Hello,
and welcome to this new day in this new week!
We hope that you enjoy this issue and that you're
able
to make this day and this week extra special!
I
teach my children that words have powers.
"Stupid" and "shut up," for instance,
close doors. "Please" and "thank
you" open them. As my children grow up and move
into the world, I'll also teach them a few phrases that,
in my experience, can unbolt shut doors, leave open doors
ajar, and cut passages where none existed. For
example:
"In
my opinion. . ."
My
field is public relations and my role is to dispense
counsel, but the advice I give often comes down to
opinion, and I tell my clients that. I wish we heard
those three words more often from our leaders, but I hope
you always hear them from me.
Does
saying "in my opinion" show weakness? On
the contrary, in my opinion, those three words signal
strength--for what I'm about to say, I take full
responsibility. That shows confidence, and listeners
take their cues from the signals we send. In fact,
the more certain I am about something, the more likely I
am to preface, or conclude my words with "in my
opinion."
"What
Do You Think?"
In
the greatest business textbook ever written, one proverb
says, "Where there is no counsel, the people fall,
but in the multitude of counselors there is
safety." The best counsel givers, in other
words, are counsel seekers.
As
president of a small, twenty-employee PR firm, my judgment
and decisions are colored by the counsel of relevant
people--employees, friends, industry peers, my wife--and
sometimes counselors less obviously relevant. Only
arrogance would overlook advice because of a person's job
title.
In
years of work with more than a hundred organizations, I
have often seen leaders make major decrees or decisions
without the benefit of much more than a counsel of
one. Certainly a leader is free to override
advice--ultimately he or she is left with final
judgment--but to form that judgment without seeking
information, news, and opinions, and without listening to
the dissenting side. . . well, the wisdom of one is not as
wise as it could be.
"Let
Me Ask You a Question"
"The
stupidity of people comes from having an answer to
everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from
having a question for everything." In an
interview on his writing, award-winning Czechoslovakian
author Milan Kundera parted the curtain on his technique
and offered a tip to everyone who wants the full
story: he asks questions. The writer
continued, "It seems to me that all over the world
people nowadays prefer to judge rather than to understand,
to answer rather than to ask, so that the voice of the
novel can hardly be heard over the noisy foolishness of
human certainties."
Someone
else put it this way: knowledge has right answers;
wisdom has right questions. So let me ask you
something: do you employ the power of a question?
Humanly
speaking, it is almost impossible to disregard a good
question. Just the phrase "Let me ask you. .
." arrests attention. Try it in your next
meeting. Used wisely (only you know if you're using
it to manipulate), a question is your passage to new
information, more time to think, and the regard of the
people you're talking to. In our culture, questions
show interest; they flatter. As a business leader, I
also observe that good questions sharpen my employees' own
thinking, and we're all better for it.
"I
Don't Know"
When
Billy Graham turned seventy, a Newsweek interviewer
asked him why, given his mighty public influence, he never
ran for political office. Mr. Graham told the
reporter he wasn't smart enough. Away from
headlines, a brilliant attorney acknowledged that he
avoided a certain branch of law because he had failed at
it miserably. Unfortunately, though, these men are
the exceptions.
Great
men and women, accomplished artists, gifted leaders, I
observe, who are confident about their strengths are
equally comfortable admitting their weaknesses. In
fact, show me an expert willing to say, "I don't
know," and I'll show you a constituency who trusts
what he or she does know.
I am
not advocating a string of shrugs, needless ignorance, or
lack of preparation. But I do suggest that, along
with the phrases "In my opinion," "What do
you think?" and "Let me ask you a
question," is the confidence-inspiring habit of
refusing to blow smoke. I would even suggest that
people who say "I don't know" usually know more
than it might appear, while those who don't ever
acknowledge it almost certainly know less.
One
of the best things leaders can do for their children,
spouses, employees, clients, and anyone else is to make it
acceptable not to know. In an atmosphere of honest
questioning, people are more likely to collaborate--to
shoot out suggestions, think out loud, and discover
information no single know-it-all could have developed
alone.
Small
things often make the biggest impact--thinking like a
customer, admitting to not knowing everything, asking for
help. Just take a look around then join the minority
who understand and practice these simple principles.
