HALEY NAHMAN:
I lived in San Francisco for about five years after graduating from college.
FALU:
Writer and editor Haley Nahman.
HALEY NAHMAN:
Eventually those years led me to completely change my life, and that’s when I moved to New York in 2016, and changed my career, left my relationship, broke my lease, kind of the classic blow-up-your-life transition.
FALU:
Welcome to AWAKEN, a podcast from the Rubin Museum of Art about the dynamic path to enlightenment and what it means to “wake up.” I am singer and songwriter Falu. At the Rubin, a museum dedicated to art from the Himalayas, we believe art can nurture awakening. This season, we delve into the notion of life after—those big transitional moments throughout our lives that propel us into the unknown. We’ve gathered artists, writers, scientists, poets, Buddhist teachers, and others to explore key events and characteristics of a human life—from birth to death and everything in between—as well as grapple with the ultimate mystery: the afterlife.
Their stories offer insights on how to approach change with openness, even amid possible grief or joy, fear or excitement. And with art from the Rubin Museum as the connecting thread, we can make even better sense of those changes. Because art has the ability to wake us up to what is possible.
In this episode: aspiration. Aspiration involves desire and ambition, the pursuit of a new job or to be a better friend. Yet when we aspire for something, we have to let go of certain things. It’s the old adage, one door closes and another opens. And sometimes, when a new door opens, it gives us the perspective and strength to close old doors that no longer serve us. That’s what Haley Nahman grappled with, when she made a big decision to go after something she really wanted.
HALEY NAHMAN:
I was listening to a podcast by a writer who ran a website I loved, and she was talking about losing important people on her team.
And I remember thinking, “What if”—it was just a moonshot idea, but I felt like maybe I could sneak in there somehow. I had had—I had spent a couple years trying to make my way into a creative field, feeling like I didn’t really have the chops to be a proper, capital-C Creative. Anyway, I took a chance; you know, I emailed them, sent them some of my writing. I thought that they might just bring me on in a non-writing role. I was kind of sending them writing just to prove that I was a person with thoughts.
And that was sort of the email that set everything off, and—panic ensued.
KIESE LAYMON:
You’ve got to have some audacity to aspire, and then whatever that thing is that you kinda aspire to, you gotta have a lot of audacity to kinda like, get there.
FALU:
Kiese Laymon is a professor, speaker, and author of Heavy, a brave and raw memoir that speaks to his complex upbringing.
KIESE LAYMON:
Before people cared about my books, I wasn’t—I never thought like I’m a good writer, but I had to read so much, I was just like—I just was like, “I know my shit is as good as the people they say are good at this shit.” And, so like, I wanted to be one of the best writers in Mississippi. Like that was my end. That’s what I wanted to do. But to even dream that way is like—you gotta have sort of like audacity. Like that’s a very audacious thing. I’ve never said this before. That’s a very audacious thing to do.
FALU:
So back to Haley, she sent in her writing and she waited.
HALEY NAHMAN:
I was in a coffee shop. My boyfriend at the time and I would go sometimes to this coffee shop on Saturdays. I was just kind of working on my blog. I really enjoyed the writing aspect of it. And I thought one day it could help me get a creative job. So I was like—when I didn’t get a reply, I was just like, “This is off the table.”
But then it came. And I remember reading it, sitting at this table—“We’re offering you—we’d like to have you come in and be a junior editor on contract, see if it works out.” I think she used the word “freelance”—words I just honestly didn’t understand what they meant in the context she was offering them to me. And I just remember like my heart stopping. Just—I was in a quiet coffee shop so I didn’t even say anything to my boyfriend. I just said, “Hey, do you want to go in a few minutes?” And he was like, “Okay.” And I just sat on this news for a few minutes, just like absolutely reeling. I knew—I knew. I’ve never been more sure that I was going to take an opportunity. I don’t even know if that’s going to go to full time. I don’t have a place to live. Like, any of—there’s no chance I’m saying no to this.
FALU:
There are these moments, when we’re pursuing something creative or reaching beyond what we think is possible for ourselves, and it happens, and it’s terrifying, because we know everything has changed, definitively. And we can almost feel it in our bones. That pivotal moment has come.
