Is there really a “right” way to do something?
Anything?
Our philosophical stance might vary depending on what our particular ideology may be at that time in our lives. Are we the live and let live creative? Do we want to be perceived as open minded?
Or are we honest about our stubborn ways and fully accept that our way is not only the right way, but the way to do the thing.
How could there be another option?
I feel like I can speak about this topic given that I am human.
The truth is, our way of doing something – whether it’s simply breathing, standing, preparing eggs for breakfast – is often assumed (wrongly) by us that it is the way.
Have you ever traveled and been surprised about how “other people” and “other cultures” cook?
Have you been befudled and confused about their manorisms?
Maybe you found yourself comparing them to the way you do things at home.
Here is the interesting thing about our way.
We don’t often question it.
Oh, sure in personal development we are taught to excavate our beliefs, unpack and question them, but it’s often done in a relatively abstract way – not in our every day moment to moment real life scenarios.
Ever wonder why you’ve felt this amazing euphoria after a life changing event, class, or workshop – having the biggest breakthrough of your life perhaps even – and then returning to status quo in a short period of time?
The truth of the matter is that we’ve just had a fun drug trip and we’re coming back down, but we haven’t actually learned or touched what our sense of self really is – not in a tangible kind of way.
The devil is in the details.
We like the big bang because of the high, but the truth of it is that it’s not in our limiting beliefs where we are limited.
It’s how we cook and egg.
It’s how we brush our teeth.
It’s in the every day moment to moment.
These are the places we are totally asleep in terms of conciousness.
These are the places we assume that status quo is “normal”.
These are some of the most powerful moments and we don’t even notice them.
A few examples.
I started down the thought train in writing about this topic from a YouTube video I watched yesterday.
This video had absolutely nothing to do with doing things “right”. It was simply about a snapshot into day to day Japanese lifestyle and culture.
One of the things that struck me as I was watching was the enormous use of pre-packaged single use plastic that is used every single day at every single meal as a “normal” part of preparing a Japanese meal.
Now, I’m not judging here, but what surprised me the most was I had always seen Japanese culture as being one of the more innovative and technologically advanced cultures. They are also a relatively wealthy nation in comparison to the country I currently live in, Mexico. One of the biggest adjustments for me from Canadian culture where I was born and Mexican culture is how culturally Canada has been moving away from single use plastic, biodegradable single use to-go type. The small town where I lived for example even provided a municipal curb-side composting service as well as a garbage and recycling service and even the rural area where I was born had a pretty strong culture of self led composting and recycling.
I assumed that a huge factor for Mexico’s extraordinary use (in comparison to Canada) of single use plastic had mostly to do with economic circumstances. Many taco stands that provide economical meals for so many poor and working class people for example use a plastic bag over the plate to prevent the taquaria from having to wash many plates.
So back to Japan, I was so surprised to see how interwoven single use plastic was into literally every single meal of the average Japanese family.
So much waste! And with so much advancement and relative economic wealth!
I was kind of dumbfounded.
Until I remembered – the way we do anything comes from the cultural context we absorb.
In other words, we don’t question the thing we were raised into doing.
We wouldn’t even think to think about single use plastic, for example, unless, like me, you were raised in a cultural context that was having active conversations on how to reduce and eliminate it.
It’s not even on your radar.
My induction into “rightness” or shall I say “righteousness” because really, that’s how we play it out came from my very righteous mother. In my house, there was clearly a “right”way of doing things and if you didn’t do it her way it was wrong.
As a child I remember this being rather confusing.
I didn’t have the opportunity to travel to see the contrast of one cultural norm vs. another, however I had friends and I often went to their houses to play. Their mothers did different things. Their houses were still in once piece, the world continued to turn, so I was confused about how there was only one way the right way to do any one thing.
Bringing this up with my own mother meant I was challenging her whole sense of security and what she held holy in the world – her “rightness” – and it usually didn’t end very well.
On top of this, whenever we did encounter other people doing things differently, I would get a lesson on how they were wrong because there was always a very good reason or explanation on why my mother did things right.
Learning that “right” doesn’t exist.
There were a few distinct moments in my life where I could see the chinks in the structure.
These noticings as a child and even as an adult are just that – noticing.
The true understanding of fully unravelling into the cosmic explosion of options and creativity that are available to us at any given moment had yet to arrive in my body – my being.
Like most of us, awareness is more a theory. We can maybe see the thing, but we can’t actually see the things we cannot see.
Did I just break your brain?
In other words, loosely quoting Eckhart Tolle, you can’t see your subconscious, that’s why it’s called your subconscious.
Going back to those supposed “pattern breaking” experiences, they are really just a high that tricks us into thinking we see what we cannot see.
So how then do we gain access?
How do we bring theory into embodiment?
By now, I hope I’ve somewhat debunked the idea that there could ever be a “right” way to do anything.
Our bodies – nature – shows us there are a million (or more) ways to innovate.
My first experience of really embodying this understanding was the moment I got up off of the massage table after a session I received from my friend Bruce.
Now Bruce had been working from a lens and perspective of some pretty esoteric concepts, and I had spent the last 10 plus years in various kinds of sessions with various kinds of physios, therapists, and practitioners.
Never before had I ever experienced what I experienced getting up off the table that way.
Bruce asked me as I stood up on both feet “how do you feel?”
My response “different” – I felt like I stepped into someone else’s body.
There was an obvious shift to my body’s self-map and self perception.
The inter-relational experience within my body and my body’s relationship to gravity had majorly shifted.
I noticed my sense of proprioception for the first time in my life.
“Different is good”, Bruce replied.
That moment awakened in my cells a remembering – a realization that there is no one way to do anything.
That moment awakened not just a theoretical concept of creativity and innovation, but the experience and process of creativity and innovation inside of every single cell.
I write about this today, not just to talk about how “right” doesn’t really exist, nor do I write about this to share my journey out of chronic pain patterns locked in my nervous system.
I share this story because I realize more and more how these seemingly tiny moments in our being, in our embodiment shape the entirety of our lives – health, wealth, relationships, safety, love, all of our human and beyond experiences.
These seemingly insignificant little habits are actually part of a greater nervous system pattern – individual, but ultimately tied to the cultural collective.
They way you do one thing is the way you do everything.