“Take Us To Tomorrow”

I loved the theme behind to movie “The Croods”.   Follow your dreams, light your way, follow the sun! All are simple and amazing mantras that we never get tired of hearing or nor applying to our lives.  They have been true since the beginning of time.

You and I are the Masters of our destinies, I have observed my eldest brother all my life, and I must admit that he is an inspiration to me.  He has not had the easiest life, but through it all, he has never lost sight of his dreams, his passion.  I admire him for his adaptability in tough times, the fact that he never blames society or anyone else for his position, but he continues to “shine” his way.

The theme song for the movie, entitled “Shine Your Way”  has a message of hope.  Hope is the one feeling, the one emotion that keeps us going day to day.  Hope for tomorrow, my favorite verse in the song states “all of your tears will dry faster in the sun, starting today”, is actually a call to action.  It is telling you to stop feeling sorry for yourself and look to the future, your failure today is not enough to keep you from tomorrow.

We all must shine our way, especially when its dark and you have no clue what to do or where to go.  My advice, point your compass toward the sun, and take yourself to TOMORROW.  Here is to hope for the future.

 

The Bright Spot in a Dim Room Part 1

The idea of daunting tasks in which we find our self clueless as to which way to turn, or even what to do, let alone where to begin, is down right frightening! (Kinda like Friday The Thirteenth,  I want to run but I am frozen with fear).  It makes moving forward with anything  damn near impossible, but it really does not have to be . Ask me why!  Go ahead, ask me, (Why?) Ok I will tell you.  It doesn’t have to be difficult because someone else has already done it.  You have heard the saying, don’t reinvent the wheel, correct? Well, a similar concept is presented in my new favorite book Switch.

“Find the Bright Spot” is the title of the second chapter of the book.  We are admonished to look for bright spots worth emulating.  Well let me inform you, that looking for bright spots takes a little research, but if your bright  spot is in a dimly lit room, you will find faster than the road runner can say “meep meep” and take of running!

I personally prefer the concept of not reinventing the wheel (though it is really all semantics), you locate the wheel, and customize it to your needs. Ladies and gentlemen, we know that as old as this earth is, nothing is unique as far as situations go and the solutions we find for solving them.

From Around the World: Change Framework being used in India

Follow the link below to read about change in India. http://jugaadtoinnovation.blogspot.com/2013/05/making-change-work-is-delhi-university.html

Shape The Path to Change!

If you wish to effect change in people, you must provide crystal clear directions and you must appeal to their emotions, that ginormous elephant that tramples all in its way if it is not appeased.  We must direct the rider, because much of the time, what would be misconstrued as resistance, is in all actuality a lack of clarity.  We must motivate that darn elephant!  It is imperative that we engage the emotions, get the elephant to be cooperative. We also need to “Shape the path” or the situation, when we are in control of the situation, it will not matter what the rider and elephant are dealing with.

We have the framework for effecting sweeping change with few resources!

Appreciating The Blatantly Obvious

In 2012,that would I was introduced to the work of the late David Foster Wallace, I had not heard of him prior to that.  I listened to an excerpt from his commencement speech to the 2005 graduating class Kenyan College. His speech, entitled “This is Water” addressed the immense and fascinating power of choice. We are the masters what we choose to think about; obviously we are used the default way of thinking, which is very self-absorbed, narcissistic, and egotistical.  Often we fail to realize that there is a universe of which we are not the brightest star, the largest sun, nor are we the center of said universe (ouch that does hurt a little). Mr. Wallace starts his speech with an anecdote about two young fish swimming merrily by in a fish bowl, when there passed by an older fish swimming in the opposite direction, who says to both the younger fish, “how’s the water boys”? The two young fish look at each other in confusion and ask “what the heck is water”?

The idea of teaching one to think, or to choose what to think about and to rewire their default setting the focal point of David Foster Wallace’s speech. One is considered well-adjusted once able to rewire their default way of thinking.  Paying attention to the here and now is most difficult when your mind is loudest thing you hear.  David states that the mind is a great servant but a terrible master, which is probably why most suicides committed with fire arms shoot themselves in the head; they want to kill the terrible master.

