Windows of Opportunity

I began writing yesterday with the intention of finding my way to the most vivid image from Wheatley and Kellner-Rogers’ book A SIMPLER WAY. But I got so lost in the wind-up that I didn’t get to the delivery—so absorbed in explaining the background I didn’t get to the thing itself. It’s funny how often we set out to do one thing but then get distracted on the way. But more and more I’ve learned to trust that the distraction is at least equally valuable as the thing itself. Or that the distraction IS the thing itself.

If we imagine our lives as a series of events and the world as a collection of objects, then we’re liable to miss most of our lives in the space in between here and there—between this and that. Between me and you. I get in the car and go on autopilot and wake up when I arrive at the destination. Where was I while I was driving?

From the perspective of the mutuality of arising of life, however, we can appreciate that there actually is no space in-between. Every moment and every place we encounter IS the fullness of our life. We are embedded, woven into the world we help create. Everything is always interacting with and supporting everything else. One of the gifts of this perspective is that there is no need to wait.

No need to wait till you get to your ‘destination’ – because you are already there. It turns out that ‘there’ is ‘here.’ In the world of interconnection and interdependence, your whole life has led you to this moment and this moment contains everything you need.

Wheatley and Kellner-Rogers use this wonderful metaphor (which is the point I have been trying to get to all along):

‘There are no “windows of opportunity,” narrow openings in the fabric of space-time that soon disappear forever. Possibilities beget more possibilities; they are infinite.’  

There are no “windows of opportunity”—no small moments of time that we have to take advantage of or they are forever gone. EACH moment is the “window of opportunity” we have been waiting for. This is fully good news because it means that whatever situation in which you find yourself is full of opportunity. Our job is not to get to a better place but rather to be fully where we are so we can participate in unfolding the potential that is already here.

I’m most conscious of practicing this when I garden. Being a naturally spontaneous (disorganized) and creative (impulsive) person, I rarely have a clear plan for time I spend in the garden. This means that I often find myself engaged in some task for which I don’t have the tools I need.   So I spend a considerable amount of my time in the garden walking from one part of it to the garage and back to where I was in the first place.

These are the walks I have been training myself to appreciate. Rather than focus on the limited amount of time I have and all the things yet to be done, I try to remember that walking in the garden, even to fetch the clippers which I forgot, is spending time in the garden—IS gardening. The endless tasks will never be completed so I might as well enjoy being in the middle of it all—the green growing and wondrous flowering—the dying back and the sprouting forth. Sometimes I even pretend that I have come out just for this walk to the garage and back. I slow my pace and enjoy this walking life of a gardener.

Each moment IS the window of opportunity. Climb through and check out the view from right where you are.

Personal Practice – Pay attention today to the spaces in between. The time between when you realize you need to go pee and when you finally arrive at the toilet—the spaces between the decision to do something and when you begin doing it. You could also notice the spaces between you and the others in your life. What if we’re always ‘in touch’ but it’s just always a different kind of ‘touch’? What if the space in between is just a figure of speech and we’re always already there—already connected?