Feeling Like You’ve Fallen Behind in Your Own Life? This’ll Help.

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Episode Transcript:

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:00] So what would love tell you if it were being honest? How can sharing your creative work maybe boomerang back into your life in the most unexpected ways? And why do we sometimes hide behind putting on a show to keep from being seen and judged, not realizing the disconnection and the suffering it’s causing? What if we focused more on being present than on being wealthy? How might that change how our lives unfold? And why do we always equate being paid to do something with it being meaningful? And what happens when we value stifling propriety over full expression? And how can we surrender more to moments of true artistry and joy? These are some of the questions I have been exploring over the last few months in my Awake at the Wheel newsletter. It’s where I write a few times a month in a much more personal, long-form way, with the intention of helping us all feel more alive and less alone. And as I’ve been doing for the last really year and a half or so, every few months I curate a handful of my most popular written word pieces and share them as spoken word roundups here on the podcast. And today I am doing my fourth Awake at the Wheel roundup with all new spoken word essays, all of which led to some pretty passionate conversations in the comments in the original newsletter. My hope is that they’ll maybe do the same here.

Jonathan Fields: [00:01:18] If you’re moved by what you hear, you’d love to spend more time with them. You can read these essays, linger on them, share them with friends. Let them inspire conversations. Just head on over to Awake at the Wheel. You’ll find a link in the show notes. So excited to share these offerings with you! I’m Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.. So first up, I actually want to share the essay that started out this entire thing early last year, my friend Elizabeth Gilbert asked me to share a letter from love with her letter from Love Community. And of course, I obliged. I mean, Liz is awesome. You don’t say no to love embodied. Plus, I’d been sitting with this feeling. Maybe you felt it. This notion that I’d fallen behind in my own life. I wasn’t where I thought I’d be at this age. And maybe that would be a good topic I thought to offer at Love’s Feet. And with that, back in April of last year, my letter from love met Liz’s, community. And now, over a year down the road, I thought I would revisit that letter and see if Love’s words to me back then still resonated. And turns out they do. So I realized that I’d never actually directly shared my letter with you here in this community. My letter from love was really to myself, which, by the way, for some reason is still incredibly uncomfortable for me to have shared in written form, and it makes me even more uncomfortable thinking about doing this in spoken word form, but all the more reason to share it here.

Jonathan Fields: [00:02:48] And really, it’s also a love letter to anyone feeling like they’re just perpetually falling behind in their own lives. Following Liz’s guidance, I started with the same question dear love, what would you have me know today? And then addressed myself with a meaningful term of endearment. So here is my letter from love to myself. Maybe some piece of it will resonate with you too. Dear love, what would you have me know today? Johner so I know this keeps coming up for you. You keep feeling like you’ve fallen behind in your own life. You’re not where you were supposed to be now. But what does that even mean? Seriously falling behind on what? The delusional teenage vision of how your life would unfold based on a data set of adolescent. Duh. The one that had you flush with gobs of money and status and toys and retiring at the ancient age of 45. Or was it the expectations handed down by colleagues during that weird stint in the law chasing partnership before your body took you down and gave you the ultimate course correction. Or maybe it was that, quote, winning life where every book, every company, everything you touch turns to gold and you just finally made it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:04:10] I know your path hasn’t been what you expected. And God willing, with enough protein and plants and pixie dust, it’s far from over. But look where it’s landed you. Today, in this moment when you’re supposedly behind on the dream of what should have been, how can the feeling of your daughter’s arm woven through your elbow as you walk side by side, knowing how deeply connected you are and what an incredible woman she’s become? Be anything but right for this moment of your life. How can the warmth of your wife’s head on your chest as you stroke her hair in bed for the 10,000th time in 30 plus years, be anything but right for this moment of your life. How can a body that’s taken its hits but is still game to support nearly any dream you envision and lets you hike for hours and weeks in the Rockies be anything but right for this moment. How can being held by friends who get on a plane from the other side of the world, if you needed them, be anything but right for this moment? How can the body of work that’s poured through you and the difference it’s made be anything but right for this moment? Sure, it’s it’s not the path you thought you’d take, nor the things you started out measuring. Others have more money, status and stuff and always will. But don’t you see? The dream of the life you’ve fallen behind on.

Jonathan Fields: [00:05:39] Was measured by things you didn’t yet know barely mattered. And devoid of things that matter beyond measure. You are and have always been exactly where you need to be. Here now. Seen. Held, capable, well and loved. Your only job is to let yourself be present to what is. To keep showing up and to stop fretting about what could have been that was never meant to be. Seriously. Chill. Life is good if you just let it be. So that was my letter, and it really helped me to reread this more than a year after writing it. And as uncomfortable as it is to speak it out loud and share it with you, I think it’s helpful. Maybe you’ve been grappling with a similar feeling, and if so, I hope it helps you be a bit kinder to yourself and gentler with the state of your being. Rereading and sharing my letter from love has also helped me notice and acknowledge and embrace how much life shifting, big and small, has unfolded since I first wrote that. So that was the first piece that I’m sharing And on to the second one from my Awake at the Wheel newsletter, and this one is entitled The Creative Boomerang A True Story about Art, serendipity and impact. Here we go. Did not see this coming. Years back, I’m in Oakland, California with my family, visiting an old friend. Late in the afternoon, we wander over to a local outdoor craft market by the water and stall by stall we work our way through more accurately.

