What If...we are being given so much more than we know, right in the middle of the circumstances we are in (perhaps because of them or, even, in spite of them)?
What would be different if we were able to have more imagination for that possibility?
Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself.
-- Epictetus
All personal breakthroughs begin with a change in beliefs.
-- Tony Robbins
As noted earlier this week, changing our minds (especially others') is an interesting dynamic.
This may mostly be because of the way what we think is formed. Ultimately, it seems we are rarely convinced of something by theory alone. We become convinced of things more largely by forces that resemble the way waves on a beach shape it — relentless repetition, especially when combined with negativity and fear.
Here's an example:
Many people believe morality is declining — but it may be an illusionSo, what really impacts changing of the mind the most?
It is more often when information impacts something personal for us that our thinking embraces its ability to adapt. Otherwise it rarely changes (at least quickly) and, more often, it is simply affirmed (repetition). In other words, proximity to different information can often trump the ideological. If we maintain distance from anything that we aren't already familiar and comfortable with, our thinking (how we see things) remains largely the same.
When have you changed your mind about something? What contributed most to causing that to happen?
An amazing and inspiring example of how breakthroughs of the mind (and action) can occur:
Ever noticed...that you rarely ‘win’ arguments?
…or how (relatively) powerless you are to change what someone else thinks?
Just because people occasionally get struck by lightning doesn’t mean that lightning is a bad thing….
We become good at something that we’ve done 100 times — an expert at something we’ve done 1000 times.
There is something mutually disempowering in our attempts to simultaneously hold on to and let go of things.
In relationships, don't we want to know that there is something even stronger than the impact of our latest experience (fight or fun ) — that even as those experiences accumulate, there is still something we can trust in with each other?
Prior 3 Observations & A Question….
'Poem for the week' -- "Evening":
Another word I love is evening
for the balance it implies, balance
being something I struggle with.
I suppose I would like to be more
a planet, turning in & out of light
It comes down again to polarities,
equilibrium. Evening. The moths
take the place of the butterflies,
owls the place of hawks, coyotes
for dogs, stillness for business,
& the great sorrow of brightness
makes way for its own sorrow.
Everything dances with its strict
negation, & I like that. I have no
choice but to like that. Systems
are evening out all around us—
even now, as we kneel before
a new & ruthless circumstance.
Where would I like to be in five
years, someone asks—& what
can I tell them? Surrendering
with grace to the evening, with
as much grace as I can muster
to the circumstance of darkness,
which is only something else
that does not stay.
-- Jeremy Radin
I'm wondering...about emotional gaps. Do you ever feel a kind of gap between you and another person at times?
I wonder if the gaps we sometimes feel with someone are related to gaps that they feel or are within themselves (even if they’re not felt or identified).
Many times you can’t do it, if you haven’t put yourself in a position to do it.
Perhaps one of the truest measures of humility is our internal response when we are being criticized.
There is what you think you need and there is what you really need — and, there’s what you don’t think you need, that you really do.
You don’t have to use the word God to reference God – why do you think there so many different names and descriptions of God (even in the Bible)?
Prior 3 Observations & A Question….
While unintelligent people are more easily misled by other people, intelligent people are more easily misled by themselves. They’re better at convincing themselves of things they want to believe rather than things that are actually true. This is why intelligent people tend to have stronger ideological biases; being better at reasoning makes them better at rationalizing. In the end, rationality is not about intelligence but about character. Without the right personal qualities, education and IQ won’t make you master of your biases, they’ll only make you a better servant of them. So be open to the possibility that you may be wrong, and always be willing to change your mind — especially if you’re smart. By being humble and curious you may not win many arguments, but it won’t matter, for even losing arguments will become a victory that moves you toward the far grander prize of truth.
-- Gurwinder Bhogal
By hanging on to things, we lose them. Whereas by offering ourselves into the world, we find infinite richness.
-- James Low
Among many others, one of the basic problems with fundamentalism (particularly of the religious kind, but the concept itself is a larger one) is that it requires a certain amount of selective blindness to, of all things, truth.
Fundamentalism proports itself to near exclusivity about truth, and yet by definition, only maintains a portion of it (the fundamentals). Terminology most often used to describe it identifies the (most) important elements involved in truth that need to be held on to. And, while that is not necessarily untrue, it clearly disregards what I believe to be another “fundamental" dynamic of truth — that it is ever-growing (at the very least, our understanding of it). I would suggest that truth is even more dynamic than it is static. And, while that nearly sends shivers down the spine of fundamentalists, it points to truth as something infinite (as opposed to a finite list). The inhibiting nature of fundamentalist ideology seems to be predicated on the premise that truth is finite and, therefore by implication, must be held onto tightly. But if truth is, in fact, limited (to only certain basic things, not to mention the complications of who decides which ones those are), there are all kinds of ramifications many of which end up tossing you on a dumpster fire of co-mingled truth and (human) power issues.
Many would not disagree that God is infinite; in part, it seems to me, because the opposite would be too problematic. Many of the same people would also say that ultimate truth is defined by God. If so, on those premises, truth cannot be finite. And if truth is, in fact, infinite then the whole direction and energy behind one’s relationship with it is fundamentally different. Why is it that Jesus said the truth will set you free? What, then, is freedom if not expansive in its richness? Is the mode (and the mood) of his observation consistent with finitude?
