Vincent van Gogh: lifetime failure or immortal success?
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
- Vincent van Gogh, Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)
You may have heard of the author of this quote. To many--believe this or not--he is a failed painter. Famous, maybe, but a failure.
Why could anyone consider one of the greatest painters in history a failure? Because he never sold a painting during his lifetime. Well, maybe one, if you consider a purchase by his brother Theo, who supported him financially for the last years of his life.
He was a teacher, a parson (at least he aspired to be one), a missionary and an employee of an art dealer. He was very ill for many years, resulting in long pauses between his painting pieces. Illness, among those who are financially successful, is considered a life failure. (How many financially wealthy and powerful people do you know who have disabilities or chronic illnesses?)
His teeth became loose and painful from his poor diet. He spent much of the money Theo sent him on art supplies, not food. At one point he told his brother that he had only eaten about six hot meals in the previous year. And he bought absinthe, his primary alcoholic vice. He may have had syphilis, as he was treated by Dr. Amadeus Cavenaile, whose office was near the docklands and was well known for treating those with the disease.
Does this not sound much like the dropouts, losers and failures of today’s society? He only lived 37 years, which we might expect today of drug addicts and the homeless.
However, Vincent was different from most people. Despite his failures, disappointments and bad turns in life, and his poor health when he was supposed to be at his most productive time of life, he had confidence in himself.
Vincent van Gogh dared to take chances with his beloved art. He painted differently from the majority of painters who made their living by selling their art. Who are they and where are their paintings now? we might well ask.
Exactly. Van Gogh is remembered, respected, admired, praised and revered for using the talents he had to produce something worthwhile. Most of the others are forgotten.
Van Gogh has already been dead many times more years than he lived. Yet he is still considered among those at the top of the field.
He dared to be different. He dared to subject himself to ridicule--artists have been known to be cruel when critiquing each other’s work.
If you want to be remembered long after you have passed from this mortal coil, you must do something worth remembering. That doesn’t have to be artistic, athletic or economic. The founding librarian at my local library will be remembered for many years to come so long as her photo continues to be mounted on the wall in the main lobby.
What van Gogh produced benefited others long after his death. You can do something with the rest of your life so that you will be remembered as well. Do something to help others. I mean, to really help others, not to contribute cash so that others can help them.
That’s why we are here on this planet. That’s why we remember the helpful ones, those who benefit others, long aftger they are gone. True, we also remember the brutal killers, but they act as foils so that we know what is wrong and what people can do to go wrong. In their peculiar way, even the great perpetrators of genocide through history show us that we should not act like them, must prevent others like them from gaining power.
Help someone. Help someone up, not out. Those we consider failures today don’t want to be failures. Some desperately want to improve their lot in life, but don’t know how. They don’t have one person who really cares for their welfare and their future. Many have given up on their own future, which leads others to believe they like living their present lifestyle. No, they just quit fighting.
Theo van Gogh only gave his brother money, which allowed Vincent to paint. But if Vincent had been given care and help by someone with his life, what might he have accomplished during his lifetime?
We don’t have answers to these questions. All we can do is to look ahead to what we can accomplish with the rest of our own lives. We can help others.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today’s Epidemic Social Problems, a common sense guidebook, in common language, for parents, teachers and others who want to help children grow to be all they can be. It’s for people who care and want to make a difference in the world.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Showing posts with label confidence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label confidence. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Friday, April 03, 2009
What Makes Life Worthwhile?
A life that is meaningful, every single day, is rare in this world. Your life was a gift to you. Make it a gift to the world.
- Elizabeth May, American-born Canadian activist, writer, politician (b.1954 )
What is a meaningful life? What does it mean for a life to be meaningful?
In the final days of your life, as you look back over your many years, will you ask yourself if your life has been meaningful? Likely.
What will be your answer? That depends on what you define as meaningful.
For some people living through the most productive years of their lives, living a meaningful life means having the respect of others. That could mean accumulating as much personal fortune as possible or as many valuable objects as you can. That's called materialism and it's prevalent in most large cities today.
This kind of materialism is so common because our industries and education systems teach it. Money rules. He who dies with the most toys wins.The values of needs of industry rule what gets taught in classrooms.
It seems like sheer greed. But it's more like the leaders of industry indoctrinating their employees in the need to earn progressively greater income, to wear increasingly expensive, fashionable and well tailored clothing, to buy an upscale vehicle each time, to own a house that is bigger than needed, to have a mortgage that would have crushed their parents, to belong to the most exclusive clubs they can.