Jonathan Fields: [00:07:24] I sit on a bench in the shade, shvitzing and complaining while my wife and daughter explore. In 20 minutes in, I get a text. Come now. We found a really cool one. So I navigate my way around to find them in the middle of a stall, alive, with just a high contrast photo montages. And the photographer, Steve spends his time moseying around San Francisco pretty much anywhere else, taking pictures of graffiti and old signs. And then he isolates the letters and prints them out. Large format on photo paper to form words and phrases made up of patchwork letters. If it sounds a little ransom y, it is, but it works. It’s just super cool and playful. And we get to chatting and he tells us how he’s always had a love of photography. This is his passion, though. He’s fairly new at going pro, and we talk about our shared interests and street art and photography and graffiti. Just a lovely conversation and human. He brings his kids into it. A number of pieces on display are actually done by them, and were captivated by his story and the creativity of his work and the joy radiating from him. So we commissioned him to make a number of pieces with different phrases to send to people that we love.

Jonathan Fields: [00:08:36] And a few months go by and the pieces arrive to us and get shipped to various people, all landing with gratitude and all. End of story, right? Except it’s not. A few days later, an email arrives addressed to Stephanie and me. Turns out he had recently left a long, successful career as a senior tech executive, and the last company he worked for got acquired. He stayed on for another year or so, but it wasn’t feeling right. So he eventually decided to leave and he vowed not to go back into the industry. But months in without direction, he was kind of spinning a little bit with no sense or momentum towards what was next, and he wanted to do something that honored his passion, creativity and desire to spend more time with friends and family. So he bought a bunch of business books, read two, then stopped when he got to the third and just started taking action. That book, the third one, was Career Renegade, which I wrote and then published with Crown Random House back in 2009, which feels like a million years ago now. And as he shared in his email, when I initially read this book, it was as if the author was speaking to me directly. There were so many parallels in the author’s life and the stories of others in the book. Career. Renegade, which is now widely dated, by the way, was largely about finding unconventional paths to mission driven entrepreneurship.

Jonathan Fields: [00:10:01] And through our really months of conversation, he’d never made the connection until then. Navigating some challenges, he grabbed lunch with a mentor and shared his situation. The guy pulls out career renegade, slid it across the table and told him to read it. And then he tells him he already has. And then it clicks. Looking at the cover, he saw my name and realized for the first time, the person he’d been speaking with and making art for is the same one who wrote the book that helped inspire him to start that very endeavor, and he wrapped, sharing how, in his words, there was a reason that out of all the business books I bought over the years, which could fill a library, that very few touched me personally as Jonathan’s book, I’m thankful for your support and orders of signs for friends and family. However, most of all, I’m thankful for Jonathan’s words as they have inspired me to reinvest my energy and time in the things I have passionate about. Most importantly, me and my family and my path in life. So I was shook in the best of ways as a maker, as a writer, as an artist, as an author, you never know how the work you create will land when you’re in the thick of creation. You try to write, sculpt, paint, or make whatever is real for you. You share ideas, stories, insights, images, feeling light, resources and just hope they’ll land with others.

Jonathan Fields: [00:11:24] But you really never know. You keep doing it largely because it’s the thing you can’t not do. Makers gotta make constantly resisting the temptation to tap the mic and ask this thing on. And then every once in a while, if you’re lucky and you stay in it long enough. The universe gives you the sign. The dent you dream. Your work of making boomerangs back to you. Letting you know. Keep going. This matters. You matter. And so you do. And that brings us to our next spoken word piece from my Awake at the Wheel newsletter. This one is entitled Less Show, More Soul. 2002 Mexican Riviera. I am sweating almost violently barefoot in the middle of a tiled thatched roof palapa, feet from rolling surf. I’m there with a yoga wunderkind, an equally acclaimed kirtan singer and a hundred sweaty humans training to become yoga teachers. We practice, we teach, we move, we twist, we grind, we stretch, we shake until we can no longer move. My head is pounding. Fruit is abundant, but all I want is caffeine and a fan. On the last day, something’s different. Our leader begins to call, postures, minutes in. His number two takes over the call. Up, down, down. Dog fingers wide palms kiss the mat. He tags number three, who takes us through the next sun salutation. I see the pattern and I start to know what’s coming.

Jonathan Fields: [00:13:13] Three others on his team take the teaching baton as we flow, 100 sweaty bodies pose by pose through the soupy morning air. Nearly two hours remain. Who will lead next? I stand in Namazgah mountain pose, erect at the mat’s edge. Hand in prayer, waiting and breathing. My eyes find our teachers and I surprise myself. I actually want to go first. In part because I’m shaking and I want to get it over with, but also because I think I’m better than I am. He smiles and nods. I step off my mat and begin to stalk the room. Inhale, I bellow as my inner introvert goes just full corny, and the next few minutes are surreal, a blur of breath and flow. I’d never led a group this size through anything quite like this. It’s showtime. I’m overwhelmed, but surprisingly at peace ish. I own my own studio back home. Damned if I’m not already good. Better than most or so I have deluded myself into believing. I finished the sequence with attitude and step back to my mat. The teacher is waiting and he sees through me, leaning in to save my ego. He whispers less, show more soul and then calls the next sacrifice. Now I’m pissed. They were moving and grooving and laughing when the yoga demigod fucked as he think he is. It would take years to understand what happened, to learn that at least for me, in that moment, show had become soul’s shield.

