Next Time, is Next Time
A call to integrity, simplicity and freedom that encourages joyful collaboration
Have you noticed that we often write:
“We must catch up for coffee soon”
and our Christmas cards are full of ..
“Let’s not wait another year.”
Why do we make these promises, when we often know it’s unlikely to happen? If you haven’t seen them in 5 years, is it likely that you’re going to do it soon?
Someone once said to me.
We have more to say to the person we see every day, than the someone we haven’t seen for 12 months.
That often rings true, as it’s not easy to catch up on 12 months or longer, without phrases like - ‘Oh, not much has changed. Same job, house, car, relationship’. So unless we’ve had big shake up’s or a redundancy or divorce, we often have less to connect over.
Last week, a friend Jess Shaw recommended a film ‘Perfect Days’ Directed by Wim Wenders. It follows Hirayama, a janitor who cleans the toilets in the outskirts of Tokyo. Sounds mundane right? Well, I must be honest that 30 minutes in, I wasn’t sure I could carry on. But, stuck with it, and was well rewarded. It’s subtle. It’s slow. And profoundly simple. The opposite of most movies and content these days. You see the world through his eyes, and see how much care he gives to everything. Washing, listening to cassettes, cleaning, meeting friends for dinner. He’s present.
Cleaning the toilets becomes a meditation on the poetry of routine, the dignity of labour and work and the art of noticing. The small things. The things around us every day.
At one point his niece asks, ‘When can I see you again’, to which he replies. ‘Next time. Next time, is next time.’
How perfect. No promise to be broken. No lies. No expectations.
Simple.
It allows the passions and synchronicities of life to guide us. It allows life to unfold, without being full of plans, goals, to-do lists.
He follows up with ‘Now is now’.
I.e. If we’re catching up, we’re doing it here and now. Together and present. We don’t need to wait for or worry about the next time, as we’re already here, making the most of it now.
You may already be familiar with the teachings of Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements of which ‘Be impeccable with your word’ is one of them.
“Be impeccable with your word”
“Do not take anything personally”
“Do not make assumptions”
“Always do your best”
Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love. These words are more than just words. They keep the lines clean, and our boundaries (for those more familiar with the phrasing) tight and obvious to both ourselves and the other. They remove needless suffering and don’t rob us of joy.
For us, this is all perfect (see what we did there) with our current re-construction and autumnal clearing. We’ve been knee-deep in de-cluttering our digital lives. Old folders, old contacts (dating back 20 years), photos, instagram pages, and we’re currently on re-creating the new website. This itself involves redirecting or not-directing 178 pages of old blogs and content from 10 years into just 7 or 8 pages.
We’re decided to focus in on what feels right, for now. Part of that journey has meant removing our membership structure and simplifying the overall Soulhub offering.
This was a community and team that has been at the heart of Soulhub for 10 years. They’re our dear friends. They’ve been the beating and creating flow for most of what we’ve done. And yet for the last few years the very nature of holding a community, and naming it, sometimes has the opposite affect. Instead, we want freedom of flow. We want it to feel open and welcoming. We don’t want others to feel obligated or obliged. We don’t want to feel that way either.
And so, we informed the practitioners last week that the membership will end. And yet….if we create new programmes, or we come together in service of a business or organisation then we will call on our dear friends and colleagues and invite them from this new and focused stand point.
This feels freer, fairer, light, synchronistic, and trusting. More, next time is next time. This is the energy we want to live in. And the energy we want to be in. Fresh creative and life energy.
So, next time you’re on whatsapp, text, email, maybe consider your sign off.
If it’s intentional and a yes, then say it, and if not, don’t. Maybe less of the ‘We must catch up soon for coffee’, and perhaps you’ll join us in trying to adopt and live by our new mantra…
We will be…
Till next time.
Carmen & Andrew