HALEY NAHMAN:
It was probably like the most intense moment, at least in a concentrated sense, of reckoning with what was to come. And when we walked out of the coffee shop, I told him, and then I just started crying—bawling—that I was going to screw up this like one tiny opportunity that I thought could change everything.
FALU:
Again, Kiese Laymon.
KIESE LAYMON:
I spent a whole summer writing and writing. And then I never had—had never done a reading in my life, at that time. And I did my first reading ever. And it was wild, fam. Like, I’m not—I’m not gassing myself, but people were just like blown the fuck away. And it was fiction. And so I had never—I mean, that was the first time I had ever written fiction. And I knew when I was reading, like the sound of my voice in that mic, like made me sure of myself in a way I hadn’t been sure of myself in probably any space, ever.
And I just remember in the middle of it, which is weird, for me, just feelin like—like, “I’m doin what the fuck I’m supposed to be doin for the rest of my life.” Like—and it was just an incredible feeling. I never even talked about that feeling before, but, I knew then. I was like, “Yo, I gotta try to get this feelin again.” And, I feel like I’ve made my life—I made a life where I could just be feelin’ that all the time, actually. But I never sourced it to that point. But I think that’s true, though.
HALEY NAHMAN:
I had spent so much time battling with myself, going back and forth between feeling really energized by ambition, and then feeling like it was making me really ungrateful and out of touch with like the little pleasures.
FALU:
There’s a push and pull with aspiration, because on the one hand, you want to be present and grateful with what you have, and on the other hand, you feel like you might be capable of more. That can also bring feelings of guilt, knowing it is a privilege to even reach for something beyond your current circumstances. And when it finally happens, it can bring mixed emotions.
HALEY NAHMAN:
I think finally being presented with an opportunity that did feel really exciting, and felt like almost—it validated all this struggle I had been through over these years—was really intensely satisfying. And I think it also brought with it really, really high stakes, because I was getting really used to medium stakes, really comfortable in medium stakes. Resenting it as well. And I think having a high-stakes opportunity was like beautiful, and terrifying, because it meant for the first time, there was really something at risk that I wanted.
FALU:
Aspiration. It’s complicated. Because no matter how much we aspire, and how close we get to our aspirations, we are still experiencing the ebbs and flows of life. And it’s important to not get caught up in the idea that once you get what you think you want, then everything will be just right. You will still be the same person as before. After finally getting that thing you aspired for, you might start to think, now what? What’s next? These feelings are connected to the notion of attachment—one of the five afflictive emotions, or kleshas, in Buddhism. Sebene Selassie is a meditation teacher and writer. And she often explores ideas around wanting and presence.
SEBENE SELASSIE:
I’m trying to—as I breathe in, as I aspire—yeah, I don’t use the word “aspiration” very much. I’m really trying to connect to it. I kind of like the word “aspiration,” maybe because it is connected to the root of breath. And I’m trying to sort of think, what word would I use that is more attuned to more like a grasping, right? And this tendency towards grasping for achievement and for success. What’s coming up for me is like this—attachment, that we have, to certain ideas of how we need to be, or what we need to do, or what we need to get, or have, like you said—versus, an aspiration towards connection.
HALEY NAHMAN:
I was really torn between this idea that—that we’re fed, through the media, to like follow your passion, and to like—you’re entitled to like the best life, your ultimate purpose, your ultimate passion. You know, “If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.” This romantic narrative around being where you’re supposed to be.
SEBENE SELASSIE:
So maybe that’s the distinction I would make—the distinction between attachment and connection. And there’s something much more free in this aspiration towards connection. Because when I aspire towards connection, it’s with myself, it’s with others, it’s with all beings, with nature. It really points to that truth of interconnection. Whereas attachment feels like hooking myself towards—or into—things or people or ideas that I think will bring me to that place of only pleasure, or that place of only good things, that’s not possible in our world, or not possible in being human.
KIESE LAYMON:
I think of how most of my life I just wanted to be a good friend, and then, the other parts of my life that kind of took off, like, how do professional aspirations and like what people call personal aspirations collide?”
Like can you be a good friend to people, and also be quote unquote successful? So, yeah, I think about—yeah, like what it is I want to be.
FALU:
What we are seeking is also seeking us, whether it comes in the form we anticipate or not. If Haley had not sent the email containing her writing samples, maybe she would have missed this chance.