There are some merits to the notions we hear often these days that sound like getting back to the basics is needed. But, I suspect that has more to do with the means, than it does it the ends. God is ever-pulling God's creation forward into the ideals of everything that God created. It's hard to imagine that God is hand-wringing about whether or not sin (or whatever is evil) will effectively suppress the truth in the end. It seems to me that it is man that is concerned with that possibility and, often, thru the use of reduced realities about truth. And, even in recognizing that, thru the incarnation, God essentially said something like, "Let me get closer to my creation, so that I can make even more manifest, what is true". This may be the nearly some total of the great prayers of Jesus — for the revelation of God to creation that everything that God created is still at its core good. And, God himself seems to want to leave us with the impression that that goodness as limitless ('storehouses' of it that are waiting to be revealed!). God is infinite. God is Good. Goodness is infinite. And, it is our discovery of this infiniteness that perpetuates the very revelation of it. Such is the very nature of truth!
So, beware of...finish here.
You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.
-- Atticus Finch
We claim spiritual progress, not spiritual perfection.
-- The Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous
No one can have more impact on your overall health…than you.
You have to follow your heart — but, first, you have to learn what is in it.
The more you try to eliminate something, the more you keep it alive — resistance creates persistence.
How much of successful aging is based on the recognition of how little we control?
Prior 3 Observations & A Question….
'Poem for the week' -- "My heart":
sings but the apparatus of singing doesn’t convey
half what it feels and means. In spring, there’s hope,
in fall the exquisite, necessary diminishing, in
winter I am as sleepy as any beast in its
leafy cave, but in summer there is
everywhere the luminous sprawl of gifts,
the hospitality of the Lord and my
-- Mary Oliver
You are only entitled to the action, never to its fruits.
-- Bhagavad Gita
So many things are out of my control....
But, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t ANY things that are within my control.
Often times, our relationship with things that are out of our control have to do with certain outcomes we desire. So, really, it’s what we do in the meantime that matters.
For example, even though I do try to anticipate the possibilities, when I plan a trip I can’t guarantee that the weather will be good. But, I can go ahead and plan the trip and prepare for it by taking clothes for whatever the weather might be (like this trip, which had both). Or, I suppose, I could just not plan the trip because of the possibility that the weather could be bad....
Or, when trying to get a job, I can’t control whether somebody will hire me or not, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t look, apply, or interview for a job.
Take finances — I can’t guarantee (or even anticipate) everything about what I will need financially in the future, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take simple steps now to save a little bit of the money I make (as opposed to spending it all).
What about our health? We can’t ultimately control whether we get cancer or not, but we can do things now that are healthy or unhealthy…which may contribute to whether we do or don’t get cancer.
In relationships, we can’t control how another person will react or respond (or choose to do) to things that are needed to maintain a healthy relationship, but we can still choose to love (even if they don’t).
These days, we seem to have become a bit fixated on outcomes. If the outcome we desire isn't guaranteed, we tend not to try. But, what we don't realize as much anymore is that so many times, it is the effort — the trying — that truly enables us. There will be an outcome, to be sure. It may or may not be directly related to the effort (most of the time, it is). It could be that the outcome is very different that what we imagined it would be (often times, it is).
When we look back, we can often see a connection between our efforts and outcomes. But, along the way, it may often feel like it isn't going anywhere (but, it is). And, so, it seems to come down to something like this; we learn to trust the effort more than the desired outcome.
In many ways, being in control is much closer to fantasy than reality. If we can accept that, then perhaps we can simply give the effort it takes to live our lives in constructive and healthy ways. One that builds on itself and that, in the end, leads us somewhere good.
Ever noticed...that sometimes you have to walk away from something in order to understand more purely what it is?
You make a life out of what you have, not what you're missing. -- Kate Morton
It's not what the world holds for you, it's what you bring to it.
-- L.M. Montgomery
Do your little bit of good where you are; it is those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
-- Archbishop Desmond Tutu
If you don't, who will?
-- Tom Hanks, 2023 Commencement Address
Prior 4 Observations (from Others).
...outrage is the business model of about one-third of the companies on the NASDAQ.
-- Sunny Bonnell AND Ashleigh Hansberger
What ever happened to leading by example?
My wife just finished another year teaching second-grade and it seems like the things we teach second-graders somehow don't apply any more...especially to our leaders / politicians. Maybe they don't think they really have much influence anyway. Or, maybe, we're all acting like this because they do? Who's copying who is sometimes hard to determine...especially when it's bad.
At the very least, it puts those trying to teach basic civility in a tough spot as they try build a base for children on how to relate to others...not to mention the aggregating negative social impacts that are being revealed in all kinds of ways each day.
No one said it was easy to set an example, but sinking down to the lowest common denominator doesn't even really make sense. We must have lost all faith in the goodness of humanity and, therefore, believe that the deepest realities are the baser instincts of our fears. Why else would we effectively sanction bullying in political and social spaces while we try to still pretend like it's a bad thing on the playground?
Whatever the context, it seems like two basic drivers are involved too much of the time — survival and greed.
Unfortunately, one seems to drive the other. And, it is too often those with too much who are effectively creating the dilemma of survival for the others. Fear is at the heart of both — one is real and the other is contrived. Sometimes this is intentional. But, I'm more concerned about the unfettered and disrespectful ways we are now normalizing and the cultivated blindness involved in doing so.
When will we realize we all live here together and that just because we have tried to insulate ourselves with some nice trees to block our view, it doesn't mean we're not all still living on the same dirt and breathing the same air? We have to take care of our shared resources and treat each other in helpful ways. It doesn't matter if it doesn't bother us directly...doesn't work anymore.
We must resist looking to the frameworks of the past to lead us into the future. Doing so is a way to pretend to control, to tighten our grip and reduce our cultural aerodynamic flexibility. Instead, perhaps we turn to ways of wisdom that cultivate intuition, patience, and ingenuity.
-- Cameron Trimble
I guess the case I’m making here is...finish here.