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I think that one of the most important elements of
recognizing ourselves and others as spiritual beings
is simply the amazing equality that such a perspective
reflects. As human beings, we're constantly
judging other people and reacting to them based more
on our judgments than on their actions or words or
selves. We judge based on a whole bunch of
things that we've convinced ourselves are
important--skin color, gender, accents, performance,
national origin, or any of a slew of other criteria.
But guess what? When we see each other as
spirits, there's no such thing as judgment, for we
know for sure that we're on equal footing with the
others in our lives. That doesn't mean that
everyone's an angel or that other people don't do
seriously stupid or rude things, but it does mean that
we can recognize that what we're watching is that
spirit's humanness getting in the way. One of
our goals here is to overcome all the limitations that
our humanness puts on us, and the people who are still
doing rude or mean or dumb things haven't yet learned
to respect themselves and to use effectively the
brains and the bodies that they've been given.
Try this sometime: When you meet someone, ask
yourself two random questions about that person.
For example, you might wonder what that person's
greatest fear is and what that person's favorite
flavor of ice cream. As soon as you do that,
you're inside that person, aren't you? You're
thinking about the depths of that person's spirit,
even if on a fairly superficial level. Suddenly
that person has fears and desires and hopes and dreams
and he or she is not simply a black woman or an
oriental man or a Caucasian child. Suddenly, nationality and skin
color mean nothing, for they have absolutely nothing
to do with a great fear or a favorite flavor.
And once you do this, you should be able to relate to
this person on an even deeper level. And you
should be able to see other people around you in a
similar way--as fellow spirits making their ways
through a human experience. And you'll be able
to look completely past the surface in order to wonder
at the depth. You'll start to feel the
connection that we are all born with, but that we lose
so soon after people start teaching us how to be
human. Have you ever noticed how little children
look at each other as if they know each other
already? That's something that we lose quickly
as we learn to judge others based strictly upon what
we see. But what about how we feel when we meet
others? That's very real, isn't it?
Unfortunately, most of us tend not to trust our
feelings nearly as much as we trust our vision.
Wouldn't it be great to be a part of a world in which
people didn't see each other as races or nationalities
or religions or ethnicities? But it's important
to keep an important fact in mind: If we're going to live in such a world,
then people have to change how they see others, and we
need to look with new eyes and feel more strongly as
individuals. And the change has to start on an
individual level--and it has to start with you and
with me. I've already started making the effort
(though I'll be the first to admit that I'm not
completely there yet!), so I invite you to join me in
this effort, on this journey. If you and I can
start doing this and encouraging more people to do so
also, then eventually more and more people will be
able to look at their fellow spirits without judging
them a bit on their skin color or any other completely
superficial criterion. So let's start!
Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week.
Kindness
is one of the gentle expressions of love. We grow in grace
when
we become aware that one of God's gifts to us can be that we
may share
our loving kindness with all of creation. People all
over the
world are seeking
peace of mind, solutions to everyday problems,
better relationships with other
people, and a more meaningful way of
life. Surely we are aware of the room
for improvement within
ourselves and in our life. A healthy serving of loving
kindness--both giving and receiving--could make a difference!
Creativity--what a loaded
word! There are those who copy someone else's work and
consider themselves to be creative; there are those who do truly
unique and amazing work who don't consider themselves to be
creative at all. I may look at a painting and see an
extremely creative work, while you may look at the same one and
see a derivative piece of work with little creativity at
all. And we're probably both right.
From my experience, this difficulty in defining the concept of
creativity is one of the biggest hindrances to living a creative
life. Someone who doesn't consider him- or herself to be
creative often stops trying to be creative. After all, why
try to be creative if they always just come up short? This
is a nice little craft that I've created, but so many other really
creative people are so much more creative than I am, so there's
really no reason for me to keep doing what I'm doing. I'm
better off not trying to be creative, because then I don't get
frustrated at my own efforts.
Creativity, though, isn't a comparative activity. It's not a
race, and it's not a competition--though we've definitely warped
the concept by awarding prizes for creative works that are somehow
"better" than others. If we're able to keep in
mind that our creativity is an important part of who we are and
that how other people view our creative efforts truly doesn't
matter in the long run, perhaps we can allow ourselves to pursue
more creative pursuits without judging the outcomes so much--the
novels you read aren't first drafts, after all, and the paintings
you see come from years of practice, not just picking up a brush
and some paint and having a go at a canvas.