When Haley wrote back to the magazine to accept the position, it took them a moment to get back to her. Living in this uncertainty can cause our minds to spiral in an attempt to gain control, grasping for answers. Did I lose this thing I thought I had attained? Then when it becomes real, it can be almost as terrifying as the uncertainty was, because now you have to take action. Eventually, Haley did hear back, she moved to New York, and the job became more permanent.
HALEY NAHMAN:
I moved in with roommates I had never met, one of whom I am now having a child with. And, you know, I was in my job. I broke up with my boyfriend a couple months later. That’s when I really started settling into this new life and realizing, like, “Okay, it’s happening. It’s all real.”
I was like, “Oh”—and I think I went through a year or two of being like, “Everyone should blow up their life and follow their dreams.”
Like, “This is the solution to everything.” Which isn’t to say that I was like perfectly happy and every day was bliss. In fact, that first year was really stressful. I really struggled to write professionally at the pace that they wanted me to. I was staying up until 2:00 AM every night to finish things that people were writing much faster than me. I was getting barely any sleep. And I was just generally terrified. But I had a feeling of like inner congruence, that like what I was doing was challenging and interesting to me, and that I could imagine doing it forever.
FALU:
That inner congruence in the context of work was what Haley was seeking at that time in her life. But our wants and desires, our aspirations, are in constant evolution based on what information we have, how much we allow ourselves to want, where we are in our life. Again, Kiese.
KIESE LAYMON:
I think so much of what we do is trying to decide what we actually want, on terms that are ethical, and meaningful to us, versus what people say we should want, which is also the question of who you should be, who you want to be. And like for most of my life, I think I just wanted to be like a real good—I mean because I played a lot of sports and was like I would say a teammate. But like I really just wanted to be like a really good friend. You know? Like beyond like being a good artist, or having a good job, or making a lot of money; I just wanted—because that was the thing that made me the happiest, like, was friendship. So, I just want—I just want—my aspiration right now is to like—I just—I just want like some really good friendship.
YONGEY MINGYUR RINPOCHE:
Yeah, of course. It could be.
FALU:
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is a highly respected Tibetan Buddhist meditation teacher.
YONGEY MINGYUR RINPOCHE:
Aspiration can be so many different varieties—your intention, your inspire, and your desire—you want to do something, then you always to seeking for that with your mind, with your feeling. Even you have your own articulation, so become aspiration.
LISA MILLER:
What you and I are talking about is not mail-order—it’s not treating life anymore—no longer shall we treat life as an Amazon shopping expedition.
FALU:
Dr. Lisa Miller is a psychologist, scientist, and author of The Awakened Brain.
LISA MILLER:
Can we have a different conversation with life? Something other than, “What do I want, and how am I going to get it?” How about, “Wow. Wow! What is life showing me now? What is life asking of me now? What are you revealing to me now?” And perhaps I, to you.
HALEY NAHMAN:
I actually think that there’s so many paths to that feeling that aren’t getting a dream job, which just like a lot of people can’t get. And this sort of counter sentiment, that I felt was worth considering, which was that like, actually, only some people get to do that, it’s not all it’s hyped up to be, and there’s something really beautiful about the kind of common experience of, you know, loving your life even if it’s small. Of appreciating your job because it’s steady, and it like pays for your groceries that you then like cook with your family.
LISA MILLER:
I can’t think of the last dinner party I’ve been to, where, within the first five minutes—“Where do you live? What do you do? What does your partner do?” I can hear them—“ch-ching-ch-ching-ch-ching.” I’m sort of being measured. And it’s a transactional way of connecting. It’s—empty, to say the least. But we could go to the same dinner party, and say, “It’s so nice to meet you. I’d love to get to know you. Can you tell me about one of the most beautiful days in your life?”
FALU:
What questions might you ask to inspire a deeper kind of connection or communication? What do you really want to know? If our aspirations aren’t focused on professional success, what other types of conversations can be had?
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is also the author of several books, including The Joy of Living and Turning Confusion Into Clarity. He teaches all over the world.
YONGEY MINGYUR RINPOCHE:
Aspiration normally connected with our—the positive aspiration is connected with our intention, and that not just keeping in our mind; it’s bring into forms or word, whether you say it loud, or whether you say it in your mind, or you articulate that one. And then there’s wishing. Your emotion, your positive emotion, whatever, you involve with that. Or sometimes even pray with the aspiration practice. Like normally what we call four immeasurable aspirations—may all beings have happiness, and causes of happiness. May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all beings be joyful. So it’s a—kind of like number three is what we call joy.
