A good friend of mine, soon to be done with his Ph.D. recently asked me how many resumes have I sent before I started being called for interviews and receiving offers. That is a question that many job seekers ask. What’s the magical number? 100? 1000? When will the phone start ringing?
Here’s a bit more extreme example.
One other friend, in her desire to meet the love of her life, set a monthly quota for her Tinder dates. She was very diligent and organized about that and she went on quite a few dates, more than an average person without the monthly quota. (Note that this was A LOT of work and quite a stretch in a small rural town in Idaho.) Did she feel like going to all those dates? Fuck no! But she did it because it was supposed to increase her prospects of meeting The One.
In my life, a doer as I am, I hit the wall when it came to sleep. (Of course, I struggled mightily with a job search, but that is another story.) I did so many things, so many goddamn things to be able to sleep and still there was no Solution (capital S- Solution). I tried so hard to eradicate this problem from my life and quickly ran to all possible things I could do- supplements, frameworks, methods, more intensive workouts, limited screen time, mandatory walks during the daylight, journaling, I quit alcohol, I reduced coffee substantially, you name it, I tried it. There is a lengthy and elaborate list of things I tried and did. The only problem is that sleeping is the exact opposite of doing. You fall asleep not by doing but by relaxing and doing precisely nothing.
Our tendency to act and do and push serves us well in domains of work, academics, career, and having an active life. In other domains, such as love, relationships, job search, raising children, healing, and, for crying out loud, sleeping, the impulse to act and do and push is often a curse that leads us astray. We can push to make progress on a project, but we can push someone into falling in love with us, hiring us, or becoming our friend. We can’t push ourselves to become relaxed and to fall asleep. There is a completely different dynamic to it.
This dynamic defines the polarity between male and female energy, male and female principle.
The male principle is active, female is reactive (I don’t like to call it passive).
The male principle urges us to get up and go, female principle urges us to wait and observe.
The male principle strives to shape the universe through action and willpower, the female principle gets aside and allows the universe to work on her behalf.
One principle is not better than the other. We all need a balance between both. However, by virtue of living in a patriarchal, male-dominated world, we are all likely much more attuned to our male energy. That’s what we are praised for, that’s what earns us promotion, that’s what makes us stand out, that’s what’s glorified in books, movies, and magazines. It’s only when we stumble and when the male principle is not working, that we stop for a moment and scratch our head, and wonder if something is wrong. We have all sensed that dis-balance on a personal level (when searching for a job, love, or trying to heal) as well as on a collective level. Think about ruined ecosystems, climate change, social injustice, pandemic. All that was created through the exertion of human will and activities disregarding the consequences.
The male principle is linear. The beginning, middle, end. Cause and effect. It’s deeply ingrained into our thinking. We are conditioned to believe that if we do all the right steps, we’ll get the right outcome. If we do the same thing again, the result should be the same. If we do enough work, our efforts will precipitate and lead to the desired result. That’s where the idea of a critical mass of sent resumes or dates originates from. If your efforts don’t produce results, you should keep pushing and banging at the door.
The female principle is completely different. It’s non-linear. It’s fluid and cyclical. There is no beginning, middle, and end, there are only cycles. Every cycle has an upraise, apex, decline, and a period of rest. After that, the cycle starts again. It is sustainable and aligned with nature. The entire nature functions based on cycles.
Regarding time and time perception, the male principle teaches us to push and do things on our own terms- a catchphrase from modern personal development. The female principle, on the other hand, recognizes the importance of doing things at the right time. And this is a big, momentous difference.
Time plays a key role in this dynamic as well as the sensitivity and the knowledge of when the time is right.
We were trained to think about the time as of the amorphous mass of the same seconds, minutes, and hours passing by mercilessly. But time is not just “time”. It stretches and expands based on our presence and perception. Einstein famously said that the only reason for time is so that everything does not happen at once.
Every tradition had ways of defining when the time is right: time to plant, time to harvest, time to rest, time to grieve, time to heal, time to celebrate. Every magical ritual has a time component. If you want to make an elixir or talisman or anything of that nature, you have to do it on a third Full Moon after the equinox (I obviously made this up just for the sake of an example) and not just at any time because not all times are auspicious. You may think it is weird, but the traditions we broke from acknowledged that there is an invisible field of energy that fluctuates and influences our actions in various ways. So no, we should not just get going, we should do it in alignment with the field.
Many modern sources highlight this exact concept. In her book In The Flo, Alisa Vitty speaks about women synchronizing their activities to the phases of their cycle. It doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything at any time, however, that the most effective use of your energy is by doing what’s suitable for your cycle phase.
Penney Pierce, an intuitive writer and spiritual teacher shared the idea that your every question is answered by the universe exactly when you need the answer. Not sooner, not later, but at the exact perfect time. If there is no answer, it means that the time is not right. Any deviation from that principle would be a waste of energy.
So here we come to the global pandemic we are all still living through. We’ve all experienced fear, anger, frustration, helplessness, a full spectrum of negative emotions. We had big goals and dreams, business plans, roadmaps, strategies. But the time just wasn’t right. We had to delay, postpone, tweak, and, wait. Endlessly, patiently wait for things to get better.
Time was ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ before, but in our collective frenzy, we could have chosen to ignore that. But now, ignoring that the time is not right it’s no longer an option. It’s obvious to everyone. We are stuck in limbo. We are banging at the door, trying to be active, proactive, creative, to push and figure our way out but it’s impossible. The time is not right. Period.
So what is a good use of time nowadays? Rest. Reflection. Introspection. Embracing female energy and feminine principles. Rethinking your dreams and desires. What do you really want and what do you think you should want? Use this new position to change your perspective. Go inward. We are all stuck here anyway.
And some time soon, everything may change…
Before you go…
If you are on Medium you are probably obsessed with creativity, just like me. I made a FREE ebook “100 ways to be creative today”, with 100 creative prompts, most of which require 5 minutes or less, $0, and no special skills. Go HERE to learn more and grab it.
