Week 4: The Art of Possibility - Be The Board

The culminating chapters of the Art of Possibility had me scratching my head at some points, particularly the chapter on framework while others had bells going off in my head. One of those "bell" chapters was about being the board.

"How Incredible!" 

The idea in Chapter 10: Being the Board changed around my entire way of thinking about a situation. Such a simple, yet complex idea. Being the board essentially means taking yourself out of the mindset of being a pawn played in a game, one that has no control over what happens to it, that tends to blame anything horrible on others because it supposedly has no control, into the actual board, not the game mind you or the opponent, but the board. In being a pawn you give away your power and your ability to control the situation and by control I don't mean to force others to do as you will. By being the board you keep your options open and continue to give yourself the ability to choose how you will react, how you will behave, what perspective you will take on the situation, and what your next move will be. 

I sat back after reading all this and thought to myself how many times I've done this..relented my power to a situation assuming I had no control over it and taking no responsibility for its occurrence or should I say at least feeling like I had only one way to react to it. I feel like I've been fighting things and being resistant and it has been holding me back. 

This quote makes sense to me:

Choosing the being the board approach opens the possibility of a graceful journey, one that quickly reinstates us on a path we chose before the fateful collision intervened. It allows us to keep on track. Grace comes from owning the risks we take in a world by and large immune from our control.

This makes me wonder. How much time have I really been wasting on fighting things I can't control? How much energy have I put into things "off my track"?

While I read this entire book, I tried to continuously think of ways I could relate it back to instances in my life.  I think this book has done a lot for  getting me to think in a different perspective about things. My big takeaways from these final chapters are two questions stated within chapter 10 and are ones that I will continue to ask myself.

1. How did this get on the board that I am?
2. How is it that I have become a context for that to occur?

These questions will allow me to pull myself back into the situation and really get perspective. I will no longer ask why me?, but How did this come about and how can I stay on track?


(picture credit: Tabuleiro de Ouija by elbragon)