• Love and Relationships,  Personal Growth

    What Matter, Kindness?

    January 30, 2016

    Kindness, Why is that a Difficult Concept?

    Many years ago in my speaking days I gave an inservice to some convicted felons who were working towards recovery.  Anyone who has even been around a criminal knows that jail brings you intimately close to cruelty and violence.  The other hall mark of the convicted felons is their story.  The story is that it is not their own fault and that another has caused them to behave in a certain way.  This is probably part of the pattern of criminal behavior ~ a feeling that you are not in control of your self and that others can control your behavior.

    In any case, we discussed the concepts surrounding domestic violence and one of the concepts is this idea that another person deserves bad treatment because you are upset.  Some people actually believe that their own anger or pain entitles them to hurt other people.  As you can imagine several people in the audience were very uncomfortable with the discussion of these concepts.  That was a long time ago, and indeed, feels far, far away.

    Now it seems that society is much more in tune with the concept of owning their own feelings rather than believing that another person has caused them.  No one ever has the right to purge their anger on someone else, and yet over and over again, they do.

    Whatever another person does, it is no more than your perception of their behavior.  You are incorrect if you believe that it is about you.  Your behavior is always about yourself, your feelings are always about yourself.

    So what matter, but to be kind?  Why “purge” on another human being?  Why not step back, and breathe, even when you think you are being hurt by another, why not step back and breathe?  The truth of the matter, is the who you are is you.  It is always up to you to be kind or not, it is never up to another whether you are kind.  Take control of who you are, your behavior, and be a good person.

    No matter what has happened to you, no matter what hurtful childhood you have had, you are a bad person if you treat others badly.  If others have brought you pain, it does not give you a free ticket for cruelty.  You are still a bad person, if you are mean and hurt others.

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  • Management,  Psychology of Life

    The Business Meeting and the Ego

    January 22, 2016

    My world and you need to change to fit it…

    Why do some folks believe that the world should change to suit them?  They mire themselves in secret authority to try to convince the world that they alone know what is right and correct in all processes?

    When confronted, you may ask them “you would like for ‘them’ to change the process so that your job is easier, but why should they?”  The culprit will flail around with righteousness, “doesn’t everyone see how correct I am?  Doesn’t everyone see that I should not need to work this hard?”

    Conversations can be so difficult because of the conceptual depths of the conversation.  Sometimes there are so many sub-texts it makes my head spin.  Each person in the room seems desperate to hang onto their own identity and authority.  Each person wants to present themselves as powerful and all-knowing.  Very few in the room are content to listen and observe, those that are will often pose disdainfully, as if the meeting is a huge inconvenience to their own schedule.

    Then there is the struggle: the sub-text of US vs. THEM!  Each and every meeting I have been in, over the entire span of my career had this sub-text woven into all of the conversations.  If it was a management meeting, the THEM = staff members and workers, if it was an administrative meeting, the THEM = the program staff.  You can always count on a THEM.

    Often, the most pressing reason for this behavior (US vs. THEM) is to establish oneself as blameless; indeed a tremendous amount of energy is used to prove a victim status – if it is at all possible to do.  It’s appalling to see self-respecting managers work so hard to shift blame from themselves to others.  It is well deserved in the case of an authoritarian leader who enjoys blaming her managers.  If you work in such an environment, then pity is well deserved.  And in that case, blame shifting is a necessary means of survival.  However, for the most part, blame shifting is all about preserving my image of myself as an all-knowing and wise person who rarely makes a mistake.  This is the ego at work, and sometimes, I just want to say, “hey, can you bring your entire self to these meetings so that we don’t spend half of our time soothing your egos?”

    The point is, how do we ever get down to the task at hand?  I learned a long time ago, to wrap up a meeting with a summary and a specific list of chores.  Sometimes, even this type of reiteration is not enough to jar people into focusing on the real issues rather than their own personal reality.  Therein lies the frustration, getting to the tasks at hand.  I would rather look to the chores that must be done than to have to attend to the myriad of sub-texts that are in the room, sometimes undetected, often unaddressed and always unproductive.

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  • Economy of Effort

    Knowing and Thinking isn’t Learning

    January 14, 2016

    It’s not about the thinking and the knowing, it’s about the behavior that follows the thinking and the knowing.