Jonathan Fields: [00:14:53] So much bravado, posturing, all to distract from the simple fact. I had no idea who I was or what I was doing, and the last thing I wanted for others to know, to see me in the full catastrophe of my profound imperfection. So I stepped into a persona. I put on a show. Well, at least if they didn’t like it, it would have been the character I was playing they rejected and not me. And there’s a place for that. Of course it’s fine. If you want to hide behind a character or invite people into a fantasy if they know what you’re delivering and what they’re responding to isn’t you? It’s a role you’re playing. It’s the bargain you’ve all agreed to. I mean, Hollywood is built upon this social contract, but often that’s not the case. And it wasn’t for me. The character they thought was me really was just an arm’s length placeholder. A living, breathing shield keeping their open hearts from my armored soul. It’s not that it was fake, but rather filtered. Okay, so maybe part of it actually was fake. I repeated this pattern so many times over so many years. It became my default. Hiding in plain view became a way of being depending on the circumstance. Honestly, it still is. Eventually, all that hiding, living behind a shield, though, it takes its toll. You find yourself surrounded not by friends, lovers, and community, but by an audience.

Jonathan Fields: [00:16:24] And you learn with sobering repetition. An audience stays as long as you perform. A friend or love stays as long as you unfold. And the community stays as long as you serve. So I’m still working on unwinding. This likely will be for years. Always asking when I find myself guarded, hiding, or showing up in some veiled way. To what end? Trying to distinguish between healthy, necessary boundaries and fear of being seen, outed or rejected. Sometimes I’m good with the answer. Other times I’m not. But at least I’ve gotten more into the habit of asking the question what need is the show serving? What work, if any, is it keeping me? From who or what am I trying to protect myself from? And what if I let more of myself actually be seen? And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. And that brings us to our next spoken word piece here. And this one is entitled the compound interest on being there. So success. Version one compounding money. Popular law says you go to school, graduate at 22, then spend the next oh 25 to 30 years with your head down, working your ass off. You’re young, you’ve got lots of time and energy and little to lose. Long hours, big risks. Make big bucks. Then just squirrel away as much as you can. Save, save and invest.

Jonathan Fields: [00:18:05] It’s about banking and growing cash and cash. During the years, your mind and body have the gas in the tank to support the all in build early, then kick back approach. By the time you’re in your 50s, the fruits of your labor in the form of status and money will have compounded so much, you’ll finally be able to breathe, to have real, lasting choices for the rest of your life, to provide for your family. This is the law. And for a relatively small coterie of humans. It actually works. But more often people start down this road but experience a very different end to their stories. So two major ways that this approach can go sideways. Way number one, it’s often based on the wisdom of the few who survive it. So what this approach doesn’t account for is the fact that most people who follow this path don’t actually end up with a life changing stack of money in the bank. They accumulate responsibility and ratchet up their cost structure to match their earnings. And sure, they bank some of it, but generally they don’t put nearly as much of it away or invest it as you would expect or as they’re supposed to. They sacrifice so much of the day to day joys of being present in their lives, and the lives of those they love for so long, but they don’t end up with the security they’d hoped for and expected.

Jonathan Fields: [00:19:30] So once they land in their 50s. They find they need to keep working as hard as they ever did, and continue to live a life that is far more removed from their partners and kids and friends and activities they love and health than they wished for or thought would have. The only thing they’ve actually compounded is stress and complexity, worsening health, deepening loneliness, and the depth and quality of the relationships they have with the very people they said they did it all for and meant it. And the second way that this often goes off the rails is approach is what is called delusional cost assessment. We are so good at seeing what we want to see and ignoring what we’d rather not own. Let’s say you follow this approach and do in fact knock it out of the park. You make a lot save and invest early and often do incredibly well with compounding interest and capital gains leading to financial wealth. By the time you’re in your 50s. You are financially free. Yes, this is pretty damn awesome. Not gonna lie. Doesn’t mean you stop working, but you no longer have to. You now have a level of choice optionality that simply didn’t exist before, which is amazing. I’m not taking anything away from that. It’s what we all want on some level. The question is, at what cost? Sometimes these are the much rarer examples. Financial bounty is built on the back of an equally fierce commitment to family.

Jonathan Fields: [00:21:01] Friends love, mental and physical health. They grow together lockstep. It can happen, but the more common story is radically different. When you’re that all in on the money and status side of things early on. There is still a very real risk that the toll it takes is not just that you never hit your money nut, but also that when you arrive at that level of glorious abundance you’ve given your life to, you have no one left to share it with. That you genuinely care about or that genuinely cares about you and your mental and physical health are holding on by a thread. Yet you tell yourself the story that still those things are either repairable or replaceable. And maybe, in fact, they are. But what if they’re not? There is a huge element of survivor bias in the whole concept. The few who say yes to this approach and do end up knocking wealth, access, status, and opportunity out of the park and somehow stay deeply connected and well along the way. Profess this approach to the moon because it worked so well for them. They survived. So as a general principle, this whole approach must have universal legs. I’m not saying heads down work like crazy banker Benjamin’s and watch them camp out. Cannot work for some. It can and it does. I’m just saying get really clear on the quote soft costs, which are often the very things that make life worth living, and ask what would happen if you still worked hard, saved and invested, benefited from that compound interest, but also did it in a way that created more space for presence and life along the way, even if that meant you’d hit your number a decade or two late.

