ALL FOR NOTHING

ALL (F)OR NOTHING



There’s nothing to get – and I hope you get it.
Colin Hayes


There once was a man who hated the sound of his own footsteps and the sight of his own shadow. He hit on a plan: he would run away from them. So he ran, and he ran, and he ran….but still his footsteps stayed there and his shadow followed him close behind. So he decided to run faster in order to get away from them. He ran faster, and faster, and faster…but still his footsteps were there and his shadow stuck by him. Day after day, week after week, year after year, he ran faster and faster, but still his footsteps and his shadow dogged him.

One day he dropped dead, which was a pity

Because all he had ever needed to do was –

Step into the shade

And

Sit down
Colin Hayes


When I first went into business, my partner and I decided to be “Generalists”. It came from a realisation that, in a world of increasing specialisation, experts were getting to know more and more about less and less. I figured they’d soon know everything about nothing, and that was not for me. I was happy to know less and less about more and more, even if l I finished up knowing nothing about everything. “I” considers himself to have been remarkably successful.

When you give up everything, you get it all.

There are two ways to get everything. One is to get something, then hang on to that while you get something else, then something else, and so on ad infinitum. That's what most of us do. In our search for satisfaction we grasp for more, for bigger, for better.The only problems with this plan are -- 1) That we keep dropping things we've got while reaching for something else; and 2) We realise we're not going to live long enough to get it all. So, in the face of the dwindling possibility of ultimate satisfaction we settle for gratification.

There is another way -- to give up everything until you have nothing. Nothing is a codename for infinite possibility. When you have Nothing, there is infinite space for whatever you need to show up, whenever you need it and you can be serenely content while you're not at it. That sounds to me like Abundance.

It's a paradox isn't it? To get whatever you want, you have to give up what you've got.

We're relucatant to do that because we believe in Scarcity and Lack. We're emotionally attached to the idea of a limited universe.

There's a very good reason why it won't work -- WANT. We think that if we don't want something, we won't get it. We think that the harder we want something, the more likely we are to get it. Could it be that the reverse is true? Could it be that the Wanting is the problem? Could it be that the Wanting becomes so addictive that it becomes an end unto itself? We want the Wanting, and that's what we've got? We never think to remove the Wanting, remove the desire, and create space for whatever to show up.

We say "It's either all or nothing", and we believe in that, as if the two ideas are mutually exclusive. But what if they're not? What if "All" and "Nothing" are two perceptions of the same thing -- unlimited possibility?

So let me re-state the paradox -- To get what you want you must give it all up, including the wanting.

And the rich young ruler went away disappointed (remember the one about a camel getting through the "eye of the needle"?)