Recently I had the interesting experience of being chastised. I was being chastised because of my inadequate skill in proofreading accounting entries and spreadsheet logic. I’ll admit that it is not a skill that I have practiced. It occurred to me that the person chastising me assumed that with a little bit of practice and effort that anyone could achieve excellence in this skill.
I notice that many people will treat their own assumptions as the truth in the matter. The problem with this is that managers are not often challenged about their assumptions and so will continue having incorrect assumptions without any check from others.
Society is often the checkpoint for erroneous beliefs, however, it requires communication for people to realize mistaken beliefs. After all, why change a belief that no one challenges? It must be real, as I think it is so…
This thought process: that any skill is mastered with practice, could not be further from the truth. Consecutively is the belief that if one does not practice, they are either lazy or sloppy. In other words, it is a popular belief that anyone willing to work can attain any skill that there is. Ergo, if a person does not have the skill, it is because they are unwilling to work = laziness.
Of course all of this is simply incorrect. Educators have been trying to tell us for at least half a century that people are born with talents and preferences and abilities that are wildly different from each other. Average is a concept that is difficult to describe.
So, one cannot claim to know THE truth, at best, we can only have A truth, which is normally our own truth.
At least part of the truth is this: what talents that I have naturally and that come easily to me, or at least are attainable and manageable, are things that I will practice. This practice increases my skill level and if I am sufficiently talented and sufficiently able and willing to practice and practice, I can become a champion.
Nowhere in the above paragraph is an assumption that all skills are attainable by everyone that is willing to practice, they are not. Not everyone will make a good accountant, nor should we assume that a good accountant is a good spreadsheet proofreader. These two skills are NOT the same and the association is loose, at best.
The challenge for a good manager is to examine each assumption for the validity of the assumption. For any manager of humans and school teachers are included here, we all have different talents. Development of a talent is rewarding, however, practice in the absence of talent can yield mundane results. Additionally, talents are not interchangeable just because they are similar, you cannot make an accountant into a proof reader by virtue of association.
A mature manager knows that natural talents should be aimed at work that fits the talent. This is a critical skill for managers and it requires that a manager be talented, practiced and skillful.
Our Schizophrenic Relationship with Food ~
I was raised to hoard food. My mother survived the depression in Oklahoma and as a child, she often felt hunger.
We were told to finish our food, no matter what. As a six year old, I sat at the dining room table for 45 minutes because I did not want to eat my greens. I remember that at 10 years old, I had cans of Chunky Campbell’s soup under my bed and I too felt the pain of hunger as I grew up.
Later, as I became a mother and listened to older mothers, there was always love and kisses for chubby baby cheeks and thighs. You were thought to be a good mother if your child was hefty.
My own mother believed that my “skinny” frame was a punishment and insult to her nurturing ability. Some of the things that my family did to celebrate included luscious ham sandwiches with potato chips for lunch. We had ice cream as a very special treat on Sunday evenings.
My mother taught me to use pasta and bread to stretch a meal to feed more people and we always had to stretch. There was never a time when there was just too much food.
We were not allowed to drink soda per se, but kool-aid was thought to be an excellent beverage and we could even drink orange and grape soda on special occasions. Did my parents think that the orange and purple colors indicated fruit juice? I don’t know.
How do we move from this reality to today? Not any of these practices are good for optimum weight and health. To believe that food must be hoarded is to believe that deprivation is right around the corner and this is a harmful and untrue belief. We do not need to eat like a bear to hibernate during a cold winter, when we wake up tomorrow, there will be food.
It is not a good idea to finish all of the food on your plate. Not only do we have too much on our plate at home, but restaurant plate sizes / portion sizes have doubled in the last 40 years. Having a larger stomach means that we eat more, eating more means that we are bigger. We can’t just keep eating because food is served to us. We have to change the way we feel about waste, it is not good to waste food, however and this is a big however, putting that food in our stomach after we are full is the biggest waste of all. It serves no purpose except to make us fat. It’s important that we understand waste in an all new way: waste is eating food after we are full.