Jonathan Fields: [00:22:52] It’s about making a conscious choice and understanding what’s truly at risk. So let me paint you a different picture here. We’ll call it success version two. Right. And I’ll call this compounding presence. What if instead of focus on working insanely hard, amassing as much money as possible as quickly as you can, saving and investing and rocking that compound interest on money, you focus more on the compound interest that comes from being fiercely there in the lives of those you care most about. And at a time they care most about you being there. I’m not saying abandon hard work or savings or investing growing, but what if you reoriented to a level that let you be present and engaged in your non-work life along the way? What is the compound interest on you being emotionally present and deeply engaged during the early years of a relationship with a partner? What is the compounded effect of being there in those early years? When should you choose to bring kids into the world? They need you most when everything is spinning, and even if they push you away, they want to know you’re there for them? What is the compound interest on being involved? Saying I love you, then showing you mean it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:24:08] Making them feel safe, seen and accepted. Showing up when life gets hard. Being there for the celebrations and the sacrifices. For the painful moments and stumbles and fumbles and losses and debacles. Redemptions, recoveries and triumphs. Being the embodiment of ever present love and trust and acceptance and guidance when they need it most. Before they head into the world and the very practical window to forge this depth of connection begins to close. What is the compound interest on having such a close bond with those you love? Friends, family, chosen family, community that they trust you, share with you, and invite you in. A sounding board when asked and a safe place to land when needed. What is the compound interest on being there early and often, even if it means leaving money on the table and having to make some of that up down the road. Where’s the exponential impact on your life, on their lives and everyone you all interact with? Not just in the moment, but for the rest of your and their days. No one talks about this. No one offers this contrast to the classic narrative that says, put your head down. Surrender your life to the work for the first 2 or 3 decades. Compound your financial wealth and circle back and assume your life will be there for you.

Jonathan Fields: [00:25:27] Relationships will survive. Your kids will know, love, and trust you and you them. And I don’t know why we don’t talk about this again. I am not saying don’t work hard, make money, save, invest, and benefit from the early compounding effect over time. Nor am I proclaiming that I’ve done this right in my own life. At times I have been all over the place. In hindsight, might have made different calls. I’m simply saying own the truth of the money centric paradigm and the potential costs, and also acknowledge there’s something other than money that can both compound or be destroyed over time. Presence, trust and love. When you focus solely on the money side, you often unwittingly gut the relational side, which according to, oh, a metric ton of research, is singularly determinative of a life worth living. And once you’ve lost or broken those bonds, it’s a far harder thing to fix or live with than it is to find ways to put more money in the bank. Is there really any greater wealth in life than knowing there are people who see you, know you, love you, and have genuinely got you and you’ve got them curious. What’s your take? And that brings us to our next essay, and this one is called are you Pushing People away without realizing it? Here we go. There’s this phenomenon. You ask someone a question, the answer sharing a fun, interesting, cool experience or insight, and your brain tingles.

Jonathan Fields: [00:26:58] You have experienced that same thing. You want to chime in and just offer your version of their experience. It’s human nature. Shared experiences, especially ones that involve surprise and vulnerability, can deepen connection. We want others to feel seen and heard and celebrated, and we also want the same mutual sharing around either collective or complimentary complementary experience. It gets us there. You tell your story. I jump in right after it. Tell my version of a similar experience. We fall in friend love. Yay! Except not so much. This very impulse to deepen a connection by offering common experience can actually have the effect of pushing people away, if not done in a conscious, curious, and generous way. And we’ve got no idea this silent estrangement is happening often until it’s too late. I’ve learned this the hard way and been blessed to have many reps. Spent nearly 14 years now co-creating over a thousand long form conversations with incredible people, often high profile strangers. During my tenure hosting the Good Life Project podcast. Many became fast confessor’s conversational dance partners or lasting connections. In truth, I’m still very much learning and finding myself regularly violating my own guidelines on how to do it right. And here’s how the simple impulse hurls us off the rails. Here’s how it works. You share your story. I listen ish check.

Jonathan Fields: [00:28:28] But as soon as I realize I’ve got my version or my take the whole time, I’m starting to pay less attention. Not intentionally, but my noggin is going. I can’t believe this! I’ve seen heard, experience, or felt the same thing. I can’t wait for you to stop talking so I can tell you my story or insight. And then we can revel together in both awesome sauce and the minute you’re done speaking, I jump in. I think it’s a bonding moment and maybe done right. It is. But equally, if not more often, there’s a shift in conversational dynamic that transforms it from bonding moment to feeling disconnected at best and diminished at worst. Here’s what the other person may actually be feeling. So this is the thought in their head. Wow, I just shared a super cool, fun, interesting story and idea and there’s actually so much more to tell. The details, the more nuanced story, how it affected me, which is what matters ten times more than the facts, the undertone, aftermath. You know how it changed me or my lens in the situation, person or world? Sure, it was fun sharing the basic situation, but it would be so much richer and cooler and deepen this moment and the connection with you. Had I been given the chance to offer more of the context and impact, and had you responded with something that let me know you appreciated me, that you loved how I shared it and were curious enough about me and what happened that you actually want to know more.

Jonathan Fields: [00:29:48] That you were paying attention not just to find a story to share that let you take the mic and center yourself in the conversation. But to let me feel that magical sense of being known. This unspoken dynamic is sometimes seeded with a certain amount of passive aggression or malintent you have a version of their story inside, or offering that you believe is even wilder or cooler or better, and you’re trying to kind of take over the conversation, grab the mic, or one up them even worse. It’s about putting them in their place or if you’re feeling threatened, lower status or insecure. Which translation is probably most of my 30s and 40s. It’s an attempt to level up your perceived worth in their eyes. It happens all the time, even if not a conscious thing. But more often it’s actually about something else. Social oblivion meets neural impulse. So you mean no ill will? It’s just a human compulsion to reciprocate. Same way you smile at a stranger when they smile at you on the street. We’re just wired to be this way. And you’re oblivious to the potential harm you’re doing to the emotional connective tissue of the conversation. They might not even get why they’re feeling more pushed away than connected until it becomes a pattern. The reps let them more easily see and better understand what’s happening.

