True Work: You Don't Actually Die (but it feels like it)
The story of two paths and what to expect from choosing (true) work.
There are two paths. One is in pursuit of the true work. True work has many names; your calling, your art, your gift, your craft, your purpose, your unique contribution, your highest performance. It's the reason you're here. True work is always pushing you to take the next step towards the fullest expression of what you are specifically designed to do.
"Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel towards pursuing it"
Then there's the path of avoidance. Avoidance has limitless forms and is always assisted by the invisible, impersonal agent of resistance.
Resistance's goal is not to wound or disable. Resistance aims to kill. Its target is the epicenter of our being: our genius, our soul, the unique and priceless gift we were put on earth to give and that no one else has but us. Resistance means business. When we fight it, we are in a war to the death." -Steven Pressfield
Resistance will give you a free pass on all labor, no matter how fancy or intense, that takes you away from your true work. Many of us build little empires while avoiding the one thing we are here to do.
There are two processes. One process involves suffering from avoiding true work. This is where most people live. The other process is for the Game Changers. It involves suffering from doing your true work.
All of us get a glimpse of what the results of doing true work look like. These are the dreams buried inside of us. They are the whispers that turn into a calling. Between the calling and the dream is a process. This process, the one filled with everything we instinctively want to avoid and also contains the exact process required to embody the fullest version of what we want, is the Christ-way.
The Christ-way shows up in every form of storytelling. It's unavoidable. And yet, to live like Christ is many things. To some it’s love. To others, it's power, or evangelism, or holiness.
Yet those are not the Christ-way, those are the byproducts of the process. The Christ-way is ultimately the cross. The cross is the portal to the resurrection. All the glory is after the resurrection.
Now hang on to your religious outrage, whichever way it swings. We're going somewhere else with this. Hear me out.
The process of true work and the Christ-way share these overlaps and outcomes. They follow a story arch. It goes like this:
When we first step onto the path of true work we're rewarded quickly. This is the excitement phase, the light bulb moments, the linear path of effort > overcome> reward. You feel the alignment and the rush of being connected to your true work. This is entry-level inner-world development. It's fully paved and awesome.
Then comes the middle of the process. This is where people start opting out. This is the part of the inner world that is largely uncharted for the majority. It is the non-linear inner process required when pursuing your true work. It's represented by the radical squiggly line section in the middle of the image above. If you make it through to the end of that process you'll encounter the final sections of the process. It's the ancient story arch that is displayed in the deep, individual process as loudly as it is displayed in the collective and universal storylines. It looks like this:
The path becomes lonely. You go through seasons of being isolated. The closer you get to the end the more unfair, nonsensical, and wildly distracting the opposition of resistance becomes. Even if you do it all the right way, even if you hit all the right milestones, you will still be betrayed, you will still lose your closest friends, you’ll still have your reputation smeared, you’ll still suffer in your body, you’ll still look like you're not accomplishing the right outer world metrics. You'll feel like the whole thing has drug on too long and there is not enough evidence of this story ending well to feel any comfort. Except, in this storyline, these are not failures or detours, these experiences are the path.
And this path is a choice, the little blue portals (in the image above) are choices, all the way to crawling on the cross. You get to say yes to each step as it arrives. No one will make you do it. In the story, God will love you either way- there's free will, it's all a choice.
(yes, we're still in a metaphor here)
Now, those final steps at the end where it gets super tough is when you get to choose, at last, to realize it’s not really about you. It's about the story we're all in. It's about the gift inside you that you’re here to live out. This is a critical moment where you learn:
- that you are incredibly important to the story
- and that it's not about you. At all. This is a freeing moment.
That's the moment when you decide to go all in, hell or high water, with committing to your true work, in faith, for the story, for the gift, for God, for love- when you really give yourself over to the mission of your purpose and start moving the way the Spirit moves- that’s when you know. That’s when you realize you’re going up on the cross. You let them nail you to it because there is no return now. You sacrifice yourself willingly, in love for the whole thing, and you allow yourself to die and be born again, in glory and power.
The willingness to die, to release the gift, to play a key part in the story, to be resurrected as something more powerful, is the path. The glory, the result of our true work, is on the other side of a 'death'. The process in, through, and back out is an internal one. This process of pursuing our true work is the most challenging path because it is the most rewarding. Like the Christ-way (all religious opinions aside) this process is a literal game-changer.
Metaphorical story: concluded.
Back to you. The year is 2024. This archetypal story found in the classics of ancient literature, the Christ narrative, the Heroe's journey, and countless others keeps telling us the same thing: this process is the path.
As a collective, we are on this storyline. What can at first appear to be great suffering and chaos may be instead the much-needed lead-up to death and resurrection; it may be the process required to break us open, release the gift, and enter into a new phase of freedom, within ourselves and the world.
The importance of knowing the story is so that we can find ourselves in it. This becomes critical when you're in the depths of the process. Knowing the story and our role in it empowers us to play our part, not as victims struggling, but as victors overcoming. Knowing the markers to look for and what to expect next keeps us safe, grounded and not so alone in the most challenging of times. Understanding that this process is the same one the greatest minds, hearts, and souls of our planet have also endured before us strengthens our resolve for true work.
"if you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, you destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.
You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one milimeret farther along its path back to God. True work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us your contribution, Give us what you've got. " - Steven Pressfield
It doesn't need to be cold fusion. And it doesn't matter how big or small you've made your thing out to be. Times are changing. We need all hands on deck, Game Changers. Our world is craving a critical mass of people to do their true work at this time. No one is exempt from this burden. Anyone can take up this task.
The great surprise will be a world made by the unexpected heroes who did their true work in this incredible window of history. It's never who we expect it to be. This path has a way of giving unthinkable glory to the unexpected heroes and otherwise lowly or insignificant persons who dare to stay the course.
Don't cheat us of your contribution. Don't fear the path or the process. Don't let resistance win.
Let's do our truest work.
