According to the late Czech artist and leader Vaclav Havel, “Hope is a state of mind, not of the world … an ability to work for something because it is good.”
Just because it is good.
Taking action, working for something – whatever it might be – simply because it is good instantly liberates us from a perilous bargain, a losing bargain that declares, “I’ll only engage if I’ll get what I want, if I’m likely to see the outcomes I desire.” In a world as fraught with mystery as this one, that declaration affirms an imprisoned awareness pressed into an impossible time frame.
Most of us do it all the time: I’ll march against war if it will end war. I’ll sign a petition, if the politician will respond. I’ll work on this project or cause if it will bear fruit. I’ll practice meditation if it will make me “enlightened.” We make a zillion little deals like that every day, tight-hearted bargains with price tags and timelines attached.
And yet, we know that the story of our planet and the stars and galaxies spans time-frames the human mind can’t begin to comprehend. We know that mystery is at the heart of it.
In that light, we know the few dozen years that any of us might have left here flash by in a blink. Looking through that much wider lens, tight little deals about outcomes simply slip away. As for those visions and projects that might flood me with a sense of joy, of goodness – it is pure grace to remember that seeing outcomes is not the point.
This fragment of a dream that I call “I,” this wholly constructed sense of me, that’s who quibbles and bargains over outcomes. Widening my gaze, it’s clear that my plans and projections are simply not the point. Not the point of taking action, and not the point of being alive.
Much closer to the point is goodness. How I live each day, what flavor and intention I bring to each endeavor – pondering that brings me closer. How much love, intelligence, kindness, humility, creativity, courage, delight, dignity, humor, compassion, and straight-up joy do I manage to embody in the actions I take? Those questions come even closer to the point. Those are the questions worth living with, questions that help me come alive in awareness of love. In the final analysis, that’s the only point.
So holding that intention, doing something simply “because it is good” reminds us that life is in the living. It allows us to love life simply because it is beautiful. Simply because it is. Boundless and magical, living this way is heaven. Remembering this, each breath we take is liberation.