Jonathan Fields: [00:31:06] And confession. I have done this to people countless times, trying my best to stop in interviews and on the record conversations, but even more in conversations in my personal life, I don’t generally overtalk. That’s more of an overt sign of disrespect, though. Honestly, it’s taken more than that to break the habit. Interviewing so many people for so many years has largely trained me out of it, because I’ve learned how much harder it actually makes the editing process for my team. But I do still have the strong impulse to jump in with my version or take. But there’s a better way. Here’s a simple approach that’ll allow you to let your conversation partner feel just utterly seen and celebrated, while giving you the chance to experience the same. I call it the prompt. Ask, ask, ask. Share approach. The strategy is technically simple, yet psychologically hard. The hard part being just regulating your immediate urge to take the mic and share your version. So here’s how it works. We start with the prompt and you say something like, hey, so what’s new with you? What’s going on? What happened? You get the point. Often you don’t even need this prompt. Your conversation partner just starts into a story or insight or share. The ball is now rolling and then you allow, right? So the allow part is you give them space that they need to say everything that comes to mind.

Jonathan Fields: [00:32:27] Nodding along, reflecting back an element of what they shared to let them know you’re paying attention. Now the second part ask. Say something like, wow, that’s so interesting, or amazing or surprising or insightful or insane. Tell me more. Three magic words there. Tell me more. And then again, you allow give them space that they need to say. Everything that comes to mind. Nodding along, reflecting back an element of what you shared. Again, let them know you’re paying attention. Then we get to the second ask. Once again, you say something like, hmm, wow, tell me more. Or. And then what? Or what else? So again, we’re asking follow ups to allow them the space to go deeper. And then we allow them that space and we listen. And then once more we ask, oh, and how did that make you feel? How did that land with you? Whoa! What else? We want to get past the fact. To the feeling. And then again, we allow. Give them space to say everything that comes to mind. The specific language here isn’t the point. Change it to whatever is appropriate to the moment and the conversation. The bigger idea is this ask at least three considered and relevant follow up questions that tease out both the facts and the feelings, and let them share before honoring your legit and potentially connective tissue building impulse to share your side or version.

Jonathan Fields: [00:33:57] Now, now we get to that final point, which is share transition to your piece or take by saying something like, you know, something really similar happened to me lately, or I had a similar insight or idea or realization and then give them a chance to ask you about it and share your relevant ideas or stories in a way that is complimentary and not competitive. So at this point, they have felt so much more acknowledged and valued and seen. Heard. Embraced. Respected. When you finally share your offering, the chance of them giving you the same grace goes up dramatically and the likelihood of the conversation becoming a far richer, deepening experience is just exponentially higher. By the way, this also works incredibly well when you’re in a conversation where you and the person you’re speaking with see things differently. It creates the space, respect, and recognition that can transform a polarizing interaction into one where disagreement remains but higher levels of understanding and dignity enter the conversation and in turn, the relationship. That said, let’s be clear this approach is not about handing them the mic and letting them put you on blast for the whole conversation. If they say all they want to say, then neither give the mic back to you or as soon as you share a bit overtalk or take it back. That will get old really fast. Two. It’s about laying a foundation, creating a conversational dynamic where each person has the chance to feel seen and heard and elevated by the way they experience unfolds and in turn, how they get to unfold and connect.

Jonathan Fields: [00:35:39] So give it a try. Even with short, sweet interactions like your favorite barista or checkout person, your bestie, your partner, new acquaintance or work relationship and note what happens and then share with others how that experience has unfolded. And again, if you want to be able to review that whole sequence in more detail, just head on over to Awake at the Wheel. Again, the link is in the comments, and you’ll see it laid out in a sort of a step by step fashion. And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. And that brings us to our second to last piece. So these two final essays actually came out of my very recent experience, spending the better part of a month in Japan and processing just so much of the experience in real time, still very much processing it, but a lot bubbled up when I was there. So here’s the first one of those. It’s entitled ikigai, not what you think. Writing from a very hot Tokyo. Thinking about heading out. Weather app says just don’t 95 degrees. Similar humidity just came off a week walking part of the Nakasendo trail with my daughter. It’s a former Edo period which is 1603 to 1868. Path connecting Kyoto to Tokyo that winds through mountains and post towns in the Kiso Valley in Nagano Prefecture, which is kind of known as Japan’s Alps, often deep in ancient woods, meandering along dirt trails, rough stone paths, and the occasional short stint along highways and byways preserved to this day kind of more of a pilgrimage route.

Jonathan Fields: [00:37:14] The full trail runs about 534km, or 332 miles, passing through 69 station towns, and we dropped into a handful of legs in the middle of the trail, traversing two mountain passes and feeling at moments like we’d taken a step back in time. And in this heat, we didn’t so much hike as we did walk slowly, deliberately, schvitzing, mercilessly ambling from one massive, craggy Japanese horse chestnut tree to the next. Rocks covered in moss lent a prehistoric feel to the journey as we found our way over the Torrey Pass, and as we wound in and out of small towns, we stayed in ryokans or tiny residence homes along the way, dropping into a completely different culture. Learning to show up and relate on their terms was at once humbling and yet joyful and beautiful. Serenaded by one luminous homeowner over the most delicious, hand cooked, endless course dinner, conversing more by gesture than word and being told in no uncertain terms. We need to join in the singing, even though we had no idea what we were singing. I just really loved the slower, simpler elegance that draped everyday life on the trail, which was a week later obliterated upon emerging into Shinjuku Station in Tokyo.

