The Noble Nobel

President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and no one seems to know what to say about it.

Non-supporters and skeptics are in a pickle, because they're uncomfortable. They can justly say that he hasn't really done that much yet to deserve it, but they are also painfully aware that it's bad form to say so. I mean, he's the democratically elected representative of the American people, and so the American people share credit for the award for electing him, and that means the non-supporter or skeptic in question shares credit for the award (even if they didn't vote for him, because they participate in the democratic experiment, and even if they didn't vote, because they enjoy life in a democratic society)... and it's just bad manners to grumble about a supremely prestigious award that you have a share in.

Devoted supporters, too, are in a pickle, because they're uncomfortable. They love the man and believe that his net effect on this planet will be richly deserving of this award, and that irrefutable evidence to that fact is forthcoming. But it's not here yet. And while they're thrilled, they're also a little puzzled. But saying so also feels like bad manners.

Both groups' discomfort is based on an underlying idea that deserving the Nobel Peace Prize has to do with earning it through the doing of things. There's a league of people working on every continent who have done things, peaceful things, peace-promoting things, that would justify such a prize. We'd all feel better if we had something tangible to point to, something sparkling of President Obama's, some line on his resume, that provides that real-world evidence of his deservedness. (Yeah, I know, it's not a real word.)

But doing is not the end-all be-all. The new age gurus, the spiritual masters, heck, even we therapists have been trying to get it through everyone's heads for a long time. You don't earn your worthiness through doing. You don't earn love or acceptance, by doing. You aren't a human doing. You're a human being. Being is enough. Being gets you the goods. Being is all you have to do to be worthy of love and acceptance.

Doing is handy. By doing, we create our lives, set things up the way we want them, exercise our intrinsic need to influence and change our surroundings. Doing is fun and fulfilling. Doing tests us and refines us and gives us opportunities to face natural consequences and learn. Doing lets us demonstrate our being, our integrity, our trustworthiness. Doing also lets us demonstrate our lack of integrity or untrustworthiness. (Yeah, I know, it's not a real word.)

So, we've all become pretty accustomed to looking at what someone does to tell us who they are. And in the case of a Nobel Peace Prize, we expect the doing to be grand, magnificent, selfless, wise, and sustained over a long period of time in order to clearly differentiate it from the grand, magnificent, selfless, wise stuff that happens every day, all around us, in short bursts.

That's the rule we made up, and the Nobel Prize committee just thumbed their noses at it. I'm OK with that. In my humble opinion, President Obama has already had a profoundly calming influence on the world's emotional climate, and that's good enough for me. But apart from that generally irrelevant opinion, I'm in favor of things that get us to question our assumptions, habits, or unconscious, unspoken deals.

Question the rules. Question the way you think it's supposed to be. Question your comfort zone. If after an honest, uncomfortable stretch into questioning you end up where you started, good for you. You'll be there legitimately. Plant your flag and celebrate your certainty. Until you've done that, though, don't be too self-righteous. You're more likely to be stuck in the matrix than really exercising freedom of thought.