SYTB 21: How Many F*cks Should I Give?

What to do if I am giving more than I should.

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I saw this funny meme the other day.

It’s important to give a fuck about things.

The problem is that relationships are messy. We often don’t realize how many fucks we are giving to that which doesn’t prosper us, unfruitful endeavors. Then, at such time as we run out of fucks to give, we have barren fields. When the space from which to give fucks is barren, we really have lost all that we ever had to lose. That’s not a good thing. It’s funny to read the meme and imagine not giving a fuck. It’s another to be depleted in things one can care about anymore or missing the resources to help those endeavors to grow.

Why do we wait to walk away from relationships until we have no more fucks to give?

I think the answer lies in the question. The question is focused on that which we are walking away from. The first thing people tell me when they are prioritizing relationships and see that someone does not seem to match or maybe even diverts us from our values is, “it’s so hard to walk away.” If you are focused on that which you are walking away from, you are putting your energy on that person or thing behind you. You are playing a sort of tug o’ war with your attachment to that person, and it can become a losing battle. Here you have something to give a fuck about. It’s like walking away from an investment. What if it turns around? You feel empty handed moving on because you are focused entirely on what you have lost so far. It’s like looking backwards while trying to move forwards. You are not going toward anything, and in this, you are aimless. Your only directional guidance is the thing you want to avoid.

Imagine driving a car at night in the middle of the desert. You have no headlights and all you can see for guidance is a light of a city behind you in your rear view that you are quickly trying to move away from. You don’t know where the road turns or ends before you. You could land you in a ditch, driving off the rolling terrain of a desert mountain, you could destroy your car hitting a 40-foot, Saguaro cactus or you could even end up putting a coyote through your windshield. It’s hard to walk away when you are looking back and have no guidance nor have you bothered to even look at what you might be driving toward. People often wait until relationships have so destroyed and defeated them, they have nothing in themselves left to lose. That way, when they walk or run, blindly onward, they don’t care so much about the potential pitfalls before them. This is why people wait until all is lost. It’s because they haven’t considered anything but the loss. Walking forward blindly, with little consideration is often fraught with great peril and will seem safer than staying and biding one’s time until all hope is lost.

You can turn on the lights with the flick of a switch.

All that peril can diminish in a moment. It merely takes a consideration for what one values to radically alter one’s trajectory forward. Let’s say you do look at your relationship and realize you have mis-prioritized it. Rather than consuming yourself in guilt or even how to handle the situation, think about what would be ideal, what form of relationship you would like. Think of scenarios of good relationships that maybe you can only dream of. I hate to say “only dream of.” The dream is the best guidance forward. It’s our soul’s longing telling us what we are ready for when our lowly heads or hearts may not have yet caught up.

Elevate your dreams.

Write your dreams down. Give them the credence of showing them they are noteworthy. Allow your soul to do the selling and to convince you of its big plans with your meager investments.

So often, we sell ourselves short. We listen to the shareholders as it were, all their doubts and worries. Going back to the filming analogy, rarely, almost never is the investor or the sponsor in the position of the writer, producer or creative director. Each knows their place. An investor doesn’t have the vision to bring projects forward. They rely on visionary leaders to do that. They just remind us of what we can afford and try to keep us working within our means. The thing is that humans are not just projects with balances and bottom lines. Ask any alcoholic or drug addict how much longer before they hit rock bottom. It’s anyone’s guess. Humans have access to infinite resources IF we budget them appropriately. This is why an addict will deplete. Our internal shareholders are out of their depths though when it comes to spiritual strengths. They rely entirely on the physical world of wants and needs, supplies and demands to make decisions. The infinite is outside of their wheelhouse. So filming with an investor in the director’s chair is the first folly. Producing a life with an eye on a limited bank account is the next. The investor doesn’t realize you’re chairmen of the board of the Federal Reserve and can print money from thin air. With those kind of resources, you are unlimited in the kind of picture you can ultimately produce.

We need to look to our connection to that internal Federal Reserve, so to speak, to imagine what we can produce. No dream is too big. They are all worth noting. Now, there may be gradual steps to get to the big ones. But you need to be open to all sizes and shapes of dreams to instruct you how to get where you want to be. Write them all down.

You may be dealing with too many fucks.

I know some one in the world is in a relationship that causes direct pain. Every time you talk to that someone it hurts. Maybe you wouldn’t dream of putting this person in your rearview mirror. For now, though, this relationship causes great distress or contention. In this case, you are giving way too manty fucks for a fucker that deserves barren. You don’t deserve barren. Don’t make the goal to spend fucks like you can run out of them. Sure, on unhealthy endeavors you can. Drug addicts will die eventually. Draining yourself of resources is not the answer. You really need space. You don’t need a dry, barren field of empty fucks and you don’t need to drive forward with your vision intent on your rear view mirror. You need a moment of peace.

Calm the fuck down.

I highly recommend calling upon peace. Find a quiet place in nature, in the bathroom, in the bathtub or the shower. Find a spot where the noise of the outside world isn’t in your eardrums even faintly. I’ve often put my face directly in the shower while having some nice music playing in the bathroom. Make some space between you and the kids, you and the barking dog, you and your own thoughts of that distracting person. No dreams will crop up if you don’t have the space in your mind for creativity. I’ve recently started painting. While painting, my mind can get quiet and though I may not dream while painting. the space is created.

In our modern world, the go-to for escape is TV. TV, however, often creates more noise. It’s escapism into someone else’s noisy fantasy. Guard your thoughts. Make sure if you have the time to find space in your mind each day, even just 5 minutes, you are using it in a way that is generative. When you have a barren or weed infested field or even manure filled field, till it. Clear that space. Turn the manure and weeds under and clear the field. Create the right environment for new fucks to grow. Don’t worry about what to plant next, which seeds to order. Just get clear with where you are right now. Allow the soil to build up and mend itself of nutrients.

Meditation is one of my favorite tools. Once you create some kind of separation between the noise of the world, the noise of your incessant concerns and who you are, find stillness. The Bible says, “Be still and know that I Am God.” This is the I Am that goes beyond name and form. Allow this I Am to in-form you.

One of the best tools available to create this space for me has been Eckhart Tolle’s audiobook recording of Stillness Speaks. In it, he shares that the space between your thoughts can be more important than the thoughts themselves. The less we identify with what we think, the more healed we become. We stop taking our thoughts so seriously. Whatever you think you believe about Eckhart Tolle’s incoherence with your dogmatic belief system, I encourage you, nonetheless, to give this CD series a listen. Perhaps, for you, like me, it will make all the scripture passages about the I AM become real for you. It’s not something you happen to know about, but rather it’s something you live. You live this Universal I Am through being right where you are now, here, no agenda, feeling the ever present, universal truth having It’s Being in you, breathing you and making your heart to beat.

This is the place from which all good things grow.