Jonathan Fields: [00:38:30] I thought New York City’s Penn Station at rush hour was about the height of madness in comparison to Shinjuku Station, at more or less any time of day, it’s near pastoral. The contrast is jarring, but also a bit intoxicating. Tokyo is, in a word, electric. Another word mesmerizing. So much kinetic energy splattering in all directions, all at once, a full calamity of old and new, coexisting in some weird harmony that’s kind of hard to place, let alone describe. And along the way, I kept finding myself bouncing between these notions of old and new, Eastern and Western, how they sometimes dance seamlessly, other times clash fiercely and interestingly. The word ikigai keeps sneaking into my head. It’s a concept that’s woven through my exploration of work, life, meaning and joy many times over the years. Supposedly, it traces back to the Heian period, which is 7.94 to 1185 C.E.. So really ancient, and my understanding is that it combines the root words iki and guy. The former often translated as spirit or life, but in a more nuanced way, seems more about a certain joie de vivre or style or aesthetic sensibility that embraces elegance, aliveness, vitality and life. And that second part guy, from what I can gather, can shift meanings depending on the kanji or written character used to express it in the context of the word ikigai.

Jonathan Fields: [00:39:54] It’s more about worth or value, a sense of purpose together. The word translates roughly to reason for being tending towards a more integrated, grounded and expansive take. It’s the thing or things people, experiences or devotions that give you a reason to get out of bed in the morning that provide a sense of purpose and meaning. This could range from picking up a grandkid after school and taking care of them in the afternoons, to making art, to writing, tending a garden, participating in community activity, or simply being in a relationship that matters or literally millions of other things. Simple things. Big things. Soulful things. Or monetary? Private or public. And here’s where the concept goes off the rails when it meets the Western world. We love taking ideas that are deeply rooted in the essence and often generational old ideals and teachings of human flourishing, and turn them into modern and useful commercial strategies. And yes, I am as guilty as the next person here. There’s a meme that’s been floating around the interwebs for years, often expressed as a Venn diagram, and it depicts ikigai as the overlap between four circles. And those are what you love to do, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can get paid for. This not only feels reductionist, it seems just plain wrong to me. Why do we do this? So a couple of questions. One. Why is it only about things we love to do? Plenty of people do things they don’t love, maybe even things that are brutally hard, but that also provide an abiding sense of purpose and meaning.

Jonathan Fields: [00:41:30] I mean, does every person love taking care of another being who is sick or struggling? Often? No. It can be incredibly tough on both parties, and yet it can also serve as a powerful source of meaning and purpose. Another question why does everything have to become about what makes us money? Isn’t it enough that it brings us? Or maybe someone we love, joy, or lets them breathe a little more easily, or feel seen safe in hell? Safe bet mom’s not in the parenting game for the salary. Can we just do it because it’s a pathway to our own fuller expression? Another question why does it have to include some external sense of validation or worth? Can it also be about the simple internal feeling, knowing who we are, how we’re showing up, what we’re expressing? The very fact of our existence endows us with value with worth. Can an artist who loses time painting, even just in the evenings, on weekends, feel that the very act of expression and exploration of craft has value? Another question why must it only apply to things we’re innately gifted at or have become highly skilled at? I’m pretty terrible at playing guitar, and yet when I get a chance to do it with friends, I feel this deep sense of connectedness, of really being exactly where I need to be.

Jonathan Fields: [00:42:47] Like, this moment matters deeply. Why must we limit ourselves to maniacally exalting the pursuit of mastery over the simple pleasure of doing a thing for no other reason than the feeling it gives us, even when we’re absolute novices and will likely never be anything but. And why must the whole world need it? So they’re saying that fostering an abandoned animal isn’t enough. You’ve got to build a global network of animal fosters for it to count and be kick ass at it and get paid for it. Seriously? I mean, seriously. Is it a lovely thing when we find ourselves centering activities and relationships that check all four boxes from that Venn diagram? Sure. It’s fantastic. At various points in my life, I have been able to do just that and even call it my living. But the simple act of coming home to a deeper sense of self, a truer knowing that who you are and what makes you come alive, and then finding ways, channels, moments, paths to let that essence become an increasing part of your life. That’s also enough. Your reason for being doesn’t have to earn your living, or even a single dime for it to be valid or your many reasons for being by they. Nor must you be masterful at it, or have millions of people line up to demand it of you.

Jonathan Fields: [00:44:07] Then he preys upon you for it. Nor, by the way, neither be singular. You might have any number of things that bring your life meaning that lead to a sense of purpose or mattering. They all count. Even if you can’t point to a single driving source of all things purpose. Being in Japan, especially walking slowly, sweltering, noticing through ancient woods and tiny towns, seeing the care people give to even the smallest garden patches and place of food or interactions reminds me how simple it really is. Spend as much time as you can lost in activities that fill you up while surrounding yourself with people you cannot get enough of. Know the very fact of your birth has endowed you with value with worth. Offer it along with your heart, your essence, your humor and wisdom to others freely, and maybe leave the Venn diagram to someone else curious. What’s your take? Always interested in hearing your thoughts. And that, my friends, brings us to the final spoken word piece, which is my second reflection on my time in Tokyo. This was actually written about two weeks after that last one, after spending a lot more time in Tokyo, going much deeper into an immersion in experiences, talking to so many people and coming out with like a lot more knowledge and a slightly different perspective. This one is called and this was actually, um, written just after my final night in Tokyo before coming back to the States.

