Friday Decision and Action
Seven Exercises for Firm Ground Under Our Feet
5. Friday: Decision and Action
This is the one I find most challenging. To follow smoothly through, from decisions we make into actions we take, is more complex than at first it appears.
In the more commonly known and discussed, set of “6 Accessory Exercises”, step 2 is to practice strengthening this capacity through deliberately completing meaningless tasks at pre-set times. That is a different exercise. Here Steiner is asking us smooth the pathway between one and the other.
As usual I find two aspects of this step. The first one is to check that intentions are carried through. The second one is to check that our intentions are even actionable. How many of us hold on to dreams and intentions that are not, in truth, ever going to happen because we maintain internal contradictions within them. “Move to a warmer country” and “don’t leave my circle of friends” sort of thing. So, watching our thinking and checking that decisions are in fact actionable is part of this.
Some conflicts are much more subtle. “Get that job done today” and “Be there for my friends when they need me” or “Do not rule myself with a whip” are the sorts of conflict that require a more individualised interpretation than, at first this exercise might appear to demand.
Steiner is a bit fiercer on this than I am. He says things like ‘make sure that you do all that you decide to.’ I prefer less strict imperatives, in a grounding process, and choose action-awareness rather than action-insistence.
To me this seems more in keeping with these times. His advice, over 110 years ago, appeared in a slightly less complex society.
Try these 4 questions:
– What tasks did you, today, decide upon that were not fulfilled?
– Were those tasks consciously set, or simply desired-outcomes?
– Were there conflicting decisions that caused any task not to reach actioning?
– What can I do now, or today, to bring more of my decisions to action?
Seek results, both in how much you notice and in how much gets done.
Steiner’s original text for these Grounding exercises
Links
Article: www.SoundingBowls.com/1/freedom
Longform on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/561041941
Shortform on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XvKl6MQsbY
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