You Can Make A Difference, Yes You
Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one.
- Marianne Williamson, American activist, author, lecturer and founder of The Peace Alliance (b. 1952)
Big words. Few of us really believe we can change the world. Some of us don't try because we aren't sure how we would change it. Those people believe the propaganda they have been fed that they live in the best possible world, despite its problems, its unfairness, its warts.
Many don't try to change anything because they believe the world is too huge to change. Nearly seven billion people could not be reached with any message. How many people in the world today have never heard of Elvis Presley, even though he died 33 years ago? If they have heard his name it's likely because they have heard some of his music. Michael Jackson's name is almost as well known and for the same reason. Even the name Barack Obama is known by many people in almost every country in the world. And he hasn't recorded any music.
Of course these are exceptional people. We would expect them to influence others to an exceptional degree. None of these men steered their lives away from trouble or controversy by not conveying their message to others they could reach.
You make the road by walking on it.
- Nicaraguan saying
We make change by influencing one person at a time, not crowds or multitudes. Biblical Abraham and the Prophet Mohammed were already tribal leaders when they become religious leaders. Jesus of Nazareth wasn't. Tradition has it that he was an impoverished vagrant that depended on the largess of others he interested and entertained with his words. Yet he kept speaking those words to many people, a few at a time, until he was stopped. Even though not many of his words remain in print, some are and the man is remembered as much for his message as for his birth and death.
We don't have to gather crowds at major city intersections or in arenas to convey whatever message we want to say to others. We just have to say it to people, even if it's one at a time.
How many people had their lives changed by Jesus? We don't know for certain. His personal posse consisted of just over a dozen people and no doubt they only gathered to follow him to his various speaking engagements once in a while. The rest of the time he spoke with individuals he met and with friends.
I have a message I want to spread around the world. I do it through my articles, my web site, Facebook and the people I speak with in my daily life. It's an important message about how to improve the lives of children by improving what teachers and parents know about raising kids and about their needs.
I will never reach seven billion people. But I reached you. And you talk to people.
If you have a message of your own, talk it up with people you know and people you meet. Find out about my message, in my book, and talk about it too. Everyone talks about kids and social problems in their communities and in the world, so the topic interests everyone. So tell them. They'll listen because they are interested in the topic.
You can only do good. People on every continent are talking about Turning It Around and the TIA plan today. You won't be starting any revolution. You won't be crucified. You may be remembered for an important message you passed to someone who really began to care, who really believes that the message is worthwhile, who really can make a big difference. Someone who can improve the life of a child, or many of them.
As the Nicaraguan saying suggests, make the road by walking it. Eventually you will be a hero for spreading such an important and memorable message.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, an easy-to-read guide for parents, for teachers, for everyone, about the needs children have that, when met, make them confident and worthwhile adults. Messages don't get more important than this one.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Trivia You Don't Need To Know About Television (but you will want to know anyway)
Trivia You Don't Need To Know About Television (but you will want to know anyway)
Don't blame Scottish engineer and inventor John Logie Baird for the lack of decent programs to watch on the main networks of television today. John only invented the hardware, black and white TV, back in 1926.
While our televisions can transmit digital signals with up to 1080 lines of data, John's little outfit only managed 30 lines. It looked like a peep show moving picture viewer, which made sense because these were popular in his day. It was cobbled together with scraps of wood, darning needles, string and sealing wax. No chewing gum and binder twine--materials commonly attributed to devices assembled in emergencies in agricultural country in those days--because he wasn't a farmer.
While we think of TVs as being electrical and electronic today, John's was also somewhat mechanical. He used a spinning metal disk with spirals of holes to take images apart for transmission. Kind of a fancy old fashioned box camera.
John showed off his colour television a mere two years later. But commercializing cameras and making affordable receivers delayed the popularity of colour for another two decades.
For many people, watching television in the mid 20th century meant viewing moving things in black and white. So what? People who grew up watching black and white television are more likely to dream in black and white than people who grow up today watching only colour TV. As media guru Marshall McLuhan said, "the medium is the message." And it sticks, even in our dreams.
The U.K.'s BBC was the first network to broadcast regularly using Baird's system. By 1936--well into the Great Depression, remember--about 2000 household had Baird televisions. They cost about £26 each, equivalent to today's US$7700. Not the kind of data we have been led to think of when we think of the Great Depression.
Television extravagance has not abated. Today you can buy Panasonic's giant (103 inch, nearly 230 cm--greater in diameter than most basketball players are tall) plasma monster for $70,000, should you happen to not have suffered much from the current economic slowdown. While Panasonic has the biggest set, that doesn't include projection TVs.
