Becoming

A Self-fertilizing Garden

2012-02-01T05:00:00.000-06:00

Psychologist Joyce Shaffer tells the story of a man unable to talk or walk following a stroke. Two years later, he was hiking and teaching thanks to intense physical therapy. When the man died a few years later, an autopsy showed a large area of his brain had been destroyed by the stroke. Yet he had regained the ability to be active and productive.

Schaffer’s explanation: “Moment by moment you create your brain. It is plastic. It can change for better or worse depending on lifestyle choices.. Without challenge, your brain retires. (But) with lifestyle choices a person can turn their brain into a "self-fertilizing garden.”

Stephen Goforth

Bless you, prison

2012-01-31T05:00:00.000-06:00

It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.

That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: ‘Bless you, prison!’ I…have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: ‘Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Gulag Archipelago

a New Philosophy

2012-01-30T13:00:00.000-06:00

I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time. Charlie Brown in "Peanuts"

Finding the "Right One"

2012-01-30T05:00:00.000-06:00

Don't just look for someone who will encourage you to "be yourself." Look for someone who will help the process of more clearly defining you. This is not just giving you "space" or room to "do your own thing." There should be a chemistry, a back-and-forth, a give-and-take that produces something you couldn't have come up with by yourself. And it works the other way around as well. You should spur the other's growth as a person. The two of you should be able to look at the apple seed and visualize the fully formed tasty fruit that could emerge.

Stephen Goforth

The Key to Failure

2012-01-27T13:00:00.000-06:00

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
Bill Cosby

The Nazis Hung Him

2012-01-27T05:00:00.000-06:00

The Nazis arrested Dietrich Bonhoeffer in 1943 for his work with the resistance. He had been warned not to speak publicly. He did anyway. They hung him in April of 1945. The book Ethics is a gathering of his notes for a book he intended to write on the subject. The notes were hidden away from the police in a garden. Here is a quote from it:

"Christ did not, like a moralist, love a theory of good, but He loved the real man. He was not, like a philosopher, interested in the 'universally valid,' but rather in that which is of help to the real and concrete human being. What worried him was not, like Kant, whether the 'maxim of an action can become a principle of general legislation', but whether my action is at this moment helping my neighbor become a man before God."

Paradigm Shifts

2012-01-26T05:00:00.000-06:00

We have personality tenancies but (as Myers Briggs reveals) we naturally shift toward the middle as we age. This can mean significant differences (young harsh conservatives become liberal in their old age as they mellow, etc) but there are more profound changes we can undergo. Steven Covey offers this example in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

He was traveling in a subway when a man got on with his two sons. They were loud, rambunctious, throwing things, grabbing people’s papers and disturbing to everyone in the car. The man seemed oblivious. Covey writes:

It was very disturbing and yet the man sitting next to me did nothing. It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not believe that he could be so insensitive as to let children run wild like that do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I turned to him and said, “Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn’t control them a little more?

The man lifted his gaze and said softly, “Oh, you’re right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died. I don't know what to think and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either."

Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? My paradigm shifted. Suddenly I saw things differently, and because I saw things differently, I thought differently, I felt differently. My irritation vanished. I didn’t have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior; my heart was filled with the man’s pain. Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely.

While this change of perspective could be momentary, it doesn't have to be. We are continually faced with decisions as to how we will approach the circumstances life throws at us. If we keep picking a particular familiar pathway, it will eventually become a habit. But glimpses of other trails nudge into our lives from time-to-time, reminding us of different possibilities.

Remember that piece of music you heard that suddenly lifted your spirit and changed your whole outlook in the middle of a drab day? Remember that pleasant smell that made you drift back to fond childhood memories? The times you exited movie theaters ready to change the world for the better because you had just seen someone on film inspired to do just that? What if we wedded action to those sentiments? Are we capable of taking that step in a new direction.. or are we welded inside our boxes, destined only to point at the festival and never join the parade?

The complaint, "that's who I am and I can never change" is the voice of fear. Admitting that change is possible puts responsibility on our shoulders to make it happen. And that's just downright scary.

Stephen Goforth

Even when

2012-01-25T13:00:00.000-06:00

I believe in the sun when it's not shining, I believe in love even when I feel it not, I believe in God even when he is silent.
Irish Saying

4 Steps When Addressing Inappropriate Behavior

2012-01-25T05:00:00.000-06:00

The four steps are describe, express, specify, and consequences.

1. Describe the objectionable behavior.
Poor: You’re ignoring me! You insensitive, spiteful, stubborn bore.
Better: You are not looking at me when I ask a question and you are not answering me.

2. Express your feelings.
Poor: You make me so angry I could wring your neck. I really hate you! Better: When you do this, I feel hurt. I feel insignificant and unimportant here.

3. Specify what action you want to see.
Poor: Notice I’m alive!
Better: Would you please look at me and give me a quick answer?

4. Tell the person the consequences if there is no change in behavior.
Poor: I’ll give the children up to the orphanage and leave!
Better: I’ll let you know I appreciate you looking and answering with a hug and a kiss!!

10 Things to do When People Bring you Problems

2012-01-24T05:00:00.000-06:00

1. Empathize with hurt feelings.

2. Reflect a genuine concern.

3. Give back to the person a summary of the problem as you see it.

4. Be slow to give advice. Let the other person come to the right conclusions themselves if possible. It’s a lot more convincing.

5. Distinguish between causes and symptoms.

6. Keep confidences.

7. Wisely use questions. Make them open-ended and indirect, using “why” sparingly.

8. Watch your body language carefully.

9. Be willing to refer someone to someone else more qualified when the problem is beyond you.

10. Ask the person how he or she is doing a few days or week later. Let the person know you haven’t forgotten and their situation is important to you.