In turn, the employees teach these values to their own children. The process and value system spread exponentially. Soon everyone in the neighbourhood, the city, all cities in the country believe it. Because "that's what everyone believes. They all say that." Comments about the "rat race" go unheeded as whining by losers.
I would like to relate two personal instances to you, from my life. The first has to do with my first wife. We were many years divorced when she was diagnosed with cancer that had metastasized through her body. She spent 15 months at home, alone, thinking about her life.
We separated and divorced because she adopted the feminist propaganda of the day that held that families and husbands prevented women from "reaching their full potential." Once she left me with our children to raise, she rose from resource teacher to vice principal then to principal within a few years. She was highly respected and recognized in her field, frequently asked to lead special events for teachers, such as college courses.
She made the money. She had the clothes and the car and the house. She never missed a child support payment.
Fifteen months turned out to be a very long time to ruminate over how meaningful her life had been. Especially living alone, with dwindling visits from her own children and her one friend. She had no visits from colleagues who once shared her values. She was no longer of value to them.
She died in hospital, surrounded by medical personnel. But still alone. About six weeks earlier, in a phone conversation, she said "I made some mistakes in my marriage." She still didn't get it, that it was "our" marriage. There was no doubt she spent most of her waking hours reviewing her life.
To late to change it then.
Fast forward several years to 2006 when my present wife and I decided to change our place of residence. Knowing we wanted to leave the Canadian province where we lived but not knowing where, we decided to spend the next two years researching and visiting the most likely possibilities.
Using the internet and telephone, we narrowed our first choice quickly to Miramichi, New Brunswick. About all we knew about Miramichi was that it had lots of water (rivers) flowing through it and nearby in the northern New Brunswick hinterlands. And that its people shared the well known friendliness of Canadian Maritimers.
On our first vacation visit to Miramichi, we were pleased by the settings and value of properties we saw, but shocked by the people. Miramichiers were unlike any people we had ever met in Ontario. They seemed to actually care about strangers. When they asked how you were, they waited to hear an answer because it mattered to them.
We decided to take our second vacation visit in 2006 to Miramichi as well. The shock of meeting people remained the same.
We discovered that people were more important to them than money. Though Miramichi is a relatively poor part of Canada in terms of accumulated wealth, the people respect themselves and each other. Even, as we learned, strangers. No one can look bewildered or lost or to have a problem in The Miramichi (as the region is known) without someone stopping to ask if they can help.
Sometimes, as New Brunswick is officially bilingual English/French, the helper could speak little or no English, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that someone apparently needed assistance. One stranger outside a library advised us to look at a house for sale he thought we might like nearby--he liked it but wouldn't put an offer on it if we wanted to buy it.
Another overheard my wife ask a clerk in a big store for postcards, which the store didn't carry and few stores did. The woman searched a store she thought she remembered had postcards, found the store, then waited in the middle of the mall for us to emerge so she could tell us where to find the cards we sought. These were just two small examples of the many offers of help we received.
In 2008 we bought a property outside of Miramichi. Since moving we have learned that Miramichiers and the Miramichi itself make our new home the best place on earth we could have found to live.
There you have two examples, one of a person who believed that money was the most important thing in life and another of people who believe that people are always more important, the most important thing in life.
The people of the Miramichi make every day meaningful. They live happy. They die fulfilled.
If you decide to move to the Miramichi, please leave your values, your prejudices and your materialist preferences behind. If you don't, you will be lonely here.
Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers and parents who want to grow children into adults who can lead fulfilling lives without sacrificing themselves to the masters of industry.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Elizabeth May, American-born Canadian activist, writer, politician (b.1954 )
What is a meaningful life? What does it mean for a life to be meaningful?
In the final days of your life, as you look back over your many years, will you ask yourself if your life has been meaningful? Likely.
What will be your answer? That depends on what you define as meaningful.
For some people living through the most productive years of their lives, living a meaningful life means having the respect of others. That could mean accumulating as much personal fortune as possible or as many valuable objects as you can. That's called materialism and it's prevalent in most large cities today.
This kind of materialism is so common because our industries and education systems teach it. Money rules. He who dies with the most toys wins.The values of needs of industry rule what gets taught in classrooms.
It seems like sheer greed. But it's more like the leaders of industry indoctrinating their employees in the need to earn progressively greater income, to wear increasingly expensive, fashionable and well tailored clothing, to buy an upscale vehicle each time, to own a house that is bigger than needed, to have a mortgage that would have crushed their parents, to belong to the most exclusive clubs they can.
In turn, the employees teach these values to their own children. The process and value system spread exponentially. Soon everyone in the neighbourhood, the city, all cities in the country believe it. Because "that's what everyone believes. They all say that." Comments about the "rat race" go unheeded as whining by losers.
