90 Days of ILP

Last night was something of a breakthrough for the Boulder Men's ILP Group (a.k.a. "Man Night!"). For the past 6 or so weeks we'd been using our time together to set small, piecemeal weekly goals and to hold each other accountable to them. This was combined with a theoretical discussion of some aspect of integral theory as it relates to "manhood". But last night, given the fact that for the first time ever less than 50% of us had met our goals for the previous week, we realized that something was arising that demanded a change of course, namely: the group was evolving.

Part of the reason for the goal-meeting failure, I believe, is that many us were setting goals just for the sake of setting a goal, rather than having it be part of a larger growth process tied to our purpose as dudes on this planet. Dude #1, for instance, had failed to show up for the grocery store job he'd tasked himself with showing up to the previous week. While the "old" Man Night would have certainly deemed this a failure, with all the push-ups and shame-hazing that would imply, the "new" Man Night decided to address the deeper issue at work, namely: what Dude #1 really wants to do is be a teacher. In this light, the grocery store job may have even been a distraction, and his failure to attend may have actually indicated a subconscious refusal to pursue such an inauthentic life path.

Similarly, Dude #2 was having a hard time keeping up with his dishes and was smoking dope too many nights a week. While we would have previously been tempted to simply punish him for these infractions in his goal-making (yes, some Man Night goals are as simple as "wash the dishes"), we decided last night to again address the deeper issue. In this case, Dude #2, who sees himself ultimately as someone with leadership potential, was displaying a general lack of awareness, with his failed dish duties and hedonistic excesses being mere symptoms of a more serious disease.

Once we realized what was going on -- that the group as a whole was pushing into the need for working on more important, long-term goals -- the weekly goals decreased in importance. Instead we took a half hour to go around and state what we each thought our larger purpose and mission in the world actually was. Dude #3, for instance, saw himself as a writer and political theorist, and was giving himself the mission of distributing "food" (whatever that may mean) to everyone in the world. Dude #4, by contrast, saw himself as a storyteller, and was motivated to tell stories in order to provide hope and inspiration. Dude #5, a graphic designer who writes an ILP blog, had the sole purpose of becoming an "enlightened multimedia powerhouse", and is hell-bent on unleashing this potential in the near future.

This all had the effect of orienting everything -- our weekly goals, our ILP modules, our camaraderie and high-fives -- around a more impersonal telos point, and made the whole thing seem a lot more important than just the Thursday Night Ken Wilber Clown Crew. And while we did set goals again this week, they were strictly voluntary, and to hold each other accountable we decided that the punishment should be tailored to the individual, i.e. Dude #1 would have to show up to something on time, or Dude #2 would have to do the dishes of every member of the group for a week.

It was a breathe of fresh air to say the least.

Note to Denver/Boulder readers: the ILP group is closed to membership for the time being, but we are considering re-opening in a month or two....]