Chubby cheeks and thighs are NOT signs of health in a child and definitely not a sign of good mothering. Babies don’t need an extra layer of fat any more than adults do. In fact, it is more harmful to babies to be fat because it is the beginning of a short and uncomfortable life: because if new habits are not formed to change the habit of over-eating, terminal illnesses will ensue.
Pasta and bread are both great fillers, but must be kept in their place – as fillers. If you have a very limited amount of hamburger meat and vegetables, then you may want to increase the size of your meal by adding bread or pasta, however, if there is plenty of meat and vegetables to go around in appropriate portion size, there is no need to add these foods. Particularly bad for humans is processed food of any kind and included in this group is white flour. White flour does not provide the right kind of nutrition, nor does it provide the nutrition intended by having a healthy diet that includes grains. People who do not suffer from celiac disease may find that their wheat intolerance is due to white flour rather than to a plain old whole grain.
I don’t even know where to start with sweet drinks…It’s a difficult subject. I believe this because even though it is generally understood by the public that soda will kill you early, most people who drink soda, continue to drink soda. Even though people know that diet soda is not beneficial in any way, they continue to drink it daily. Even though we know that some sodas have a ton of caffeine, we often see parents purchasing this soda for their children, even young children. Additionally, we all know that drinking red or blue drinks is not natural, yet not only do we drink these colors, but again, we offer them to our children. Why? Why do we continue with these practices? There is something lovely about that sweet flavor in our mouths. We identify it with nurturing, with feeling good and with a myriad of other feelings of satisfaction.
How do we overcome belief structures planted in childhood? How do we stop our brain from believing that happiness is related to food or drink consumption? How do we move away from the belief that our children should be thick around the waist in order to prove they are healthy? How do we get away from the belief structure imbedded in us as children by our parents’ fear of deprivation?
We have to create a new conversation around food, beauty and satisfaction. We cannot say anything specific, as our journey to where we are has been traveled by many different routes. There are many truths that brought us here and we must honor those truths in order to set a new path to health.
Too much fun!And I can’t believe I gave birth to them!
Today, I celebrate the birth of a woman I cherish.
One who lets me know that all of those years of hard work are really worthwhile!Rhea and her husband
Beauty and love come from unusual places.The Kentucky Clerk who believes she is above the law and can behave badly to same sex couples-
I’m not upset by this horrible woman’s horribleness. Others have said it well “haters are gonna hate”! She can be angry and sanctimonious, I don’t care. She is judgmental and reveals her bitterness by voicing her false belief about her own piety. She is not a pious woman, instead she is one who excuses herself and condemns others. This is such a common human practice! Most people will excuse their own behaviors easily with reasons that they hold dear. The same people will say, “oh, look at that bad behavior”, only when observing others!
This is my upset ness: don’t blame yourself on Jesus or on God. You are not behaving badly, meanly to humans, because you are a Christian. Christianity would never advocate for such treatment of others.
Secondly, “why do I have to see you at all? You don’t deserve a news broadcast, I don’t deserve to have to see you.” Better that I never knew about you and your meanness.
“Please, leave Kim What’s-her-Name out of our next news cast, we don’t want to see her meanness anymore.”
Our culture has decided that youth = beauty. We have ourselves to blame as we have idealized the concept of youth for many years. We attach all kinds of concepts to youth, including sexuality and all forms of success.
We have made these associations from our own volition. It is us who make youth the star of every show and every movie of life. It is us who decide to worship youth.
I think that we forget this. We forget that we made the decision to worship youth. We forget that this is a construct, not reality. We have to be careful about thinking that our construct is reality. Youth does not equal beauty. Youth is NOT equal to sexuality and it certainly has no relationship to success. Youth is a lot of things, but has no perpetual meaning. Youth is simply a time of life like any other, it has no magic other than the magic that we may individually choose to imbue it with.
