Important note:
”Out of Bounds” Section intro: Go to “Read me first” in publication
“Out of Bounds” has some ski stories, but it’s really about life off the mountain. If that’s not what you came for, you can unsubscribe from this section alone and keep Ski Patrol Notes. Ski Patrol stories will continue in winter.
We’ve established that being able to negotiate is a luxury. Now we look at the absolute beauty of approaching our wants via a negotiation process. Negotiation has one absolute advantage over expectancy, demand or hope:
You don’t need established trust to negotiate. You can open a negotiation with anyone, instantly — by assuming they have full agency until they show or tell you otherwise.
However, we may be stumbling through our lives along a sliding scale of awareness - of the deals we are working. If you’ve gone to your car dealership to look at that minivan you swore you’d never buy, you’ll be painfully aware of the negotiation you’re about to enter. A long-standing friend blindsiding you by commenting they’ve always really enjoyed watching the shit show that is your life, may sound like a friendly in-joke rather than a negotiation, but believe-you-me, you’re either gonna renegotiate the terms and conditions of your friendship, or you’ll end up in an emotional Mexican standoff.
So, the more conscious we are of our negotiations, the more effectively we can turn that life stumble into a purposeful walk, a gruelling but do-able marathon, or even a decisive sprint.
Talking to our friends, partners and pets about our woes, therapy, writing diaries, making lists...any form of articulating what we are dealing with, is essentially a negotiation not just with others, but more importantly, with versions of our own, and collective, future. And this can be done anywhere, with anyone, immediately, and with no holds barred.
So, whenever you feel despondent, know this:
The feeling of hopelessness is proof that you are actively negotiating with your future.
If you didn’t imagine your future self, you could not come to a conclusion of hopelessness. The very feeling of hopelessness is, paradoxically, a manifestation of engagement with life.
Engagement with your experience, whether hopeful or hopeless, is all that is asked of us by the gift of consciousness. Thus, if you feel hopeless, worry not, for it is simply proof that you care.
The only feeling and behavior you should worry about when heading into a negotiation with yourself, or trying to sit down at an actual or metaphorical negotiation table with someone else, is indifference. Because the opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference.
To negotiate is to care. To show up. To show up for life.
↠ ↠ ↠ Ok cool. I care. What now?
↠ ↠ ↠ If you’d like to support my cats catnip - and my own coffee problem, we very much appreciate it:
↠ ↠ ↠ Know someone who might care?