So, those who free from suffering, to have happiness, continued, maintain that. So you appreciate. So number three is more appreciation, rejoice, and gratitude. And number four is equally you wish to everybody whether you are close to you, or whether you’re someone difficult to you.
FALU:
This is called a metta practice, or a loving kindness practice, and it involves moving your focus beyond yourself and sending love and kindness to others. And by seeing it as a practice, you can be reminded that it’s not something that just happens, it’s something you have to, well, practice.
LISA MILLER:
When we practice and choose to practice, and strengthen our awakened attention, we strengthen the cortex across the regions of the awakened brain. And it is our choice in every moment to take a breath, to meditate, to say a prayer, and choose into that moment.
Are we going to awaken, where we are loved and held and guided and never alone? Where we turn to one another to be loving, holding, and guiding, and never alone? Or do we revert back to a rather unsatisfactory mode of ruminative, regurgitated, achieving awareness. This is a choice. And still, the more we practice, the easier the so-called choice becomes.
FALU:
It’s a very special thing to actually remember that we aspire and we get the thing and then we come back to a certain baseline, because that is life, nothing is forever, things ebb and flow, you have success and failures. And particularly with aspiration, there’s often this imaginary standard we are comparing ourselves to, so remembering that life is full of ups and downs can help you not get so caught up in your own accomplishment and instead take it day by day, moment by moment, and celebrate the good moments that you and others have, and have compassion for yourself and for others when things are harder.
HALEY NAHMAN:
One of the benefits, I think, of just getting older and having more time and experience, is that you do start to see these patterns. Like people are up, and then they’re down. So if you’re constantly analyzing yourself against people’s ups, you’re forgetting that like that’s going to invert one day. They’ll do down, and you’ll be up. And that’s not because one is better than the other, one person is better. It just means that we’re all going on that cycle. And so much of life is cyclical. Like nature. The fact that our kitchen gets dirty and then we clean it again and then it gets dirty again. Everything is like this. And I found it’s actually really beautiful when you just accept this, instead of thinking that like finding yourself back in sadness, or back in failure, or back in a messy kitchen is always a sign of regression, when actually I think it’s just a sign that you’re continuing to live.
FALU:
In each episode, we invited one of our guests to reflect on an artwork from the Rubin’s collection. For Aspiration, Haley looked at a painting of Avalokiteshvara in His Potala Pure Land. He sits at the center of the painting, presiding over his celestial dwelling. As the bodhisattva of compassion and the patron deity of Tibet, Avalokiteshvara represents the highest aspiration—to help all sentient beings attain enlightenment and bring his kindness to the world. Avalokiteshvara chose to remain in the cycle of rebirth through countless lifetimes to work for the benefit of others. Is there something we can learn from this work when considering our own aspirations? Art like this can help us wake up to what’s possible. What seemingly difficult thing might we aspire to reach for, maybe even against all odds?
HALEY NAHMAN:
I don’t know if this concerns the aesthetics of the piece specifically, but one concept that I really love in Buddhism that I think is relevant to aspiration and ambition is this idea of attachment, and resisting attachment. It’s something I really grappled with. What’s so wrong with wanting things? Sort of the question I had back when I lived in San Francisco. And I think the answer was like, of course you can want things. But especially in kind of like your own individual life, attachment can be dangerous.
Staking your happiness, staking your contentment, staking your kind of participation in the world on a specific thing is dangerous. Staking your life on like a good outcome or a success, you can want those things, but it’s the attachment that’s actually dangerous. I found that really helpful in my own relationship with ambition and really challenging myself to ask why I want things, and what’s motivating me to want them. Usually, attachment or lack of attachment is like a really good sort of litmus test for whether it’s actually aligned with like a deeper desire, versus like, you know, validation, or cultural values that I actually don’t believe in, around like what it means to be successful or beautiful or whatever.
And so I think a lot about that Buddhist concept of acceptance over attachment, and understanding what it means to want, within that. So that’s what I get when I look at the painting.
