Facilitate

When I joined the Visionary Fiction Alliance, I was given the opportunity to write an article for their blog. I’ve been working on a two-part post, which is called The R/Evolution of the Wheel of Fortune. After the first (or both) parts publish on their blog (in June), I will publish the full article here on A Fool’s Inclination.

The post is mostly completed, but now and again, I reread it and adjust the wording. This morning, I modified a sentence, which is buried in the middle of Part II. The result is this:

“Feeling good facilitates the attaining of all other desires.”

The word I added was facilitates. To make sure that was the word I really wanted, I looked it up:

Facilitate — to make easier; to help bring about.

This next part caught my eye too:

As with so many English words, it’s easy to find a Latin origin for facilitate. It traces back to the Latin adjective facilis, meaning “easy.” Other descendants of facilis in English include facile (“easy to do”), facility (“the quality of being easily performed”), faculty (“ability”), and difficult (from dis- plus facilis, which equals “not easy”). Facilis in turn comes from facere, a Latin verb meaning “to make or do.”

Before today, when I thought of the word facilitate, I thought more in terms of support. In my mind, a facilitator supports my endeavoring. Following my inclinations, I decided to look up that word:

Endeavor — to strive; to try hard to do or achieve something by exerting effort.

Isn’t that interesting! Endeavor means to work hard. Facilitate means to make easier. I think the Universe knows that my alignment is more toward effort than ease. I’m still trying too much. Remember, Anxiety is being in a trying place.

For the record, support has a number of meanings. The first on Merriam-Webster says this:

Support — to endure bravely or quietly; to bear.

Wow. I’m surprised that is the first definition. I’m not sure I’ve ever used it that way. Furthermore, that doesn’t sound anything close to making things easier. In fact, it sounds more like putting up with or tolerating things that are NOT easy!

Another definition of support is the following:

Support — to pay the costs of; to provide a basis for the existence or subsistence of.

When you work for a company, they support you (they pay for your work). That doesn’t make the work easier, though it is a reason (or THE reason) most people work.

Facilitate, I must say, is my new favorite word. I love how it combines doing/making with easy. To me, it inspires the thought:

It’s supposed to be easy.

I am no longer going to ask for support. That’s not what I really want. I much prefer to facilitate my journeying, my creating.

I’m also no longer going to say, “my work is to support you in your efforts.” Instead, I now choose to say, “my desire is to facilitate your creating.”

Alignment is synonymous with feeling good. If you have one; you have the other. On the one hand, feeling good is an end. It is a desired destination, generally speaking. On the other hand, it is a means. Feeling good makes the journey to any specific desire easier, more pleasant, and funner.