Jonathan Fields: [00:45:40] This one is entitled Motionless How Different Cultures Feel or not. Final night in Tokyo, flying out in the morning. Spent the better part of a month in Japan hiking in stifling heat and humidity in the mountains around Nagano and the Kiso Valley. Handing off to the frenetic electric spin of Tokyo, one of the biggest, fastest and most gloriously disorienting cities on Earth in Hiroshima, Kyoto. Uji, Nara. Back to Tokyo. Tonight is the last kiss. I’m sitting four rows from the stage in a tiny yet iconic jazz club on the east side of Shinjuku Pit in birth in 1965. It quickly became the place for the greatest musicians, first in Japan and then the world to play. Word has it, in those early days the smoke was so thick you could barely make out the stage. The fact that Pit In and I were both born a month apart in the same year is not lost on me. 60 years. I mean, my God, what this place has seen. The people who’ve played here have been made here in turn, made the place what it is. Careers, collaborations, milestones and magic brought to life countless jams as players took the stage and became sonic Supercolliders Alchemists of sound, soul, time and space. You can feel it all in the walls of a place like this. And it makes me wonder. What about my 60 years? Who are the players who wandered through the front and back door of the hallways and green rooms, the main stage and sticky floors? And what if my contribution.

Jonathan Fields: [00:47:11] How often have I been the one working the door, then tuning out, running the joint, mopping the floors and cleaning the toilets. Holding space as they say. When have I said yes to the invitation to take the stage? Or issued the very same invitation to myself, alone or in concert with co-creators of moments worth writing about, worth living. Tonight it’s a small crowd, appropriate to the size of the place, which is in the basement, dimly lit, maybe 3040 seats tops. Something like that. There’s no bad spot. Everyone is feet from the stage. The sound, the action. There is, of course, a killer sound system, but at this scale, it feels like largely overkill. On cue, the lights dim again. I’m wondering how often they dim on the stage of my own life. Whether the spots come back on. Who walks on stage when they do, with whom and why. Yasumasa Kumagai meanders over to the piano, sporting a black t shirt that says Japanese Can groove and a black backwards baseball cap with the words Jazzy Bear emblazoned on the front in gold. Hiroshi Ikejiri steps to the bass, more considered lower key and a loose jacket. Shogo Hamada takes his seat before the drums. His wry smile and button down shirt looks kind of like an accountant, but what he’s about to do to the drums will obliterate that vibe in seconds.

Jonathan Fields: [00:48:29] And finally, the quartet founder and leader Atsushi Uchida takes the stage. Alto sax in hand, Observably, older than the other, starts just quietly snapping out a beat. Hamada picks it up and we are off. Nishida, as the story is told, inherited the kind of spirit of the band formed by the late, great jazz pianist Fumio Karashima, who lost his life to cancer in 2017, and he sought to gather a new generation of younger musicians to create something a bit more. Well, punk. I mean my words, not his. And safe argument. They have succeeded. Tossing the baton from sax to keys to drum to bass and back. The vibe in the room builds it’s electric, and as often happens with great music that just envelops you. I begin losing control over my body, and I turn to see my wife’s face sitting next to me and her daughters, to the left of her. Eyes closed, head bobbing to the beat. My foot is tapping, left hand playing air keys along with Yasumasa as he solos. Despite the fact that I cannot and have never played piano, and my head bobbles through all manners of swish and sway with a classic wannabe real musician stink face continuously contorting just from ear to ear. And before you reply Pixar, it never happened.

Jonathan Fields: [00:49:40] Mercifully. Photos and videos are not allowed in this club. Halfway through the first set, I kind of break out of the groove to take in the room, and that’s when it hits me. Everybody else is just sitting there completely, utterly still, stone faced nonreactive like they were listening to Ben Stein play the teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, joining anyone? Anyone. Nonplussed. I’m confused. What in the actual can you feel the fuck I mean, sitting feet away, you can feel the literal plug boom and pulse of the bass, the crash of cymbals over the brush of the snare and the push of the kick. The lush melancholy of felt bound hammers hitting tightly drawn piano strings and ricocheting off the open top and into the crowd, and Akira’s alto sax just cutting and dancing, teasing its way through all of it. In what world does one living, breathing, sensing, being just sit motionless through something like this? And again my mind goes back to the smoky basement club of my own life. How often have I created the space to surrender to the vibe, losing time and finding life? How often have I allowed myself the freedom to be affected, moved, or changed by what’s unfolding in the room? Knowing my own sublimation isn’t just paying homage, but helping to co-create that glorious state of collective effervescence. How often have I held back out of a fabricated self of self-consciousness and mandated propriety, unwittingly annihilating the possibility of genuine elevation and connection? So back to the show.

Jonathan Fields: [00:51:22] I realize what I’m seeing is actually a reflection of a far more complex culture than I’d realize. Populates the chutes and alleys, the peaks and valleys of this stunning country. It’s a study in contradiction. And why not? I mean, aren’t we all? A population that lives each day flirting with the rim of fire, constantly under the threat of volcanic eruption, earthquake and tsunami. Having endured what’s arguably one of the most destructive and dehumanising events in the history of modern war, the dropping of two nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the stunning resilience that emerges out of a perpetual cycle of both human made and natural devastation and rebuilding, all mixed with thousands of years of dynastic power, a mash up of theologies and governance that’s evolved into democracy while still embracing a certain reverence for a past that continues to center propriety and stasis over possibility, self-expression, creativity, and innovation. There’s an intentional indirectness in the name of nuance, politeness, and preserving the status quo, an artifice of peacefulness that keeps me wondering what’s underneath it all, beneath the gloss of order and tranquility. Is there a not so latent pain brewing and growing in conversation with friends and locals and expat lifers? Speak to a slow burn. Some might label suffering not all the time and not for all. And there’s much to be thankful for, including a social and medical safety net.