    For many years I have thought that if I know something, it does me no good to redundantly read the same information over and over again.  For example, budgeting and saving money, they are both very simple concepts, with only a few constructs to them.  There is not a huge variation of ways and means to live by a budget and to save money.  I never saw any reason to keep learning the same thing over and over again.

    It turns out that I was incorrect in my thinking.  In the sense that I am seeking the instruction about budgeting and saving so that I can change my behavior, learning and knowing is not enough to change my behavior.  I have to do more.

    One of the ways that behavior change can be successful is if the desired behavior is reinforced over and over again.  This is where the redundant learning becomes desirable.  Yes I know HOW to save money and yet I do not, now I need to change my spending behavior and actually save the money.  To this end re-reading and re-learning will help me change my behavior.  It may be redundant, but this isn’t about what I know, or how smart I am.  This is about changing behavior and that takes commitment and redundant reminders.

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  • Spirituality

    Good-bye Kurt

    January 12, 2016

    Death to the Living: Who, but the living, ever die?

    1/11/16 Kurt

    How do we process the death of those that we care deeply for ~ that leave so suddenly we do not get our final conversation?

    In retrospect, I will review our last conversation, my last feelings, my last mood with you.  My frustration with you seems so useless in the face of your death.

    Why didn’t I phone, why didn’t I speak, write, or any of all of the things I could have done in order to have that conversation, you know, the final conversation?  How did I miss telling your lost soul that you had provided light and substance to all that you touched?  Your laugh was infectious and your sense of humor even more so.  You gave yourself and you gave the world: healing, dignity and fun.  We could not have asked for more.  The sudden exit from the living, well that, I would have asked to be different, but you could not have obliged me.

    Your destiny is your deal with God, it is not for me to understand, judge, approve or, in any way, know.  I hope that wherever you are, you are laughing with the pleasure of a glass of wine and some very good company.  I hope that you are getting; so much of what you gave to us.

    Alone to your destiny, as we all must go.
    Alone to your destiny, as we all must go, alone…
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  • Baby Boomers,  Economic Equality (A Goal),  Economy of Effort,  Personal Growth,  Philosophy,  Psychology of Life

    Some Truth for the New Year

    January 3, 2016

    Accept yearning in your life, you do NOT have to fulfill every desire.

    Everything WILL change, you can’t stop it.

    Will this matter in two years?  Study it, look at it, decide it: if it will not matter in two years, save your energy.  Don’t give energy to the unnecessary.

    Don’t imagine that anyone is better than you, they are not.  Much of life is luck, you nor they control circumstance.  Some people will have better circumstances, some people will have terrible circumstances.  This is true.

    Memories are nice, but they are not now.

    Remember that big companies have proven that they do not want to “save you money” and remember that advertising is highly successful because it “makes you think…”  Consequently, beware, if you “buy into” the concepts that Coca Cola is about love and McDonalds is about home and hearth, then you have been fooled and you will buy products that do harm to your body.  The same is true for the “new” big companies including the “Whole Foods Grocery” stores.  It is up to you to take responsibility for researching reality.

    Other people’s thoughts and actions are not within your purview, you cannot control other people.  Accept this idea and make decisions from this knowledge.

    Doing hurtful things to others is NEVER okay or correct.  Those who do harm must be restrained.

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  • Economy of Effort

    New Years Day

    January 1, 2016

    Yes, it’s here, another one.  We put this line in the sand to give ourselves a moment to pause.  Some will use this opportunity well, giving time and space to reflection.  Others will not consider it and others cannot consider the past year in any meaningful way.

    I think it is a very good thing to consider where you are and where you want to be.  We cannot move In any direction purposefully, unless we know where we are going.  We can move, of course, we just do not go towards anything when we move without aim.

    It is a good feeling to know that an effort given has produced a desired result and reflection given can embed the success into permanence.  It reminds me of an old saying “Reinvent your childhood at any time.”  Memories are powerful, use them.  Construct your life from the bottom up, why not?  It can give direction and purpose to your reflection.

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  • Spirituality

    Karma in the Western World

    December 22, 2015

    I have lots of friends who are good “Christians” and they LOVE karma.  They love the idea that the universe has laws that bring justice to humans who do bad things.  The idea is that “what you do, will come back around to you”.  I can’t disagree with the idea that karma exists and yet, I believe that our construct of karma is very wrong.  Justice is a human construct and it is humans who wish to gain revenge over others.  I don’t believe that the universe has an idea of justice.  If the universe had an idea of justice, so much about this world would be different than it is.  For example, money would not have so much power as it does.

