Sometimes we exaggerate. Sometimes we exaggerate because things feel bigger than they really are in reality. Sometimes we exaggerate for dramatic effect. Sometimes we exaggerate just because we aren’t remembering something correctly.

When we don’t intend for our exaggerated statements to be taken literally, we call it hyperbole. That’s what I’m going to call a statement I made on Sunday. Hyperbole. If I’m honest, though, I misremembered a piece of data.

A one-degree change in direction when sailing from London to Boston will not land you in South America. Please don’t propagate that bit of… hyperbole. One degree off course will still not get you where you wanted to go, but it’s not a catastrophic error.

Everything is relative, though. If you’re aiming for the moon and you’re one degree off course… well I want to say you won’t even hit the moon, but don’t quote me on that. 

Some people hear hyperbole as manipulative, and I tend to shy away from trying to manipulate people. My aim is to create space for people to engage in the best journey they can as authentically as possible, without my judgments or expectations getting in the way. Sometimes I miss that mark, and sometimes I’m more than a little bit off target. 

Here’s the amazing thing, though. If I know where I want to aim, it doesn’t matter if I’m one degree off course or heading 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Once I wake up to the fact that I’m not heading where I want to be going—that I’m not showing up the way I want to show up—I can change course and get back on track.

It takes a bit of conscious awareness to realize that what I’m doing is off course, but I sharpen my aim every time I choose to show up intentionally. And this change of course can happen in a breath. 

Maybe it’s a matter of faith to believe that this is true for everyone. A lot of people don’t seem to know how to change course toward greater wholeness. Or maybe they just don’t want to. Maybe they’re aiming for something different than what I want for them. 

I can’t steer anyone else’s journey. But I still have hope that wholeness is possible for others. I hope that I can influence the world around me in that direction, even though I accept that I can only control my own behaviors, words, and decisions. It can be a tricky thing to navigate, that difference between controlling and influencing.

To me, that’s part of honoring the interdependent web of existence, of which we are all a part. Everything we do vibrates that web. If we’re not showing up in a way that has integrity with our values, it matters. If we do show up with integrity to our deepest values, we influence things toward greater wholeness. I don’t control it, but I trust that everything affects everything else. And that is not hyperbole.

How are you aiming to show up? What does a bull’s eye look like when it comes to living with integrity to your deepest values? How many breaths does it take to refocus when your aim is a little bit off?

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