I would like to relate two personal instances to you, from my life. The first has to do with my first wife. We were many years divorced when she was diagnosed with cancer that had metastasized through her body. She spent 15 months at home, alone, thinking about her life.
We separated and divorced because she adopted the feminist propaganda of the day that held that families and husbands prevented women from "reaching their full potential." Once she left me with our children to raise, she rose from resource teacher to vice principal then to principal within a few years. She was highly respected and recognized in her field, frequently asked to lead special events for teachers, such as college courses.
She made the money. She had the clothes and the car and the house. She never missed a child support payment.
Fifteen months turned out to be a very long time to ruminate over how meaningful her life had been. Especially living alone, with dwindling visits from her own children and her one friend. She had no visits from colleagues who once shared her values. She was no longer of value to them.
She died in hospital, surrounded by medical personnel. But still alone. About six weeks earlier, in a phone conversation, she said "I made some mistakes in my marriage." She still didn't get it, that it was "our" marriage. There was no doubt she spent most of her waking hours reviewing her life.
To late to change it then.
Fast forward several years to 2006 when my present wife and I decided to change our place of residence. Knowing we wanted to leave the Canadian province where we lived but not knowing where, we decided to spend the next two years researching and visiting the most likely possibilities.
Using the internet and telephone, we narrowed our first choice quickly to Miramichi, New Brunswick. About all we knew about Miramichi was that it had lots of water (rivers) flowing through it and nearby in the northern New Brunswick hinterlands. And that its people shared the well known friendliness of Canadian Maritimers.
On our first vacation visit to Miramichi, we were pleased by the settings and value of properties we saw, but shocked by the people. Miramichiers were unlike any people we had ever met in Ontario. They seemed to actually care about strangers. When they asked how you were, they waited to hear an answer because it mattered to them.
We decided to take our second vacation visit in 2006 to Miramichi as well. The shock of meeting people remained the same.
We discovered that people were more important to them than money. Though Miramichi is a relatively poor part of Canada in terms of accumulated wealth, the people respect themselves and each other. Even, as we learned, strangers. No one can look bewildered or lost or to have a problem in The Miramichi (as the region is known) without someone stopping to ask if they can help.
Sometimes, as New Brunswick is officially bilingual English/French, the helper could speak little or no English, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that someone apparently needed assistance. One stranger outside a library advised us to look at a house for sale he thought we might like nearby--he liked it but wouldn't put an offer on it if we wanted to buy it.
Another overheard my wife ask a clerk in a big store for postcards, which the store didn't carry and few stores did. The woman searched a store she thought she remembered had postcards, found the store, then waited in the middle of the mall for us to emerge so she could tell us where to find the cards we sought. These were just two small examples of the many offers of help we received.
In 2008 we bought a property outside of Miramichi. Since moving we have learned that Miramichiers and the Miramichi itself make our new home the best place on earth we could have found to live.
There you have two examples, one of a person who believed that money was the most important thing in life and another of people who believe that people are always more important, the most important thing in life.
The people of the Miramichi make every day meaningful. They live happy. They die fulfilled.
If you decide to move to the Miramichi, please leave your values, your prejudices and your materialist preferences behind. If you don't, you will be lonely here.
Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers and parents who want to grow children into adults who can lead fulfilling lives without sacrificing themselves to the masters of industry.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Friday, August 29, 2008
Why So Many Women Get It So Wrong
For a woman, finding the right man to love her the way she wants to be loved, to be a good father to the children they create together and to provide a healthy, vibrant, creative and enjoyable family environment that will last a lifetime is almost impossible.
Why? While there are many reasons, a few stand out.
Most commonly, a woman goes looking for the wrong guy. Back in prehistoric days, a woman wanted a strong man, the best warrior in the tribe, someone who could provide for and defend her family. If he was good looking, even better. If he fertilized other women, so be it, so long as he looked after the best interests of her family.
That attitude persists today, even though almost everything else in life has changed. Women still want the handsomest, strongest, sexiest guy with demonstrated ability at leadership as he gathers other guys to follow his lead. Anyone who doubts this should check out how girls in the latter years of grade school and in high school tart themselves up for the guys. They may want to be treated as sweet and innocent, but they look and act like hookers because they know what guys like to look at.
No question, guys like to look at attractive women. If they could, they would take every one of them to bed. But they wouldn't necessarily want to spend their lives with them.
If I guy can score with a girl who looks and acts like a hooker, but not have to pay fees, he considers himself a winner. And so would his buddies. But guys don't want to marry hookers, because...they have proven that they have too many other sexual interests. Girls who look like hookers and put out sexual vibes like hookers may get the attention of guys, but those guys don't want to marry them.
