What do I mean when I refer to something, some event, some way
of being, some way of doing as "business as usual"?
It's very, very simple. It's very precise and it's decisive,
which means you're either doing business as usual or you're not.
Furthermore, business as usual being what it is, it's
arguably more accurate to say you're either being business
as usual or you're not, rather than saying you're either
doing business as usual or you're not. Nonetheless,
saying you're doing business as usual is
good enough for
jazz.
If you're not
being your word
in the matter of living your life in the world, it's business as
usual.
If you're not bringing transformation to bear on what you're doing ie
on whatever it is you're doing when you're doing it,
it's business as usual.
If you're not inventing new possibilities for yourself, for your
life, and for
the entire planet
when you're doing what you're doing ie whatever it is
you're doing when you're doing it, it's business as usual.
If you're opining about the state of the world, saying over and over
"Things are going from bad to worse!", and even as you say it, you
know you're sounding tired and unoriginal, it's business as usual.
If you're certain the government should be doing a better job running
the country, and yet you're not doing very much to run your own life
better, it's business as usual.
If you aren't interested in taking the time to exercise and to watch
your diet, yet you long for sympathy when your your body is no longer
a match for your intention ie when aging has become a
predicament rather than a reward and an
acknowledgement, it's business as usual.
If you live your life as if there's happiness to be found out
there, if you're convinced there's something more
you should be doing or something else you
should be acquiring in order for you to be happy, it's
business as usual.
If you explain or justify your life not working in terms of something
from the past eg in terms of something your
parentsdid or didn't do when you were a child, in terms of
"bad karma" or even in terms of "bad luck", or in
more grandiose terms of a sanction by an aggressive judgemental_
god,
it's business as usual.
If your conversation is mostly peppered with your own
opinions, with your points of view, and with you
justifying and being right about the way you've always done things,
no matter how brilliant your exposé and reasoning is, it's
business as usual.
If life isn't OK the way it is, if you're sure "This isn't
it!", if you're sure
"something's wrong"
even though you can't articulate clearly what it is, it's business as
usual.
If underneath it all when you tell the truth about it, what you're
covering up is resignation, hopelessness, and despair, and you're
convinced this is the best it gets so you may as well get used to it,
it's business as usual.
If you justify suppressing yourself, not expressing who you really
are, stopping yourself from breaking through your self
imposed limitations because you're afraid of what other people
will think or because you believe it's not the right
thing to do in polite circles, it's business as usual.
If at the end of an existential inquiry into your life,
you come to the conclusion life is empty and meaningless, and
you find that to be significant and depressing, yet you
just don't see the
vast
enormous thrilling possibility for freedom in it, it's
business as usual.
If you've figured out since life doesn't mean anything, you can use
that as a justification for idling, doing nothing, and sloth, it's
business as usual.
If you regard yourself as your opinions, as your point of
view, in terms of what makes sense to you, in terms
of what you can argue for, if you see yourself as who or what you
identify with, it's business as usual.
If your interpersonal, political, and patriotic values are based on
the ethic "they lose / we win", it's business as usual.
If you've become an expert at criticizing, if your
position is making wrong, if your platform
is saying what's not right, what's not working, yet
even though you're right, you neither invent nor contribute
any new possibility for making a difference in having
things
work,
it's business as usual.
If you've set up your life and therefore you run your
life in order to fix yourself, in order to get better, in order to
survive better, in order to make it, it's
business as usual.
If you judge the quality of life on
Planet Earth
by what you watch on the evening news, if you're disempowered
by bad news and empowered by good news ie
especially if you regard the source of empowerment as
watching good news, it's business as usual.
If you're doing business as usual, it's business as usual.
Taking a stone cold, flat footed, non-judgemental look, here's
what I assert is absent from business as usual: being,
responsibility, creativity, invention, possibility, and distinction.
Here's what shows up in business as usual: resignation,
automaticity, survival, victim mentality, righteousness,
conflict, and a sense of entitlement.
However this conversation isn't asserting one is better
than the other. Neither is it asserting doing business as
usual is worse than not doing business as
usual. If you tell the truth about your life, you'll notice in the
realm of being for human beings, we do both from time to
time.
Rather, this conversation creates the distinction business as
usual which therefore implies its contra-distinction:
living in a way which is the
Zen
inverse, the
Zen
antithesis of living doing business as usual. The
contra-distinction of living doing business as
usual is simply living not doing business as
usual.
Living not doing business as usual is the possibility of
transformation, enrollment, communication, love, freedom, and power.