1.5 Sorrow in the journey, delight in the fight
If you venture down into the truth about the human operating system, and if, as a result, hope disappears on you…
You’ll find despair right there waiting to take you down.
And if you let it…
It will take from you everything that makes you a blessing to the people in your life.
Despair is a terrible enemy, for us personally and for us as a species. Around the world, despair is in the ascendency. It’s taking over more and more human territory.
Look at how badly we’re doing at running the mega–societies we live in. Look at the trajectory we’re on. We talk and talk and talk about saving ourselves, but we’re still solidly on the path into extinction.
And look at…
How fragile hope has become.
How much work it takes to hold on to it.
And meanwhile…
Despair is a global dementor hell-bent on sucking out our souls.
How do we defend against that suck? The best defense, as they say, is a good offense. And…
Fighting to upgrade love is the best way I know to play offense.
Sorrow in the journey
We live in a society that pressures us to be happy. As if happiness is the ultimate goal in life. As if we should be at least a little bit embarrassed if we’re not happy. And if in fact we’re not happy, we shouldn’t say that out loud and never in public.
So sorrow, for the most part, is not valued. But this upgrade journey is infused with sorrow.
The journey takes us deep into the treacherous territory of our operating system, and there’s no way we can forget the revelations we encounter there. Revelations which are scary and sad. Really sad.
So yes, there is sorrow here. It’s inescapable.
But knowing as I do now just how much sorrow comes with this upgrade mission, if I had to make the decision over again, I would still choose this mission, and embrace the sorrow that comes with it, because…
Sorrow is a living thing, whereas despair is not.
And I’ve learned that…
When I’m hurting, I need my sorrow.
It comforts me. It sustains me…
It helps me to keep feeling for myself when despair wants to shut me down.
Delight in the fight
In America, we’re obsessed with easy–step gurus.
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m all for easy steps—but only for easy things. And I certainly don’t want you to give me hard steps for easy things.
But, please…
Don’t give me easy steps for hard things.
Easy–step gurus deluge us with promises of wealth and fame and romance and whatever else you could ever want, all by implementing a series of easy steps they’ve got all laid out for us so we hardly have to lift a finger.
When it comes to the mission to upgrade love, these happy–talk gurus are out of their depth. They can’t help us here, because….
There aren’t ten easy steps for upgrading love.
And…
There aren’t ten easy steps for dealing with the death of hope.
There are only…
Gutsy steps.
It’s just a fact that…
You can’t get upgraded love on the cheap.
Still, I get the appeal of easy. It would be wonderful to have easy steps for all the big challenges—if those steps really worked.
Sometimes I wish there were easy steps for this upgrade journey…
Except I’m glad there aren’t.
And why?
This journey gives you rewards that easy–step programs can’t, because…
It takes you deeper into yourself in ways that easy steps don’t.
Here are six specific examples of what I mean…
1. You get to make your own decisions.
Ever notice how the self–help gurus cajole and pressure and finesse you as they try to get you to sign up for their programs? And how, if you’re even thinking about saying no, they do their best to try to shame you back into a yes. Like implying that only an idiot would pass up this opportunity.
What’s behind this pushiness?
These gurus want to make your decision for you.
It’s not anything personal. It’s just sales. It’s just business.
But this journey to upgrade love asks so much of you that if you don’t really want it, and I mean really, really want it in that deepest place in your heart, if your decision to engage doesn’t come from there, you’re not going to get very far with it, so then why waste your time?
2. You get to be a creator instead of an implementer.
The steps the gurus give you come from outside yourself. And you’re just supposed to follow them. It’s a paint–by–numbers kind of thing.
But the upgrade journey asks you to discover and create. Which is more demanding, but more rewarding because…
It’s more you.
3. You get to make your journey your own.
Nobody owns the upgrade mission. It’s not something that can be branded as proprietary. It’s open to everyone for free.
I own my version of the mission. And you will own your version. It will probably have a lot in common with mine…
But it will be yours.
4. You get to claim your victories as yours.
When you make progress, when you have victories on the journey, you get to say…
“I did that!”
The credit doesn’t go to some guru who doesn’t even know you.
5. You get to engage the healing power of the human psyche at its best.
The human psyche can be a terrible thing when it causes people to act out in violence and brutality.
But the upgrade journey brings out the best in our psyches. It brings out the healing power that’s in us.
Easy–step programs focus on techniques. The upgrade journey…
Comes from the heart and heals the heart it comes from.
6. You get to go deep and deepen yourself in the process.
Easy–step programs are designed to be generic so they can be used by the masses. They take you hopscotching over the surface of life.
By contrast…
The upgrade journey is immersive.
It becomes so you that it turns into your way of life.
Now, from these six items, you can tell…
I’m a fan of self-determination.
Of course each of us needs help from loved ones and friends as we go through life. But even so, I like the idea of each of us making our own decisions about who to ask for help and how to ask for it and how to integrate that help into our lives in our own way.
And given this commitment of mine to self–determination, I’ve designed the sections of this book to be…
Provocations not prescriptions.
Please don’t take anything I’m saying here as received wisdom. I hope you’ll push against my ideas, and push hard. And use them to trigger your own thoughts and feelings and sense of direction, and discover…
You own personal way of upgrading love.
And I hope you’re beginning to get the sense that even during the hard parts of this upgrade journey, there’s…
An undercurrent of delight.
Out in the world, there is such overwhelming darkness and despair, but inside our hearts is this fight. And so even though we’re living under conditions where it might seem like the rational thing to do would be to give up and give in, this fight of ours means we get to be spirited and feisty and plucky and daring and bold and resolute and courageous…
All of which feed delight.
This is a blessing in and of itself, and something to enjoy, but also…
Delight is kryptonite to despair.
Despair doesn’t know how to handle it.
And so on this upgrade journey, you’ll find yourself trouncing despair by…
Taking delight in the fight.
But even better, you’ll find yourself…
Taking delight in the fighter.
Which means you.
