If not now when? The challenge of taking responsibility for our lives in each moment.
The response to the narrative around the England rugby squad announcement for their must-win second game against Australia was largely one of dissatisfaction. The game was framed as another stepping stone to winning the World Cup which is in over a year’s time. After two mediocre seasons and with the England team having only won two of six games this calendar year an ongoing narrative of progress without tangible results felt inadequate for fans and commentators of the most well resourced rugby nation in the world. What appeared most galling were comments that performing well was more important than the result, that as long as performances were good then the result didn’t matter. This narrative begs a question, if not now, when? When should we expect them to win, when should we expect them to commit to winning rather than simply building for winning in the future?
This question applies well beyond the world of rugby.
So often much of our lives are punctuated with a vision of what we will become that being now can be forgotten.
This can be for several reasons, or at least we can often finds many reasons for this. Whether we have convinced ourselves, we need to be fitter before we enter that race or join that team, we need more time to start that book we want to write, we need to finish these to dos before we turn to what we want to do, we are waiting for that promotion first before changing career. There can also be reasons out of our control or things that just need to happen.
The question that can put the ‘if not now, when’ into context, is ‘how are we living the life we want right now?’
If life is a constant journey of becoming, when do we ever get to be, live or experience what we are creating?
This blog has spoken before about what we can control, notably the process, rather than the outcome. The distinction between process and outcome can also be reframed as being versus becoming too. We are always moving toward an outcome but it is in what we do, our being and our actions, the process, that leads us there. To reframe this as two questions
What are we doing to live the life we want?
What are we doing to live that life now?
The distinction is subtle but significant.
To return to the England rugby team’s pre-match narrative, their answer to question 1 would be around developing a team and style of play to win the 2023 World Cup. The answer to question 2 would be something like putting in the quality of performance that is sufficient to or shows the features of a performance required to win World Cups. In this way the narrative of performance and development over winning their match against Australia is more understandable, if possibly still a little dissatisfying because it doesn’t take responsibility for the fact that performances needed to win the world cup should also mean winning matches now (allowing for the fact a result is never 100% in our control).
An interesting comparison is the New Zealand All Blacks that won back to back world cups in 2011 and 2015. In an interview for the High Performance podcast, Dan Carter, one of their star performers throughout that period, talked about how the team’s goal was to sustain the success that came with winning a World Cup, which was reflected in being the only rugby team to ever retain a World Cup. It is easy to draw comparisons as an observer but what seems different is how England and New Zealand have framed their approach. The former are set on winning a World Cup, the latter were focused on sustaining success, being the best, which was reflected in results and retaining a World Cup. In fact New Zealand’s performances in 2015 were significantly better than 2011.
So we return to the idea of how we are living what we want now as much as creating it for the future?
Another example that comes to mind is Steve Lundquist, the Olympic gold-medallist swimmer Daniel Chambliss observed, whose sole focus was winning every swim, every day.
What does this look like beyond the realms of sport?
Being versus becoming
Consider the following:
What personal goal or milestone do you have?
What are you currently doing to get there?
How are you living that now?
The final question is different to the second because it is about approach and attitude as much as it is about action.
For example, if I wanted to be a published author I may be writing regularly (without doing so I’ll never have anything to publish). However, how am I approaching that writing? What am I aiming to create or do each time I pick up the pen or place my fingers on my keyboard? Am I working to become a writer or by writing am I in fact not already a writer? With that there is a chance to let go of the expectations of what I need to be to be a published writer to allow me to simply write now, the first step to getting to being published.
With that reframing, what does it look like to work towards what you want in the future now? What may you do differently in your approach?
Consider another personal example. When I was 17 an injury stopped me playing rugby in my last years at school. By the time I got to university I was fully able to play again. I never did. My reason wasn’t because I didn’t want to play, yes, there was some uncertainty about joining a new team, but really it was the belief that I wasn’t fit enough to be a rugby player, when in fact both to feel fit enough and to have become what I had wanted to, a rugby player again, I simply could have gone along and played.
What can we take from this?
Balancing the future with the now brings that future into being. What do we possibly put off now by consigning it to a future that may never come?
Consider a weekend where we yearn to relax and to unwind after a long, tiring, demanding week. But first we must get all the life things out of the way: the washing, the cleaning, the food shop, next week’s food prep, social events, catching up with messages and friends, the run or trip to the gym. Now we’ve reached Sunday evening and we’re no more refreshed than Friday.
This highlights two things that can get in the way of living the life we want now as much as in the future: permission and worthiness.
Taking responsibility for us, now
There will always be something, a reason, why we can’t do what we really wanted or to take a step towards what we really want today. The challenges come with saying ‘no’, prioritising ourselves, recognising we can’t do everything we want to do. What underpins these challenges is often the greatest challenge taking responsibility for us and what we want. Referred to in other blogs, Viktor Frankl’s words are apt again here:
‘Each man is questioned by life; he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.’