Jonathan Fields: [00:52:51] But the discontent is there for many just under the surface, none more obvious than the vaunted salary man who track into single employer careers in their late teens and build lives often of stifled desperation, drinking, and a level of overwork that’s led to the growing phenomenon of karoshi, or death from overwork and a younger generation that is actively bucking the norms and rejecting generations of stifling, demanding more and different. The contrast is profound and in many ways disruptive and disconcerting, and, depending on who you ask, either wildly disrespectful or incredibly exciting, all unfolding in the larger context of a stunning Lindsey, of. All unfolding in the larger context of a stunning lineage of visual art, theatre and literature, philosophical and contemplative traditions, ancient temples co-mingled with townhouses and skyscrapers, rice fields and high speed rail, the crush of overtourism, and rampant Western brand loving consumerism, the likes of which I’ve never before experienced. A visit to the largest temples and attractions in Tokyo, finds you shoulder to shoulder with throngs, thousands upon thousands of humans in search not of wisdom and understanding, not of the sacred, but rather of the perfect selfie for Insta. Meanwhile, minutes away in a tiny building on a side street, a third generation shibori dye master reveals the breathtaking, meticulous craft that takes teams of artisans two years to tie over 150,000 knots into silk and then hand dye utterly majestic kimonos, tethering ancient custom to modern life and a deep appreciation for ritual and craft.

Jonathan Fields: [00:54:37] And 20 minutes south of Kyoto, on a lesser traveled street in Uji, a small retail shop fence, five generations working side by side, grinding tea leaves into matcha while an elder invites you to sit and enjoy a bowl. It’s all just insanely head spinning and beautiful, madcap, elegant, cataclysmic, sacred and brutal. Which brings us back to the stoicism at the club the utter non-response. It begins to make sense. Maybe it’s not so much that my friends in the audience don’t yearn for and enjoy the very same vibration I’m experiencing. It’s that they’ve come to move through life within the context of a set of cultural norms that encouraged them to experience and appreciate it very differently than me, to internalize rather than physicalize the experience. And yet still I wonder if that is what’s going on. At what cost? Music doesn’t take over your body because you will it to. It does so because it can’t not. I cannot conceive of a non manufactured response that keeps rigid and still the form and shape of my body, while the sea of cells that make up my essence are barraged with a vibratory soundscape that compels immersion, reaction and movement. I’m not at the club simply to witness and appreciate mastery. I’m there to feel something, to let it move me. If I keep this from happening not just when it comes to jazz, but really to more or less everything, what is the cost of that? What does it take from an experience that is designed at its heart, to awaken something in me that craves a life beyond containment? Then again, maybe this is just all my bent, my map of what makes music and life worth experiencing.

Jonathan Fields: [00:56:21] Maybe my arrogance is showing through here. Maybe this is my lack of understanding and ego driven superimposition of my own cultural response to art, to music, to gathering in the name of welcoming something that holds the power to not only transform the moment, but also the beings within the moment. Maybe there’s a certain sadness, I’m assuming, into existence when I see a group of humans who’ve said yes to an experience, then allow it to be governed as much by what presents as repression as it does savoring, and a more full bodied participation. And again, I’m back in the basement club of my own life, reflecting on how in even a broader culture that creates space for even celebrates personal expression, creativity, innovation, directness, boldness, revelatory joy, and the ability to wear it all on your sleeve. Even then, I still stifle, remain smaller, more constrained than I know myself to be. I don’t allow myself to take the stage to surrender to the jazz of it all, constraining myself instead to well-worn grooves, proven notes, phrases and songs, and reliable, safe players and songbooks, even when enjoying the show from the audience.

Jonathan Fields: [00:57:34] I wonder how often do I afford myself the freedom to not just be affected, but to fully embody the transference, to let it show? To offer myself to the collective in a way that lets more of the real me out and helps to co-create more of that collective magic. First, just for me, and then maybe over time, at scale to a world that needs magic like never before. Everything I remember is a mirror. Maybe, just maybe, what I’m really reacting to as I glance around at the stone faced audience, the basement of a small, hazy oasis in a foreign land embraced by soul and sound is that same part of me that has taken up space stone faced in the countless days, nights and opportunities to jam, to create transcendent moments and offerings, to beckon and then welcome more jazz into the club of my own life. Or maybe I’m just woefully devoid of dark chocolate and fresh veggies. Don’t know what’s your take here? And as I shared in my last missive, and really with the last two here, I also just want to own the fact that I am deeply aware of my own gaps in knowledge and experience when it comes to new and different places and cultures. Still very much a newbie and a sponge. Always excited to learn from those further down the path or with lived experience. This is why we travel. Not just to see the sights, but to take an experienced culture, history, people and conversation. To drink in the shared essence that binds us. To learn how to be more human along the way. And as I end all of these with a whole lot of love and gratitude, Jonathan.

[00:59:18] And that brings this fourth compilation of spoken word pieces, versions of essays from my Awake at the Wheel newsletter, to a close. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. And again, if you want to take your time and meander through these more slowly and read the words on a page. You can find a link in the show notes below. I’ll see you next time.

[00:59:37] This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by, Alejandro Ramirez, and Troy Young. Kristoffer Carter crafted our theme music and of course, if you haven’t already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube too. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did because you’re still listening here. Do me a personal favor. A seven-second favor. Share it with just one person. I mean, if you want to share it with more, that’s awesome too. But just one person even then, invite them to talk with you about what you’ve both discovered to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter. Because that’s how we all come alive together. Until next time, I’m Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project.