Calvino’s First Memo: Lightness
This week I’m using Italo Calvino’s Six Memos For the Next Millennium as inspiration for my musings on Great Work.
His first memo is on Lightness, and I’m immediately taken to its opposite: weight, and in particular the weight of the world.
The curse of responsibility.
Perhaps it’s because I’m an eldest son, but I feel both cursed and blessed by a great sense of responsibility. Responsibility to do good, be good, be nice, be sensible, do what matters.
Undoubtedly it’s been behind some of my success and you can see it echoing in my person mission: “To infect a billion people with the possibility virus.”
But the weight of responsibility can just as easily slow you down, shrink you and make you small.
Over dinner with David Allen a year ago, we were talking about plans and ambitions. And remember, this is a man who’s created a mutli-million dollar business, who is revered by many as a guru and has a devoted following of supporters (all of who are hanging out in sweet anticipation of his next book, Making it All Work).
His point about my various ambitions and plans?
Great. And relax about it all.
That’s not to say don’t do your best, don’t do Great Work.
But it is to say: treat it with lightness, with a sense of grace, with a sense of fun.
It not only helps you keep things in perspective (not many of us do anything that’s truly life and death), but it makes it all just that much more fun to do.
Tags: David Allen, Italo Calvino, Lightness
