The management guru, Peter Drucker, once wrote, "Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right."
How are we to discern what the "right things" are? Parker J. Palmer speaks of "the thread you've followed, unknowing, all along, the thread that strings together all you've been and done, the thread you didn't know you were tracking until, toward the end, you see that the thread is what stays as everything else falls away."
What is this thread? I suppose in one sense it could refer to our conscience, or to that deepest part of ourselves, which is where the Divine Spark resides. Wayne Muller suggests, "We make only one choice. Throughout our lives, we do only one thing - again and again, moment by moment, year after year. It is how we live our days, and it is how we shape our lives. The only choice we make - what is the next right thing to do - responds to a similarly vital inner gravity, an invisible thread that shapes our life, as our life meets the world."
Muller goes on to ask, "What is the next right thing for us to do? Where in this moment, shall we choose to place our time and attention? Do we stay or move, speak or keep silent, attend to this person, that task, move in this or that direction?"
The results of following this process have shaped our lives. All of us are where we are, now, today, because of our past choices. And where we end up, tomorrow and the next day, will depend on the choices we make today.
I guess it is about learning to understand, to discern, what is right for us on the deepest level - what will nourish our hearts and souls, as opposed to making us feel fearful, worried, or empty. Of course, it is never possible to re-track, to undo the choices we have already made; but we can try to be more aware of the choice-making process, so that we don't compromise all the time, choosing the seemingly easy over the right. Because very often, a choice made in haste, just to get it over with, actually leads to more worry and heartache, rather than less.
So how can we cultivate this very sane approach to our lives? Discerning what the next right thing is, is something we need to practice every day. We also need good, honest friends, to whom we can go for advice when we are struggling, and who will tell us honestly and compassionately how we are doing - whether we seem grounded and centred, on the right track, or off-course and flailing. We also need to *be* such friends, to one another.
I think we have to believe that if we follow our intuition truly, it will not let us down. Doing so will enable us to remain in our integrity and follow the thread of our deepest beliefs. Integrity is not something we can achieve all at once. It is the work of a lifetime. Yet every time we choose the way of integrity, the way of truth-telling, the way of following the deepest thread of our lives, the more it will become habitual and the braver we will become. It is up to us to make the attempt to be authentic, to live with integrity, to be true to ourselves and to what we value in our hearts, rather than trying to persuade ourselves into inappropriate feelings, just because they are what the majority in society believe. It is not a particularly comfortable way to live - it is much easier to run with the crowd and to follow others - to "fit in".
But if we can learn to follow the "still, small voice" of our consciences, to follow where that invisible thread is leading, there is a better chance that we will be able to do some good in the world. We are all inter-connected - to other human beings, and to this beautiful planet we live on. As Joel Miller wrote, "Any act one of us will choose must change other lives, just as every act others choose changes our own lives."
May we all choose to trust our intuition, and follow the deepest thread of our lives, the "breadcrumbs of God" that will lead us to a place of centred integrity.
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