Living the Dream

In the year since his marriage, Team Mexico Landmark Education TMLP participant Javier Rosas and his spouse, Mickey, have experienced a real breakthrough in their relationship.

“We realized we were playing only within the space of our own partnership,” declares Javier. “Giving up the idea of being selective about whom we spent our time with has made us present to being openly related to all others.”

So Javier created the Game of Living inside the possibility of building a network for opportunities to be present in, and have a relationship with, the world in connection with love, family, and home.

“The result for us is doing new things and experiencing, through our family and close friends, a new relatedness. Supporting our family members and asking for help as well as listening for it. Expressing our feelings more. Speaking ‘I love you’, ‘Thank you’, ‘You are special to me.’ Saying the words.”

The intention of Living is that every action he and Mickey create in every moment that they are together focuses on conversations about how everyone can create their dream. And the outcome is that people around this game are creating their life around what is important to them and fulfilling those dreams.

Each month, everyone around the Game of Living completes one dream they have by creating actions to complete those dreams. These dreams are accomplished through conversations with everyone about what is important – no holding back from anyone. For instance, Javier and Mickey planned to host a New Year’s party for ten guests. Forty people showed up.

Mickey’s sister decided, after a long time, to live on her own, and she now has her own place. An older sister has begun studying to be a bilingual secretary. Another sister has not seen her daughter for three years. This month, that sister travels to Chile where her daughter lives.

Other activities have begun showing up that are even more powerful than the activity or event originally created, as Javier shares. “Mickey and I planned a Christmas dinner for five friends and, as a result, twenty holiday guests arrived. Everyone being in committed relationships, a conversation began about how each of us had met. That conversation, in turn, opened a new conversation around recommitment to our partners.”

Joining Team opened up for Javier the distinction of conversations with “everyone”, creating the possibility for the Game of Living in this quarter of relatedness, Javier’s completion quarter. His interpersonal relationship with Mickey has grown ever closer even as each has recognized their individual space. The couple has begun a conversation around creating their future, financially and in other ways, exploring what that futuremay look like in the coming years.

Currently, there are more than 300 playing the Game of Living in Mexico. Team, friends, family, and other Landmark graduates have been moved and inspired to participate with a continuing commitment to play the game. And Javier believes the Game of Living can bring a real sense of connection to the world.

“I see humanity being related as the purpose of being human. Living is effective when families are hungry to be together more and more frequently. They express their language of love by calling each other to express their caring. Immediately upon thinking about a loved one, the game is won each time a participant calls upon their ability to communicate in a meaningless way. In other words, communicating without attaching a meaning to their speaking. So creating a ‘meaningless’ future in communicating with family and friends can open up the possibility of, say, more people who stay in a marriage or committed partnership rather than giving up on the relationship.”

Javier, raised in Venezuela and having lived in Chicago, is present to the realm of living where family and home is where you are being and who is with you rather than a geographic location or physical surroundings. And living a dream isn’t necessarily some enormous long-term ultimate goal.

“Dreams may be something little that you want to accomplish, and yet they are dreams to fulfill. Small details can create a realm within which dreams can be fulfilled no matter the ‘size’.”

Javier believes he and Mickey are living inside their natural desire to be together while playing at and completing what they really love by including everyone in their conversations. In other words, they’re living their dream.