The same applies to the captain of the football or basketball team, or any other jock who looks good stripped to...well, stripped. While most girls are attracted to these guys, many have none of the other qualities a woman should be looking for. That "get the best possible male to mate with" attitude persists even though we no longer live in tribes.
The best warrior in the tribe in prehistoric days seldom lived past age 24, almost never past age 30. Since the tribe did much of the teaching of children anyway, getting the best set of genes seemed wise. The warrior would always be busy with matters other than those relating to the family, and women knew that. Today, the same guy would be a terrible person to depend on for personal and family values.
Today, most men live past 30. It's the next 50 or 60 years after that the women who marry them can't stand.
Very few of the skills a young man learns in high school apply to the fulfillment of responsibilities of a family man. We don't teach the skills that families need, that women should be looking for. So young women continue to want the best looking guy they can get. And when they marry and he fails to satisfy the needs of her or their children, they can't figure out why.
The most popular girls and guys in high school get so used to constant attention from members of the opposite sex that they continue to want that attention into college, into their work lives later and into their time as parents. They don't need commitment, they need attention. Girls should want a life partner who gives attention, not one who seeks it from them.
Girls naturally favour men with confidence. Whether in men or women, confidence is the most important characteristic of beautiful people. An average looking person with lots of confidence and a big smile can be a sex symbol. Just look at the stars of movies, only they have the addition of makeup to make them look even more perfect. Brad Pitt may be great for the imagination, but few women could tolerate spending a life with that kind of man.
As great as confidence is--I firmly believe it is critically important to a person's well-being--it does absolutely nothing to make a man a better husband, lover, father, provider or planner. Confidence is but one characteristic of a person. That characteristic can be taught and learned. Most people who have confidence learned it by themselves, though it can be learned by taking classes of various kinds.
Those who don't have confidence in themselves and their abilities and strengths should take a class to learn how to show confidence, to feel confident.
Men need more skills than confidence, good looks and rippling muscles to be good husbands, fathers and long term friends. For a woman to depend on the looks of a man as the main feature she loves and wants would be the same as a man loving a woman because she has breast implants, a tummy tuck, butt rounding, a nose job, reconfigured ears and a hair transplant. Every study ever done shows that most men don't want those features in a wife and mother. A majority of men want "natural" women, no matter if they have body features that are not perfect.
Women shouldn't depend on good looks and popularity as characteristics that will make a man a good husband and father. In fact, nothing about the appearance of a man, good or not so good, can be held as predictors of what he will be like as a husband, lover, father, provider, friend or sleepmate.
Advice to women: When looking for a mate, search for one who has the characteristics you want in a man for what you want to do with him in the years to come. If one you like doesn't have those characteristics, make sure he is the kind of man who will gladly learn what he needs to know. If he won't, look elsewhere, quickly.
Advice to men who have read this far: The same applies to you when looking for a lifemate. Paris Hilton or Salma Hayak or someone with the name of Diaz or Cruz may be great to ogle, but they won't necessarily have the characteristics you want at home. And they will always want the attention they get now from other men.
It's not just a matter of caveat emptor. It's a matter of looking for what you really want rather than wanting someone who looks good but has nothing else to offer that you will find valuable in the years to come.
Think ahead. Unfortunately, most people don't get better with age. If you want a partner that will, look for that characteristic before you settle.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who know how to cope with the needs of their lives instead of depending on television and movies to tell them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Why? While there are many reasons, a few stand out.
Most commonly, a woman goes looking for the wrong guy. Back in prehistoric days, a woman wanted a strong man, the best warrior in the tribe, someone who could provide for and defend her family. If he was good looking, even better. If he fertilized other women, so be it, so long as he looked after the best interests of her family.
That attitude persists today, even though almost everything else in life has changed. Women still want the handsomest, strongest, sexiest guy with demonstrated ability at leadership as he gathers other guys to follow his lead. Anyone who doubts this should check out how girls in the latter years of grade school and in high school tart themselves up for the guys. They may want to be treated as sweet and innocent, but they look and act like hookers because they know what guys like to look at.
No question, guys like to look at attractive women. If they could, they would take every one of them to bed. But they wouldn't necessarily want to spend their lives with them.
If I guy can score with a girl who looks and acts like a hooker, but not have to pay fees, he considers himself a winner. And so would his buddies. But guys don't want to marry hookers, because...they have proven that they have too many other sexual interests. Girls who look like hookers and put out sexual vibes like hookers may get the attention of guys, but those guys don't want to marry them.
