence of a productive, prosperous and fulfilling life. By “DOTS”, I mean any or all of the following: Knowledge, skills, experience, data, wisdom, understanding, connections, associations / affiliations, core values, principles and benchmark accomplishments. * Some “DOTS” carry more weight than others. But the true value of having as many meaningful DOTS in the matrix as possible is the productive connections they engender and the multi-dimensional possibilities they evoke in the dynamically unfolding pilgrimage we call “LIFE”.
The more DOTS we have, the more “Pixilated” our palette of possibilities becomes, and the more vivid our Connect-the-DOTS VISION of our “place in the world” and our most propitious path to the future becomes.
Motivational gurus and purveyors of self-help advice place a heavy emphasis on getting the VISION and PURPOSE and PASSION on the docket before we mainstream our efforts. It’s great strategic advice. But, without a critical mass of DOTS or “pixels” in the hopper, it’s not all that easy to carve out a sustainable, life-driving VISION, PURPOSE or PASSION. And it’s especially difficult when 1) there are so many ungated/unrated choices from which to choose; 2) there are so many distractions and competing indulgences to navigate through and around; and 3) life in the “NOW” isn’t really all that compelling a driving force. (Who among us doesn’t know where our next meal is going to come from or can’t “borrow” enough to get through the next week? Besides, tomorrow is bound to be a better day, eh?, and we simply have to wait it out!)
So, the accumulation of as many meaningful DOTS and “pixelations” as possible – emphasis on “meaningful” – remains the most critical element in “ramping life UP”.
In his book “Living Without a Goal”, James Ogilvy asks the question: Why do we always have to be “going somewhere”? Why do we think we have to “enslave” ourselves to Grand Goals for which we are never done preparing? “So the present becomes tedious, a time of preparing. You grow impatient with the pace of this present. You resolve to work harder, to hasten the arrival of your future Goal.” [We’ll take this question up later.]
In the book “Train Your Brain for Success” [John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ (2012) p. 181], Roger Seip introduces the Greek word, skopos. Skopos is the root word for our modern word “scope”, meaning everything you can see or comprehend in a panoramic view of your personal universe. But more than “seeing”, it has a kind of energized “belonging” or “owning” context. “When you get a skopos, your feet move towards it. When you get a skopos, your hands move toward it. And then, eventually, you don’t have to push yourself [or be pushed] anymore, because your skopos vision drags you into it and pulls you along.”
This reflection is reminiscent of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s “Finding Flow”. Thus, a skopos … “primed” by all the DOTS and pixelations we’ve accumulated … “floats our boat” toward the Destiny we will ultimately come to inhabit.
“Flow” has directionality. And “where we’re going” is not about STUFF! It’s more about BEING “IN TUNE” WITH THE UNIVERSE – more particularly, about being consonant with the universe OF YOU.
“Life is not about having a big house, a fancy car, a lot of money, or cool toys. Life is about moving toward … [your skopos]. It’s not about ‘Did you get there yet?’ It’s about ‘Are you getting there?’” Roger Seip
“It’s not so much a matter of where we are as it is in which direction we are heading.” Oliver Wendell Holmes
While a life-driving VISION or a skopos or a worthy object of passion or a compelling driver of enthusiasm may not be all that clear early in the going, piling up DOTS and increasing the density of “pixelations” with an ADVENTUROUS SPIRIT and EYES WIDE OPEN, will keep “getting us there” … wherever it is we’re supposed to be. That may become clear only in retrospect. But it WILL “become” whatever it is to become, as long as we keep “becoming”. Quartermaster
* Some would include MONEY. By any account, one would be hard pressed to leave money off the table in a discussion of a “productive, prosperous and fulfilling life” – not as a primary Goal, but as a natural product of judiciously applying everything we’ve got to everything we do.