Don’t forget these simple realities. Don’t think that because you are thirty, you are no longer young, don’t think that if you are forty you have lost your youth. Don’t imagine that being fifty – with all of the changes that the age brings to the body – is a bad thing. We are still wholly the person that we are, made all the better with age and experience. Youth is not what makes us beautiful, sexy or successful. The width, breadth and depth of our lives is what makes us beautiful, sexy and successful.
To understand the virtues of specificity it’s important to understand the constructs of thinking. Thinking is often a product of belief systems. Belief systems live in our minds and like all living creatures want terribly to survive. Unfortunately, the survival of a belief system means the death of all contrary evidence to the belief system. For example, if I am a long-time supervisor who believes that workers are lazy, I will not open my eyes nor acknowledge energetic and motivated individuals on my staff. I will discount their efforts and emphasize every 15 minute break that they take, even during a 12 hour shift. I will be unreasonable in my blind belief that I am correct and workers – are in fact – lazy.
As I communicate from my belief structure, instead of communicating based on what happens right now, I must cover up the contrary evidence that disputes my belief and this I do by being general and vague about the evidence supporting my beliefs. I will say “look at those lazy people, trying to nap during break time!” I will not comprehend that Tom is napping because he has a newborn at home, I will not comprehend that Debbie is napping because she was up all night with an upset stomach. The point of vague generalities is to cover up the truth of what is happening right now. Only evidence to support my belief will be allowed into my comprehension and conversation.
The other issue of generalities is that they lead to great misunderstandings and generate a need for clarification. If you send a memo to all staff that says “your work is incomplete, please complete ASAP.” You are generalizing because perhaps you are unable to specifically confront those who do not complete their work. The staff that has completed their work will wonder if they have forgotten something, the staff that has not completed their work, will know that you are uncomfortable with confrontation and therefore will not be motivated by these generalities. So, in addition to the issue of incomplete work, everyone knows that work completion is negotiable. After all, if you won’t confront the non-performers, only the self-motivated will ever get the work done. Those staff members who motivate themselves will continue to do so. Those staff that cannot finish the work will eventually cause a loss in morality for others and will eventually have to go. There is no productive outcome here, it is one and the same, generalities do not provide clear communication.
Another way to love your belief system is to ignore two way communications completely. Why have a conversation with another person, when you can make it all up in your head rather than reaching out and talking with the other person? Your vague generalities go unnoticed and unchallenged, and isn’t that the best way to be right – about everything?
I noticed in a new way that the more I tried (in other words: the more work and effort that I put into it) to reach a goal, the more upsetting it was to experience failure.
Recently, I experienced a heart problem. It’s very scary to have something going on with your body that you have no control over!
Additionally, because of popular culture I had come to believe that heart attacks are brought on by the person who suffers it. Heart attacks are suffered by those who eat poorly, by those who do not exercise, those who do not care for their own body. I thought that my heart troubles were my own failure.
As is obvious from my healthy living page, I have been working for years on my health. My diet has always been a good one. In my family, eating at a fast food restaurant is akin to talking to Satan. We never drank sodas and potato chips were never a staple. This healthy stuff has been a lifelong commitment. It’s not something new.
So I was doubly disappointed by my heart condition…I felt I did not “deserve” it. Then I found out that my heart condition had nothing to do with my diet, I didn’t need stents and my veins are mostly clear.
Here is my lesson – try as I might – I am a human being, my physical body lives in a physical world that I do not control, therefor I cannot predict my future, nor can I predict the outcome of my health efforts. It is possible that I work hard and receive no reward for my hard work. I can get a reward i.e. Health and lose my health in a different way, from other circumstances such as an accident. This is not an excuse to quit trying and working hard to be healthy – it just means that I cannot guarantee an outcome. For this lesson I am grateful.
My other lesson is this – bad things happen to each and every one of us. Blaming the recipient of disease and / or failure is not a good way to treat each other. Ignorance may not be an excuse for poor health behavior, but it is not up to me judge and blame others for their hardships.