The same applies to the captain of the football or basketball team, or any other jock who looks good stripped to...well, stripped. While most girls are attracted to these guys, many have none of the other qualities a woman should be looking for. That "get the best possible male to mate with" attitude persists even though we no longer live in tribes.
The best warrior in the tribe in prehistoric days seldom lived past age 24, almost never past age 30. Since the tribe did much of the teaching of children anyway, getting the best set of genes seemed wise. The warrior would always be busy with matters other than those relating to the family, and women knew that. Today, the same guy would be a terrible person to depend on for personal and family values.
Today, most men live past 30. It's the next 50 or 60 years after that the women who marry them can't stand.
Very few of the skills a young man learns in high school apply to the fulfillment of responsibilities of a family man. We don't teach the skills that families need, that women should be looking for. So young women continue to want the best looking guy they can get. And when they marry and he fails to satisfy the needs of her or their children, they can't figure out why.
The most popular girls and guys in high school get so used to constant attention from members of the opposite sex that they continue to want that attention into college, into their work lives later and into their time as parents. They don't need commitment, they need attention. Girls should want a life partner who gives attention, not one who seeks it from them.
Girls naturally favour men with confidence. Whether in men or women, confidence is the most important characteristic of beautiful people. An average looking person with lots of confidence and a big smile can be a sex symbol. Just look at the stars of movies, only they have the addition of makeup to make them look even more perfect. Brad Pitt may be great for the imagination, but few women could tolerate spending a life with that kind of man.
As great as confidence is--I firmly believe it is critically important to a person's well-being--it does absolutely nothing to make a man a better husband, lover, father, provider or planner. Confidence is but one characteristic of a person. That characteristic can be taught and learned. Most people who have confidence learned it by themselves, though it can be learned by taking classes of various kinds.
Those who don't have confidence in themselves and their abilities and strengths should take a class to learn how to show confidence, to feel confident.
Men need more skills than confidence, good looks and rippling muscles to be good husbands, fathers and long term friends. For a woman to depend on the looks of a man as the main feature she loves and wants would be the same as a man loving a woman because she has breast implants, a tummy tuck, butt rounding, a nose job, reconfigured ears and a hair transplant. Every study ever done shows that most men don't want those features in a wife and mother. A majority of men want "natural" women, no matter if they have body features that are not perfect.
Women shouldn't depend on good looks and popularity as characteristics that will make a man a good husband and father. In fact, nothing about the appearance of a man, good or not so good, can be held as predictors of what he will be like as a husband, lover, father, provider, friend or sleepmate.
Advice to women: When looking for a mate, search for one who has the characteristics you want in a man for what you want to do with him in the years to come. If one you like doesn't have those characteristics, make sure he is the kind of man who will gladly learn what he needs to know. If he won't, look elsewhere, quickly.
Advice to men who have read this far: The same applies to you when looking for a lifemate. Paris Hilton or Salma Hayak or someone with the name of Diaz or Cruz may be great to ogle, but they won't necessarily have the characteristics you want at home. And they will always want the attention they get now from other men.
It's not just a matter of caveat emptor. It's a matter of looking for what you really want rather than wanting someone who looks good but has nothing else to offer that you will find valuable in the years to come.
Think ahead. Unfortunately, most people don't get better with age. If you want a partner that will, look for that characteristic before you settle.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who know how to cope with the needs of their lives instead of depending on television and movies to tell them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Friday, March 28, 2008
Your First Step To Success
Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity. Successful men/women act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results.
- Dupree Jordan, American biologist, educator (1851-1931)
Lack of self confidence, of self assurance, of belief that you are worthy of the admiration of others if they only knew your qualities and talents, your skills and knowledge, shows on your face, in the expression on your face (facial language), in the way you carry your body (body language), in the position in which you place yourself in relation to someone you are speaking with, in the manner in which you speak.
Belief in yourself as lacking success and self worth shows on you as much looking successful and confident does on someone who feels successful and worthy of admiration. Others will treat you accordingly.
Part of the skill of exuding self confidence can be learned, such as what you need to do to give the perception of success and confidence. The other part, perhaps the more important part, is attitude. That's what you believe about yourself.
Despite what some guides to success will tell you, how you dress has little to do with the perception of you by others of success. Bill Gates, of Microsoft, for example, dresses casually--more correctly like a geek--all the time, though few would ever say he lacks confidence. If your footwear doesn't fit with the rest of your attire, that is apt to tell more about you than whether you are dressed formally, casually or in grubbies.
One of the main reasons that people lack confidence in their abilities is that they don't have sufficient knowledge, skills and abilities to feel confident about. That's a simple matter of filling in gaps in your knowledge or skill sets.