How do we prevent ourselves from living our lives as walking dead, slaves to our default setting? How do we keep ourselves from falling into “boredom, routine, and petty frustration”? I submit to you as David Foster Wallace did, that we CHOOSE TO THINK.  We must be selective in our choice of thought (mind blowing concept), as opposed to thinking of yourself as the victim or the inconvenienced, take the time to consider others.  Consider that someone’s situation is worse off than yours, and your concerns are the least of the worries in the world.  “

Once we truly mastered how to think, how to pay attention, our eyes will be opened to the belief that we have other options. It is now within our power to experience a “crowded, hot, slow, consumer hell type of situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars; Love, fellowship” etc.  We get to decide how we will see the situations; we decide what has meaning and what does not.

Freedom, the truly important kind, entertains discipline, attention and awareness, the ability indubitably care about others and to make repetitious sacrifices for them every day in ways that garner no recognition or praise. The alternative is our default setting, the rat race, the numbness of rote rehearsal and routine.  Life before death, awareness, to stay conscious and alive is extremely difficult to do, and we literally have to remind ourselves daily “this is water, this is water, this is water” (THIS IS LIFE).story from wrong and

Editors for Every Budget

So, I Own an Elephant Now!?

I am on a quest for excellence and self realization and on this quest I have come to learn that I own an elephant. I say “what tha (enter superlative of your choice here, for I have used them all myself, and they all work). In the book Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, the idea that we are all schizophrenic is presented (which obviously raised my eyebrow). The rational is simply that we have an emotional side and a rational side, and we basically battle between the two for a happy medium called balance. Some are obviously better at it than others (myself being in the category of “others”).

To further drive the point home, the Heath siblings site two separate studies (I will only discuss one of them) which I thought were pretty neat, rad, awesome ( I really think I am clever now). The first, was by far my favorite. Two groups of college students were brought together, the first group was given the daunting task of resisting radishes and scarfing down fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. To note, both groups were hungry as they were instructed not to eat prior to the study. Also, they were told the study was about tasting food (not measuring will power). So, they accomplished their task with ease. The second group had to resist the fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and eat up their less than savory radishes (how yummy). Shortly after, they were to accomplish another task, and again they were lied to about what it was “really” about. Side bar does it bother anyone else that these researchers are lying so much in the name of science?

The subjects were informed that this study was to see which students were better at solving puzzles, college students or high school students. What trickery! Since these were college students you they got a little cocky (especially since they had been fed). At any rate, they were given puzzles that were intended to be unsolvable, and guess what? Neither of the two groups solved the puzzles. But here is what is truly interesting, the group that had to exercise will power and resist the cookies gave up first, they tried only 19 times (which is 18 more than I would have tried). However, those who did not have to resist, tried for a whopping 34 times before calling it quits. Whats the point? Psycho analysts noted that the “resisters” gave up because they became frustrated faster, point being: “Will power is an exhaustible resource”.

So, where does the elephant fit in to all this? I am an emotion driven person, and I find it very difficult to control my emotions in certain situations, but I do manage. However, I get frustrated very easily, with inanimate objects such as computers (especially when the network is slow). Rational is the rider of the emotion elephant, and it is the elephant with the unfair advantage, its huge. The rider and elephant can travel in harmony but once there is a disagreement on which direction to take, you know how the story will end. I imagine a puny rider perched atop a raging elephant, charging unceremoniously through the jungle, ears spread, flapping wildly as it vehemently trumpets in protest of whatever has got it all riled up. And the poor rider, pouring his heart out to God, his past, present and future flashing before his eyes as he holds on for dear life.

Now, don’t get the wrong idea about the elephant. While rational determines where we go, its that elephant, emotion that give us the push, the umph to get there. Emotion is responsible for love, compassion, protection of loved ones, passion and drive, emotion is what is needed to get the job done! Armed with this information, I am finding answers to why I do certain things, which puts me in a better position to get along with and manage my elephant. Seriously, I can’t wait to explore this subject in greater depth.

You have not seen the last of this topic, nor the chapters in the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. 🙂