Anytime a society allows members to believe that some members are more important than others we invite our own demise.
Our society, particularly here in America, believes that money cures all evil. Now if you speak with an American 1:1, that is not the tale that an American will tell…
But I come to you with the mundane, not the grand gesture of philosophy that would allow you to hide behind yourself. When we read about people who commit spectacular crimes, we pretend that their wrongness does not exist in ‘regular’ life. We hide behind the glamour of the news report saying to ourself, “that evil exists over there”.
It does not, evil exists in every body and the most common evil is elitism. Elitism is the conversation of your own ‘rightness’ over another’s ‘wrongness’. We tell everyone how our own point of view is the correct one and, indeed give a convincing and innocent argument of suffering. It is this innocence that perpetuates the evil of elitism. We use this belief in our own superiority to allow others to suffer…
“He deserves to be fired, he is a know it all!” “She deserves a dressing down, look how pretty she is!” And so the punishment goes until we find a way to justify what happens to others, as long as it does not happen to us in a personal way.
We must examine this need within us to be more important than each other. We must find a way to see all with equal importance. If we do this, we will change the world.
It is impossible at times to keep perception narrowed to the now. Today is Bastille Day and my children’s father’s birthday. My kids’ father passed away in 2007 from his one and only heart attack, he was 54 years old.
My new husband is a widower with 2 daughters, they lost their one and only wife and mother in 2009.
These events are indelible in a way that no other events in life are. They are simply uncontrollable and grief will not bow to the wishes of any person. Grief comes upon you with a will of its own.
After bearing grief in life, we eventually learn that we must march on. We may not want to, we may not like it, but we have to keep living.
As we grow and prosper beyond our loved one’s death, we may feel guilty, as if without our loved one nearby, we do not deserve happiness. These can be difficult emotions and thoughts. We bear them, we feel them, and we do not know what to do with them.
My mother and my kids’ father suffered from sudden heart attacks and died very quickly, early and unexpectedly. They were the seminal moments in my family’s life and did not bode well for the health of either my family of origin, or my nuclear family.
I worked very hard and certainly relentlessly to bring my family back from the edge of darkness. I know very well that my new husband made Herculean efforts on behalf of his family’s wellness. It was one of the things that attracted me to him; dedication with limitless depth for the well being of his family.
And so, we are here and now, married for a couple of years and sharing parental responsibilities. As the result of a heart condition I was scheduled for a procedure today and for whatever reason, on Sunday, I started having chest pains and became light headed. The ambulance rushed to the house and transported me to the hospital.
I dearly wanted an answer to explain the chest pain. As my husband and I sat in the emergency room, he reminded me that I had failed to explain my health issues to the kids – at all. We stared at each other. Tears rolled down my cheeks. We are the last parents our multiple kids have. We are fiercely committed to surviving. It is our wish to see our grandchildren at their weddings. At the bottom of it all is the hope that our kids will not have to endure anymore tragedies that will cause grief and despair in their lives.
I have surreptitiously listened to the kids talk, they are proud that they have loving and caring parents, it’s important to them.
I want to survive this encounter with the hospital and because of my pending procedures I am scared.
I do not want to talk to our kids, each of them has endured so much, to be the source of pain and fear is a bitter reality for me. We must speak to the kids, each of them. We know that in some cases it is terrifying. Nevertheless, we must say the words: cardiac, emergency room, hospital stay…
To be clear, our youngest is a 28 year old man. To be clear, I lost my mother when I was 37, at the time, she was the center of my world. Our kids are strong, smart, handsome people who work hard and accomplish much. I do not speak of babies or idiots. I speak of right-thinking adults that I trust and treasure!
Still, there is something important about the surviving parent.. There is something important about the sharing of family history. There is something important about knowing that no matter what, there is someone in the world who loves you no matter what. Parents love beyond reasonableness and always will. That is a treasure beyond measure.
This is what we wish to be for the next 27.5 years: the source for our kids unconditional love and the source of their abiding strength.