Creativity belongs to the
artist in each of us. To create
means to relate. The root meaning of the word art is to
fit together and we
all do this
every day. . . . Each
time we fit things together we are creating--whether
it is to make a loaf of bread, a child, a day.
Corita Kent and Jan Steward
If you want to
let creativity be an important part of your life,
the first thing you need to be able to do is to
start without a preconceived notion of what a
finished product is going to be like. Having a
general idea is always good, but often our idea of
what something should look like or sound like gets
in the way of letting ourselves be truly creative.
If I start a painting and I "know" what
it's supposed to look like, there's a good chance
that after two hours, when the painting doesn't look
anything like I want it to, I'll give up. If
I'm trying to paint a landscape and things don't
look just right, I can get frustrated and annoyed
and give up the project--and believe me, I've done
this. If I'm being creative, though, I know
that what I'm creating does not have to look just
like what I'm painting, and I can let go and try to
enjoy the process, letting the painting or drawing
take on a life of its own and become a new
"creation," not simply a copy of what I've
seen.
Another important element of creativity is
time--creativity doesn't just happen spontaneously
(though it can). We have to set aside time for
our creative pursuits, allowing ourselves the
opportunity not just to get started, but to continue
with them. It doesn't have to be hours on end,
obviously--many people give themselves twenty or
thirty minutes a day, which comes out to be two or
three hours a week, or eight to twelve hours a
month. You'll be surprised how quickly such
short periods of time add up, and you'll be pleased
at how much you actually accomplish in such a short
period over the course of time.
When you give yourself time, make sure that you
eliminate distractions as much as you can.
It's not hard to imagine why people with small
children in the house rarely write bestsellers or
paint a significant number of paintings, unless
they're renting a studio elsewhere. Small
children are wonderful blessings, of course, and if
we actually listen to them and pay attention to them
we can learn a lot about creativity, but they do
tend to distract us from whatever task we have at
hand. Likewise, turn off the cell phone.
Don't go online. Stay focused on your task for
the time you've allotted--the world will continue to
turn without your contribution for those few
minutes.
Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives. . . most of
the things that are interesting, important, and human are the
results of creativity. . . when we are involved in it, we feel
that we are living more fully than during the rest of life.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Two of the most
important things that I've done in order to stay
creative have been to redefine my definition of
creativity and to respect the creative
process. To me, doing something new and
different can be creative, be that rearranging the
furniture in the living room, writing a novel,
drawing a picture, or making a dinner. I try
to do things in a way I hadn't thought of before, or
in a way I hadn't seen before. This doesn't
always work out well, but that's fine--it's just as
important to find out what doesn't work while I'm
being creative as it is to find out what does
work. And things can always be modified to
make them work--or a piece of paper with a bad poem
can be tossed in the trash. This is called
respecting the process. In that process, there
will be some "failures"--which to me
aren't failures at all if I learn something
important from them.
It's also important to decide for yourself just
what's creative and what's not. I have a
coloring book, for example, and I enjoy using
it. To me, though, it's not a creative
endeavor because all I'm doing is filling in blank
spaces with color. And I understand the
argument that says that because I'm choosing the
colors, I'm being creative, but I simply don't see
it that way. I do see it as an important form
of meditation, and as I said, I love doing it.
I simply don't see it as creative. If someone
else does, that's fine with me, but it doesn't mean
that I have to do so. Nor would I tell another
person that it isn't creative for them to do
it--their views of creativity and mine are obviously
quite different.
Another important thing to do if you want to make
creativity a part of your life is to try new things
to see how they feel for you. The chances are
that you can't become an accomplished painter in a
couple of weeks, but there's nothing saying that you
can't buy a few brushes, a couple tubes of paint and
a few canvases and give painting a shot. If
you try writing poetry, you won't need anything
other than some paper and a pen or pencil. If
you want to be creative in the kitchen, of course,
you'll need an assortment of spices and other
ingredients; if you want to decorate your house in a
creative manner, you will need to spend money--not
necessarily tons, but you should budget something
for the endeavor.