As we’ve shown before, for Frankl, regardless of the situation or circumstance we always have a choice of how we approach that situation, and as a survivor of four Nazi concentration camps, Frankl concluded this was the case even in unavoidable suffering. Applying Frankl’s idea in this context then we are responsible for our lives and for how we choose to approach life.
What does it feel like to consider ourselves as responsible for us? To really know it?
Liberating perhaps, but also quite possibly daunting, scary or overwhelming. To draw on the famous Spiderman quote: ‘with great power, comes great responsibility.’
It is easy to forget our responsibility, as it is our power. Life is one of possibilities and potential, what becomes of life is down to us, how we respond to life and the responsibility we take in how we choose to respond to the possibilities we are presented with. With the awareness of our responsibility, comes the choice of whether to be responsible or not, whether we choose to answer to life.
It is easy to forget our responsibility, as it is our power. Life is one of possibilities and potential, what becomes of life is down to us, how we respond to life and the responsibility we take in how we choose to respond to the possibilities we are presented with. With the awareness of our responsibility, comes the choice of whether to be responsible or not, whether we choose to answer to life.
One of the biggest barriers to taking responsibility for us is worthiness.
It could manifest in fearing we will be selfish by pursuing what we want or that what we want isn’t good enough or that we’re not good enough to have what we want, not worthy of it. We’ve already seen how the fear of uncertainty of what could be, our potential, is often linked to worth and how it can underpin our willingness to be responsible for us, to recognise we are good enough to take responsibility.
While taking responsibility often hinges on worth, taking responsibility can also be the first step to recognising our worth. It is a choice to act because we believe we are worthy simply because we are.
What can help us take this step towards being responsible for us?
A purpose beyond us
Often a motivation greater than us can really help us to take responsibility and in doing so recognise our worthiness. Here we are answering to life. For Frankl we are all seeking meaning and a knowledge of this meaning or purpose can drive us forward even in suffering. For his fellow inmates in the concentrations camps he found that ‘those who knew there was a task waiting for them to fulfil were most apt to survive.’
By pursuing what matters to us, what feels meaningful we can tap into our worth and take responsibility for us. Here the idea of in what way can we live our sense of purpose or meaning today can be helpful. Think back to the swimmer who simply focused on winning every race, he had his daily purpose. If we return to the writing example, if we were to cultivate a daily writing practice again we are taking responsibility.
Treating us as we would others
Consider someone we really care about, maybe a close friend or partner, how would you expect them to approach their life? Most often it will be from a position of worth of them pursuing what they most want. All we are doing is applying that same feeling and desire to us.
The possibilities of committing to us
If that wasn’t compelling enough then Chambliss’ research into swimmers found that their achievements were not about talent but about the responsibility they took for themselves.
‘These terms [talent] are generally used to mystify the essentially mundane processes of achievement in sports, keeping us away from a realistic analysis of the actual factors creating superlative performances, and protecting us from a sense of responsibility for our own outcomes.’
To return to Frankl:
‘...the transitoriness of our existence…constitutes our responsibleness; for everything hinges on our realising the essentially transitory possibilities. Man constantly makes his choice concerning the mass of present potentialities; which of these will be condemned to nonbeing and which of these will be actualised?’
If we took responsibility for our lives, what could be?
By considering the possibilities we create the reason to act and in acting and taking responsibility we are recognising our worth.
An impact beyond us
What benefits would our friends and the world receive when we are living from a place of worth, from following our heart and allowing us to be our best? When we consider what the possibilities could be of becoming responsible for our lives, our worthiness, could even be seen as a duty. If selfishness is the reason to not follow what we want it could also be seen as selfish to not do so given the potential impacts.
So if not now, when?
What would life look like if we considered being what we wanted to become now?
What would life be like if we took responsibility for living that life now?
What would we do now that we otherwise wouldn’t?
A lack of worthiness - feeling good enough - can see us defer what we could be now to something we can become in the future. The reality is we have everything to be our best now, we simply need to take responsibility for being our best each moment.
In a world where we are often focused on the next outcome we miss the fact that we can be much of that now simply in how we approach life each day. And it is through this approach, taking responsibility for us now, that creates the conditions for us to be our best and to recognise we are worthy of what we want now as much as we are in the future.
What would a world look like where we all took responsibility for ourselves and where in doing so we recognised our worth?
What could you do to live the life you want to lead now?
If not now, then when?
References
Daniel Chambliss, ‘The Mundanity of Excellence An Ethnographic Report on Stratification and Olympic Swimmers’ (1989)
Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
The High Performance Podcast with Dan Carter, https://www.thehighperformancepodcast.com/podcast/dancarter