In a casual discussion you must know at least enough to keep the conversation going so that you can come across as a good listener. If the discussion is more like a debate, then you must know more than the others involved or your lack of information will be revealed.
Knowledge and skills do not gift themselves to you within your genetic code. You earn them with hard work. Something you learn today may do you no good for another 30 years, but when you can bring it up in a discuss then it shows you to have both a good memory and a deep base of knowledge.
Read, observe, listen and learn. There's no such thing as knowing too much. Where a problem arises is when you know a great deal about one subject but next to nothing about most others. You can't carry a good conversation if you don't have enough knowledge to participation in a broad range of subjects. If you know only one subject well, you may try to dominate conversations about that subject to show yourself well, but that could turn people away too.
Bill Gates began his adult life as a computer geek. But he learned a huge amount about business, about public speaking, about personnel management. Now he's learning about what it's like to be a benefactor as he gives away billions of dollars each year, computers and software to schools, and dollars for research into cures for disease, especially AIDS. He didn't stop learning when he had expertise in one subject area.
Acting with confidence while having little to back it up with may not be wise either. Most of us have met people who seem confident to the max, but you can't get them to do much or to say much of value because they don't have the stuff to fill their self-inflated balloon of confidence.
You don't have to be an expert to be confident in yourself. Most pretty people are confident, yet airheads if you get them into a serious conversation. They are so used to gaining attention for their beauty that they have to keep the conversation light so their basic ignorance of most subjects isn't revealed.
How can you become recognized for your knowledge long before you know a huge amount about a subject? Learn something then talk about it. Watch a documentary, then include information about that subject in a conversation the next day. Read the newspaper daily, then include facts about a story in your water cooler chats. Read a good book, then be prepared to recommend it to others. Cumulatively, these all add to your aura of being a knowledgeable person.
Act confident and successful, but keep your mouth shut when you don't know much. That's when your skill of being a good listener comes to advantage. A good listener will hear something, then ask a question which the speaker will appreciate because it indicates that the listener has been paying attention and thinking about what he or she has heard. And you will learn in the process.
You can act confident and successful when you don't know much about the topic of conversation but you look confident and ask relevant questions so that your participation is recognized and appreciated.
Nobody knows everything. You only have to know enough when it's your turn to speak and to keep quiet when you don't have relevant information at hand. In between you can smile knowingly and nod at the right times.
Bill AllinTurning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, an incomparable manual for parents and teachers who want to have knowledge about how to respond best at the right times to the developmental stages of children.Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Dupree Jordan, American biologist, educator (1851-1931)
Lack of self confidence, of self assurance, of belief that you are worthy of the admiration of others if they only knew your qualities and talents, your skills and knowledge, shows on your face, in the expression on your face (facial language), in the way you carry your body (body language), in the position in which you place yourself in relation to someone you are speaking with, in the manner in which you speak.
Belief in yourself as lacking success and self worth shows on you as much looking successful and confident does on someone who feels successful and worthy of admiration. Others will treat you accordingly.
Part of the skill of exuding self confidence can be learned, such as what you need to do to give the perception of success and confidence. The other part, perhaps the more important part, is attitude. That's what you believe about yourself.
Despite what some guides to success will tell you, how you dress has little to do with the perception of you by others of success. Bill Gates, of Microsoft, for example, dresses casually--more correctly like a geek--all the time, though few would ever say he lacks confidence. If your footwear doesn't fit with the rest of your attire, that is apt to tell more about you than whether you are dressed formally, casually or in grubbies.
One of the main reasons that people lack confidence in their abilities is that they don't have sufficient knowledge, skills and abilities to feel confident about. That's a simple matter of filling in gaps in your knowledge or skill sets.
In a casual discussion you must know at least enough to keep the conversation going so that you can come across as a good listener. If the discussion is more like a debate, then you must know more than the others involved or your lack of information will be revealed.
Knowledge and skills do not gift themselves to you within your genetic code. You earn them with hard work. Something you learn today may do you no good for another 30 years, but when you can bring it up in a discuss then it shows you to have both a good memory and a deep base of knowledge.
Read, observe, listen and learn. There's no such thing as knowing too much. Where a problem arises is when you know a great deal about one subject but next to nothing about most others. You can't carry a good conversation if you don't have enough knowledge to participation in a broad range of subjects. If you know only one subject well, you may try to dominate conversations about that subject to show yourself well, but that could turn people away too.
Bill Gates began his adult life as a computer geek. But he learned a huge amount about business, about public speaking, about personnel management. Now he's learning about what it's like to be a benefactor as he gives away billions of dollars each year, computers and software to schools, and dollars for research into cures for disease, especially AIDS. He didn't stop learning when he had expertise in one subject area.