And have you thought about being creative at
work? Many jobs limit the amount of creativity
that we can bring to them by their very nature, but
very often we can look for new ways of doing things,
new methods of filing stuff, new ways of visualizing
the work that we do in order to make it more
effective or interesting or even enjoyable. If
you work at a place that sells or produces very
specific items, you obviously won't be able to be
creative with the items, but perhaps you can create
ways of making those items that may even improve
their quality.
Creativity
is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks,
breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.
Mary
Lou Cook
It's also
extremely important to support others with their
creativity, to experience their creativity as much
as you can--even help with it if possible. We
are creative beings, and we're also social beings,
so participating together in creative endeavors is
very important to us. We learn from them, they
learn from us, and we all grow and develop as
people.
I want to be
creative as much as I can be. I want to do
things in new ways so that I don't stagnate and
start doing everything in the same old ways all the
time. I also want to express myself
creatively, to share my ideas with other people in
creative and different ways. And I don't want
my creative efforts to be judged, except in ways
that may help me to improve them. If they are
truly creative, though, there's really no need for
improvement--they're nice just as they are and while
the next one may be better, this creative effort has
resulted in something important for me. Live
your life creatively--trust yourself to be creative,
and push yourself to try more creative things.
We're blessed to have been born with the capacity to
create, so let's use that ability as best as we can!
To
know how little one knows is to have genuine knowledge.
Not to know how little one knows is to be deluded. Only
those
who know when they are deluded can free themselves
from such
delusion. The intelligent people are not deluded,
because they
know and accept their ignorance as ignorance,
and thereby have genuine knowledge.
Seven Ways to Cultivate a
Mental Attitude
That Will Bring You Peace and Happiness Dale Carnegie
Rule 1: Let's fill our minds with
thoughts of peace, courage, health,
and hope, for "our life is what our thoughts make it."
Rule 2: Let's never try to get
even with our enemies, because if we do
we will hurt ourselves far more than we hurt them. Let's
do as General
Eisenhower does: let's never waste a minute thinking about
people we don't like.
Rule 3: A. Instead of worrying about ingratitude,
let's expect it. Let's remember
that Jesus healed ten lepers in one day--and only one thanked
him. Why should
we expect more gratitude than Jesus got?
B. Let's remember that the only way to find happiness is
not to expect
gratitude--but to give for the joy of giving.
C. Let's remember that gratitude is a
"cultivated" trait; so if we want our
children to be grateful, we must train them to be grateful.
Rule 4: Count your blessings--not your troubles!
Rule 5: Let's not imitate others. Let's find
ourselves and be ourselves, for
"envy is ignorance" and "imitation is
suicide."
Rule 6: When fate hands us a lemon, let's try to make a lemonade.
Rule 7: Let's forget our own unhappiness--by trying to
create a little
happiness for others. "When you are good to others,
you are best to yourself."
The
practice of loving kindness must find its root deep within
us. The story is told that Mohandas Gandhi once settled in a
village and at once began serving the needs of the villagers who
lived there. A friend inquired if Gandhi's objectives in
serving the poor were purely humanitarian. Gandhi replied,
"Not at all. I am here to serve no one else but myself,
to find my own self-realization through the service of these
village folk."
As Gandhi wisely
points out, even as we serve others we are working on ourselves;
every act, every word, every gesture of genuine compassion
naturally nourishes our own hearts as well. It is not a
question of who is healed first. When we attend to ourselves
with compassion and mercy, more healing is made available for
others. And when we serve others with an open and generous
heart, great healing comes to us.
Wayne
Muller
Love
is when I am concerned with your relationship
with your own
life, rather than with your relationship
to mine. . . . There must be a
commitment to each
other’s well-being.Most people who say they
have
a commitment don’t; they have an attachment. Commitment
means, “I am going to stick with you
and support your experience
of well-being.” Attachment means, “I am stuck without you.”
Stewart Emery
Yes, life
can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's
actually rather dependable and reliable. Some principles apply
to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called
universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use
them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever
learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning. I use it a lot when I
teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to
the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.
What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or
generous, compassionate or arrogant? In this book, I've done my
best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life,
writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.
Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too! Universal Principles of Living Life Fully. Awareness of
these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration
out of the lives we lead.
Explore all of our
quotations pages--these links will take you to the first page of each
topic, and those pages will contain links to any additional pages on
the same topic (there are five pages on adversity, for example).
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