FALU:
Take a moment and think about where you are now, in your life. Are you spending your days the way you would like to? Maybe the way you aspired to? If not, why not? Do you feel at odds with how you spend your time or do you have a sense of acceptance even if everything isn’t aligned?
Dr. Lisa Miller has spent a lot of time thinking about the importance of acceptance. She believes that what we aspire for may not always be what we actually need, that maybe not getting what you wish for, and allowing a dream or wish to die, gives birth to something all the more nourishing. And she says that we’re not alone when we aspire, there are people and circumstances helping us along the way.
Now, if you’re driving or walking, don’t do this exercise but if not…
LISA MILLER:
Close your eyes, and take five breaths. I invite you to locate a time where you wanted something so badly. It could have been that job, that promotion; him, her, them to say yes; that red door you wanted so much, that you researched, or you strategized—A plus B plus C—and you had it 99% in the bag. You reach for your red door, and it’s stuck. And you can’t believe it’s stuck, because you have done everything right—A plus B plus C.
It angers you. You might kick the door. In time, maybe feel depressed. But because the door is stuck, you have no choice; you turn 30, 50, 120 degrees. You do a hairpin turn. And there, there is a wide open yellow door. You might have said yellow doors don’t exist, or you’d never heard of yellow doors. But that yellow door, wide open, this shining yellow door—you cross over, and there is someone who makes you feel so alive. There’s a job that opens up a part of yourself you didn’t know you had. There’s a best friend, a mentor, that you meet at that school that changed your life. That yellow door was not what you had wanted. It—was—better—than what you had wanted.
And as you sit back now and you think about the red door stuck, the hairpin turn, and the wide open yellow door that has everything to do with who you are, and where you are today, was there anyone at that hairpin turn? It could have been a mentor, a teacher, a therapist, a guide. It could have been someone you met for two minutes at the coffee shop, at a party. It could have been a grandparent, a best friend, who for the first time told you a story they had never told you before.
They were pointing the way to the wide open yellow door. And as you sit way back now, and you look at that stuck red door, the hairpin turn and the wide open yellow door that has everything to do with who you are and where you are today, how really are life’s greatest parts found? Is it narrowly that we are makers of our path, rigidly, only strategy tactics? Or are some of the most important parts of who we are, and of our lives, not derived as makers of our path, but as discoverers of our journey?
FALU:
At the end of the day, it’s really about openness, acceptance, and discovery because aspiration is layered. As Dr. Lisa Miller says, sometimes you can get so focused on your aspiration that you miss all the other wonderful things that may be awaiting you. You might think, everything will be all better if I can just achieve this or get that. And sometimes when you get the thing you were aspiring for, you realize it’s not what you hoped it would be. Other times, you don’t actually know what you’re aspiring for. But when you stumble upon the right thing, your destiny on this earth, as Kiese did, it can change everything for you. For Haley, when everything changed, when her life was upended, she came to discover that aspiration is a privilege and not pursuing your dreams is just as valuable and powerful and potent as doing so. And even when you have accomplished your dreams, the ups and downs, the ebbs and flows, the “this is totally working and this is not” happen again and again and again and that’s ok! That’s life, it’s a reminder that we are LIVING.
You just heard the voices of Kiese Laymon, Dr. Lisa Miller, Haley Nahman, Yongey Mingyor Rinpoche, Sebene Selassie, and me, Falu. To see the artwork discussed in this episode, go to rubinmuseum.org/awakenpod.
You can continue the conversation by following us on Instagram @rubinmuseum. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts, and tell your friends.
AWAKEN Season 3 is an eight-part series from the Rubin Museum. Come visit us in New York City, or explore rubinmuseum.org to learn more about the Museum and about art, cultures, and ideas from the Himalayan region.
AWAKEN is produced by the Rubin Museum of Art with Jamie Lawyer, Sarah Zabrodski, Christina Watson, Gracie Marotta, and Tenzin Gelek in collaboration with SOUND MADE PUBLIC including Tania Ketenjian, Sarah Conlisk, Philip Wood, Alessandro Santoro, and Jeremiah Moore.
Original music has been produced by Hannis Brown with additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.
AWAKEN Season 3 and the exhibition Death Is Not the End are supported by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Ellen Bayard Weedon Foundation, Robert Lehman Foundation, and The Prospect Hill Foundation. The Rubin Museum’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Death Is Not the End is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Thank you for listening.