Acting with confidence while having little to back it up with may not be wise either. Most of us have met people who seem confident to the max, but you can't get them to do much or to say much of value because they don't have the stuff to fill their self-inflated balloon of confidence.
You don't have to be an expert to be confident in yourself. Most pretty people are confident, yet airheads if you get them into a serious conversation. They are so used to gaining attention for their beauty that they have to keep the conversation light so their basic ignorance of most subjects isn't revealed.
How can you become recognized for your knowledge long before you know a huge amount about a subject? Learn something then talk about it. Watch a documentary, then include information about that subject in a conversation the next day. Read the newspaper daily, then include facts about a story in your water cooler chats. Read a good book, then be prepared to recommend it to others. Cumulatively, these all add to your aura of being a knowledgeable person.
Act confident and successful, but keep your mouth shut when you don't know much. That's when your skill of being a good listener comes to advantage. A good listener will hear something, then ask a question which the speaker will appreciate because it indicates that the listener has been paying attention and thinking about what he or she has heard. And you will learn in the process.
You can act confident and successful when you don't know much about the topic of conversation but you look confident and ask relevant questions so that your participation is recognized and appreciated.
Nobody knows everything. You only have to know enough when it's your turn to speak and to keep quiet when you don't have relevant information at hand. In between you can smile knowingly and nod at the right times.
Bill AllinTurning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, an incomparable manual for parents and teachers who want to have knowledge about how to respond best at the right times to the developmental stages of children.Learn more at http://billallin.com
Friday, April 06, 2007
The Violent Proselytizers Are Winning
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.
- William Hazlitt
That quote is not true, strictly speaking, for these emotions are known to be expressed by other primates. But the point is well taken.
For the sake of discussion, let's divide everyone into two groups. There would be those who, as Hazlitt said, see the great differences between what things are and what they ought to be. And there would be those who know exactly how things should be and concern themselves at some length to see that what they believe should become what is.
On one side we have people (the vast majority, I believe) who know what should be but do little or nothing to see that it comes about. On the other we have people who are driven to make something happen.
Why are the latter group so driven, managing to carry on with their message when the rest of us would be exhausted? The message they carry is not thier own. They were waffling around with their lives, wondering what the truth about life could be, wondering why we are here at all, wondering where they could fit into a grand scheme. Then someone came along with an answer.
The answer sounded good. Sounded wonderful, in fact. It sounded as if heaven itself was about to open up and take in all that believed in it. All they had to do was to believe.
Spread the word, these people were told, as were those before them who had told them. They did, and they do. They take the message to anyone and everyone, whether their message is wanted or appreciated. Whether they can teach it to willing listeners or must wage war to use force to convince the others to accept their own set of beliefs.
Those who are prepared to go to war for their beliefs (whether in reality or figuratively) are most convinced that their cause is right. The more resistance they find, the more convinced that they are right and that their message must get through to the ignorant and unwashed multitudes.
They never stop to question whether their way might be right. They never doubt that the others may not want to share their beliefs or that they are happy with their own beliefs. They never hesitate about whether their beliefs are correct, accurate or beneficial over the long term, to themselves, their people or the world. They need to win.
It has been said that those who are most aggressive about spreading their beliefs to others have grave doubts. They want others to join them so that they can believe with greater confidence that their way is correct. By their reckoning, numbers are important. They want allies, not necessarily friends.
Those who are uncertain about many things in life remain quiet, for they have little to teach to others. When and if they do find a path they can believe in, they tend to remain quiet about it because doing otherwise would place them in conflict with the other group, who is already known to be prepared to go to war for their beliefs.
If the quiet ones remain quiet, never joining with others who have also found their way, never wanting to impose anything on anyone else, very little changes. Or so they believe. Eventually, those who have the strong beliefs and are aggressive about spreading them convince enough people to join them that they gain political and military power as well as the psychological power they have from the strength of their beliefs.
Hitler tapped into that in Germany with his National Socialists (who followed a path that was anything but socialist). Mussolini used it in Italy. The power brokers of the Japanese military also found ways to take over their country and subsequently much of Asia, with the three countries forming what became known as the Axis Powers. The Serbian leaders of the former Yugoslavia pumped up their Serbian culture mates to kill the Muslims. The emerging leaders among the Hutus of Rwanda filled the heads of their fellow tribesmen with it, using radio broadcasts, so that nearly a million Tutsis were slashed to death with machetes. Saddam used his abilities to convince the minority Sunnis that they should totally dominate the majority Shias as well as the Kurds in Iraq.