    I cringe when I hear people saying with glee, “karma is going to get you!”  They are taking the idea of a religious principal and applying that idea to their personal concept of the world.  Dare I say?  Yes, the point is almost always revenge.  I am not claiming that justice is not very real and very necessary, I am simply calling attention to the perversion (=the alteration of something from its original course, meaning, or state to a distortion or corruption of what was first intended[Google]) of a religious concept: Karma.

    The second important point of this discourse is that Christians who follow the new testament (in other words ALL Christians) are supposed to adhere to the concept of forgiveness.   In fact the basic tenet of Christianity is one of forgiveness:   Christians believe in justification by faith – that through their belief in Jesus as the Son of God, and in his death and resurrection, they can have a right relationship with God whose forgiveness was made once and for all through the death of Jesus Christ. [Google].

    So how is it that Karma is so popular with Christians?  Because we are humans who want to know that our hurt that was caused by another can be revisited on that other in equal measure.  We do not want our pain to be suffered alone, we want someone to blame and someone to be hurt as we are hurt.   We are a vengeful culture, indeed, according to society, revenge is a priority for any of us.  While we are hurting, we cannot grasp forgiveness, while we are hurting it is almost impossible to think of the perpetrator in any way except with anger.  So, while I believe that vengefulness is quite natural as a feeling, I would draw the line here.  Society attempts to bring structure to human feelings and thoughts.  Forgiveness is a higher good that is conceptualized in all of the world religions.  We humans want to act on our hurt and vengeful thoughts and when we cannot act on them, we will depend on Karma to get revenge for us.

    This way of thinking is not towards a higher good; Karma is not an instrument of human justice.  Further, Karma is conceptualized in Hinduism and Buddhism, not in Christianity.  The Christian tenets are of forgiveness and love.

    This is what makes me cringe: we don’t like politicians who do not have firm and unshakable beliefs; we don’t like capitalists who mindlessly work on their own behalf while treading on others.  We get angry with people who try to “bend” truth and or reality to their own preference.   This is hypocritical of us, if we say we are Christians, but we are incapable of forgiveness and would rather preach Karma.

    I am not a religious person, so I am not sure what the rules are, but I do know this:  Karma is not a misconception for revenge.  Instead it is a holy practice for living, if you are a Buddhist or an adherent of Hinduism.  It is a reflection of the golden rule; it is a macroscopic view for “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  Living your life as if what you do, is what you get in return, is a way of living that ensures goodness.

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  • Love and Relationships,  Personal Growth

    Have You Ever?

    December 19, 2015

    Have you ever had someone in your life that you try hard for: you spend money and you work hard and then… Because they have a picture in their mind of perfection, they can never appreciate you.  You will never compare favorably to the person that lives in their head.  You can tell that your sincere efforts are being dismissed and invalidated and maybe you wonder what you have done wrong?  Don’t concern yourself, seriously, there is no hope that you will have an authentic relationship with this person.  Let them go.

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  • Baby Boomers,  Speaking as a Parent

    Parenting Adults

    December 14, 2015

    Is different for everyone.
    Is different for everyone.
    Don’t try to orchestrate other people’s lives: even if you have given birth or otherwise parented these people. Life often gives us unintended consequences. If you orchestrate another person’s life, you own any consequences, including unintended consequences. If you don’t believe that you do ~ don’t fret, because everyone else believes that you do. The point is that we make life decisions for ourselves, our young children and no one else. The exceptions include, any loved one who has a disease that interferes with thinking; or anyone that you own responsibility for because of mental incapacity.
    As I have gotten older I have become acquainted with some obvious American characteristics that I was not aware of earlier in my life. One is that, young people often believe that they know more than older and more experienced people. Another is that older people, particularly parents, believe that they are wiser and know better than younger people.
    This disparity in perspectives often causes disagreements and hurt feelings. This can be avoided when we understand a few things. One is that our culture encourages young people to believe that they are superior to everyone (and thus never need direction or advice). Another way to avoid disagreement and hurt feelings is to realize that even though young people may make very bad decisions that take them down dark roads, they own that road.
    So while we may believe that we know what is good and right for another, the best approach is to bring the information to the attention of the young person and let them decide. It’s important to bring the young person’s attention to the choosing, because it may bring a dimension to the choice that was not previously realized by your young person.
    Like so many human conditions, communication appears to be the answer.

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