Stephen Goforth

I believe because..

2012-01-23T12:30:00.000-06:00

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
C.S. Lewis

The Inner Rhythm

2012-01-23T05:00:00.000-06:00

We have to let go of the old thing before we can pick up the new one- not just outwardly, but inwardly, where we keep our connections to people and places that act as definitions of who we are. There we are, living in a new town, but our heads are full of all the old trivia: where the Chinese restaurant was (and when it opened in the evening), what Bob’s phone number was, what shoe store stocked the children’s sizes..

We usually fail to discover our need for an ending until we have made the most of our necessary external changes. There we are, in the new house or the new job or involved in a new relationship, waking up to find that we have not yet let go of our old ties. Or worse yet, not waking up to that fact, even though we are still moving to the inner rhythm of life back in the old situation. We’re like shell fish that continue to open and close their shells on the tide schedule of their home waters after they have been transplanted to a laboratory tank or at the restaurant kitchen.

William Bridges
Transitions

Luck

2012-01-20T12:30:00.000-06:00

I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work the more I seem to have of it.
Thomas Jefferson

Disenchantment

2012-01-20T05:00:00.000-06:00

The lesson of disenchantment begins with the discovery that if you want to change – really to change, and not just to switch positions – you must realize that some significant part of your old reality was in your head, not out there. The flawless parent, the noble leader, the perfect wife, and the utterly trustworthy friend are an inner cast of characters looking for actors to play the parts. One person is on the lookout for someone older and wiser, and another is seeking an admiring follower. And when they find each other they fit like the interlocking pieces of a puzzle.

Or almost. Actually, the misfit is greater than either person knows, or even wants to know. The thing that keep this misperception in place is an “enchantment,” a spell cast by the past on the present. Most of the time, these enchantments work fairly well, but at life’s turning points they break down. Almost inevitably, we feel cheated at such times, as though someone were trying to trick us. But usually the earlier enchanted view was as “real” as we could manage a the time. It corresponded to a self-image and a situation and it could not change without affecting ourselves and others.

William Bridges
Transitions

Universal Beliefs

2012-01-19T05:00:00.000-06:00

The generic nature of human beings and the ordered nature of the world in which we live tend to evoke very similar beliefs in all of us, which we have called universal beliefs. They include:

1. adherence to a law of noncontratidiction,

2. belief in a an external world of orderly processes,

3. belief in the existence of other persons who share our world and with whom we communicate and live,

4. and belief in also in some ultimate reality with which we must eventually reckon.

Beliefs such as these are a practical necessity if we are to think and function at all.

Arthur Holmes
Contours of a World View

Humor sneaks in

2012-01-18T12:00:00.000-06:00

Humor can get in under the door while seriousness is still fumbling at the handle.
GK Chesterson

You are not what happened to you in the past.

2012-01-18T05:00:00.000-06:00

No matter how chaotic the past has been, the future is a clean, fresh, wide open slate. You are not your past habits. You are not your past failures. You are not how others have at one time treated you. You are only who you think you are right now in this moment. You are only what you do right now in this moment.

Read more here.

Make Things = Know Thyself

2012-01-17T05:30:00.000-06:00

If I waited to know “who I was” or “what I was about” before I started “being creative”, well, I’d still be sitting around trying to figure myself out instead of making things. In my experience, it’s in the act of making things that we figure out who we are.

Austin Kleon
How to Steal Like an Artist

Arguments worth having

2012-01-16T05:00:00.001-06:00

Parents who browbeat their kids into being obedient and agreeable may not be giving them the best preparation for the real world. A new study shows that encouraging teens to argue calmly and effectively against parental orders makes them much more likely to resist peer pressure. University of Virginia researchers observed more than 150 13-year-olds as they disputed issues like grades, chores, and friends with their mothers. When researchers checked back in with the teens two and three years later, they found that those who had argued the longest and most convincingly—without yelling, whining, or throwing insults—were also 40 percent less likely to have accepted offers of drugs and alcohol than the teens who had caved quickly. “We found that what a teen learned in handling these kinds of disagreements with their parents was exactly what they took into their peer world,” study author Joseph P. Allen tells NPR.org. The key to having a constructive debate with your kids, experts say, is listening to them attentively and rewarding them when they make a good point—even if you don’t end up reaching a mutual agreement. “Think of those arguments not as a nuisance,” Allen says, “but as a critical training ground” for wise, independent decision-making.

The Week Magazine

No Waiting

2012-01-16T01:00:00.000-06:00

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
Anne Frank

Talents Unused

2012-01-13T12:00:00.000-06:00

Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sun-dial in the shade?
Benjamin Franklin

Career Choices

2012-01-13T05:30:00.000-06:00

Find what you are good at doing and have a passion for doing and people will pay you good money to do it. No one will pay for your C- work (or not much for it anyway) so forget about bringing your 4s up to 6s (on a scale of one to ten). Focus instead on getting your 8s up to 9s and your 9s up to 10s.

(This is a bit of an oversimplification.. but generally true, though.)

Stephen Goforth

The Artist is a Collector

2012-01-12T05:00:00.000-06:00

An artist is a collector. Not a hoarder, mind you, there’s a difference: hoarders collect indiscriminately, the artist collects selectively. They only collect things that they really love. There’s an economic theory out there that if you take the incomes of your five closest friends and average them, the resulting number will be pretty close to your own income. I think the same thing is true of our idea incomes. You’re only going to be as good as the stuff you surround yourself with.

Austin Kleon
How to Steal Like an Arist

Your Mission

2012-01-11T12:00:00.000-06:00

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't.
Richard Bach

30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself

2012-01-11T05:30:00.000-06:00

Stop spending time with the wrong people. Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot. Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth. And remember, it’s not the people that stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.

Read more here.