In each case the silent ones remained silent because they did not feel it their place to tell others how to run their countries. It wasn't their business. They were prepared to allow millions of slaughtered victims be burned or buried, but they assuaged their consciences by prosecuting the perpetrators who survived when the slaughter was over.
At least the leaders died too, they believed. They vowed to remember each event so that it would never happen again.
These movements all began with a few zealous individuals who had power in mind for themselves and a set of beliefs with which to convince their future supporters. It didn't matter whether their teachings and beliefs were correct, were acceptable or would be approved by the majority because they planned to take control of the majority.
The uncertain ones remained silent in every case. The aggressive ones never do.
The aggressive ones always have that message they want to reach so many others. The doubtful ones and those who have found the path to peace remain silent.
Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the motives of the power seekers plain before they take too much control over too many people and too much history.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- William Hazlitt
That quote is not true, strictly speaking, for these emotions are known to be expressed by other primates. But the point is well taken.
For the sake of discussion, let's divide everyone into two groups. There would be those who, as Hazlitt said, see the great differences between what things are and what they ought to be. And there would be those who know exactly how things should be and concern themselves at some length to see that what they believe should become what is.
On one side we have people (the vast majority, I believe) who know what should be but do little or nothing to see that it comes about. On the other we have people who are driven to make something happen.
Why are the latter group so driven, managing to carry on with their message when the rest of us would be exhausted? The message they carry is not thier own. They were waffling around with their lives, wondering what the truth about life could be, wondering why we are here at all, wondering where they could fit into a grand scheme. Then someone came along with an answer.
The answer sounded good. Sounded wonderful, in fact. It sounded as if heaven itself was about to open up and take in all that believed in it. All they had to do was to believe.
Spread the word, these people were told, as were those before them who had told them. They did, and they do. They take the message to anyone and everyone, whether their message is wanted or appreciated. Whether they can teach it to willing listeners or must wage war to use force to convince the others to accept their own set of beliefs.
Those who are prepared to go to war for their beliefs (whether in reality or figuratively) are most convinced that their cause is right. The more resistance they find, the more convinced that they are right and that their message must get through to the ignorant and unwashed multitudes.
They never stop to question whether their way might be right. They never doubt that the others may not want to share their beliefs or that they are happy with their own beliefs. They never hesitate about whether their beliefs are correct, accurate or beneficial over the long term, to themselves, their people or the world. They need to win.
It has been said that those who are most aggressive about spreading their beliefs to others have grave doubts. They want others to join them so that they can believe with greater confidence that their way is correct. By their reckoning, numbers are important. They want allies, not necessarily friends.
Those who are uncertain about many things in life remain quiet, for they have little to teach to others. When and if they do find a path they can believe in, they tend to remain quiet about it because doing otherwise would place them in conflict with the other group, who is already known to be prepared to go to war for their beliefs.
If the quiet ones remain quiet, never joining with others who have also found their way, never wanting to impose anything on anyone else, very little changes. Or so they believe. Eventually, those who have the strong beliefs and are aggressive about spreading them convince enough people to join them that they gain political and military power as well as the psychological power they have from the strength of their beliefs.
Hitler tapped into that in Germany with his National Socialists (who followed a path that was anything but socialist). Mussolini used it in Italy. The power brokers of the Japanese military also found ways to take over their country and subsequently much of Asia, with the three countries forming what became known as the Axis Powers. The Serbian leaders of the former Yugoslavia pumped up their Serbian culture mates to kill the Muslims. The emerging leaders among the Hutus of Rwanda filled the heads of their fellow tribesmen with it, using radio broadcasts, so that nearly a million Tutsis were slashed to death with machetes. Saddam used his abilities to convince the minority Sunnis that they should totally dominate the majority Shias as well as the Kurds in Iraq.
In each case the silent ones remained silent because they did not feel it their place to tell others how to run their countries. It wasn't their business. They were prepared to allow millions of slaughtered victims be burned or buried, but they assuaged their consciences by prosecuting the perpetrators who survived when the slaughter was over.
At least the leaders died too, they believed. They vowed to remember each event so that it would never happen again.
These movements all began with a few zealous individuals who had power in mind for themselves and a set of beliefs with which to convince their future supporters. It didn't matter whether their teachings and beliefs were correct, were acceptable or would be approved by the majority because they planned to take control of the majority.
The uncertain ones remained silent in every case. The aggressive ones never do.
The aggressive ones always have that message they want to reach so many others. The doubtful ones and those who have found the path to peace remain silent.
Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the motives of the power seekers plain before they take too much control over too many people and too much history.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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