Philo T. Farnsworth, who invented the first all-electronic TV, was passionate about his invention. Lest anyone accuse his television of being a product of the devil, he stated firmly that it was a gift from the Lord. "God will hold accountable those who utilize this divine instrument." Where is Farnsworth when we need him today as a TV critic?
Here's a fact you will wish you never knew. By the age of 14, the average child in the United States has seen 11,000 murders on television. Let that sink in. The debate never ends about whether life eventually takes on less importance to a child as he sees death so often it becomes commonplace.
TV commercial time has gone up a bit in cost over the years. Bulova Watch paid nine dollars for a 20 second spot for the first ever commercial, in a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies on July 1, 1941. Today a 30 second spot in a Superbowl broadcast--traditionally the most expensive advertising time on TV--will cost around three million bucks.
With all the ways we have of storing video data these days it came as a shock when NASA announced it had lost all the videotapes of the TV broadcast from the Apollo 11 mission ("That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.")
The longest running talk show is either Ireland's Late Late Show, which started in 1962, or The Tonight Show, which began in 1954. The reason for debate is that the latter show didn't settled into a regular format until Johnny Carson took over, a few months after the Irish show launched.
To demonstrate that copyright for television was an issue long before today's battles, when Sony launched the first VCRs in the 1970s the film studios took it to court for promoting piracy. The U.S. Supreme Court favoured Sony in the litigation, but the public was not so fond of Sony's Betamax format. While JVC's VHS failed in Japan as Sony dominated the market there, VHS (more accurately advertising for VHS recorders) won the hearts of people in North America. VHS eventually had four formats in different countries and they couldn't play on machines with a VHS format other than their own.
Are TV's days numbered? While networks switch to digital format for large TVs and about half the cell phones sold today have the ability to receive television signals, billions of streams of TV signals are received on computers each month.
Queen Elizabeth II has her own channel on YouTube. No, she doesn't sing, dance or take her clothes off. I checked.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers and parents who want to know what lessons their children need to learn about social skills and emotional coping, stuff kids desperately need but usually don't get at home or in school.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/
[Primary source: Discover, February 2009]
Don't blame Scottish engineer and inventor John Logie Baird for the lack of decent programs to watch on the main networks of television today. John only invented the hardware, black and white TV, back in 1926.
While our televisions can transmit digital signals with up to 1080 lines of data, John's little outfit only managed 30 lines. It looked like a peep show moving picture viewer, which made sense because these were popular in his day. It was cobbled together with scraps of wood, darning needles, string and sealing wax. No chewing gum and binder twine--materials commonly attributed to devices assembled in emergencies in agricultural country in those days--because he wasn't a farmer.
While we think of TVs as being electrical and electronic today, John's was also somewhat mechanical. He used a spinning metal disk with spirals of holes to take images apart for transmission. Kind of a fancy old fashioned box camera.
John showed off his colour television a mere two years later. But commercializing cameras and making affordable receivers delayed the popularity of colour for another two decades.
For many people, watching television in the mid 20th century meant viewing moving things in black and white. So what? People who grew up watching black and white television are more likely to dream in black and white than people who grow up today watching only colour TV. As media guru Marshall McLuhan said, "the medium is the message." And it sticks, even in our dreams.
The U.K.'s BBC was the first network to broadcast regularly using Baird's system. By 1936--well into the Great Depression, remember--about 2000 household had Baird televisions. They cost about £26 each, equivalent to today's US$7700. Not the kind of data we have been led to think of when we think of the Great Depression.
Television extravagance has not abated. Today you can buy Panasonic's giant (103 inch, nearly 230 cm--greater in diameter than most basketball players are tall) plasma monster for $70,000, should you happen to not have suffered much from the current economic slowdown. While Panasonic has the biggest set, that doesn't include projection TVs.
Philo T. Farnsworth, who invented the first all-electronic TV, was passionate about his invention. Lest anyone accuse his television of being a product of the devil, he stated firmly that it was a gift from the Lord. "God will hold accountable those who utilize this divine instrument." Where is Farnsworth when we need him today as a TV critic?
Here's a fact you will wish you never knew. By the age of 14, the average child in the United States has seen 11,000 murders on television. Let that sink in. The debate never ends about whether life eventually takes on less importance to a child as he sees death so often it becomes commonplace.
TV commercial time has gone up a bit in cost over the years. Bulova Watch paid nine dollars for a 20 second spot for the first ever commercial, in a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies on July 1, 1941. Today a 30 second spot in a Superbowl broadcast--traditionally the most expensive advertising time on TV--will cost around three million bucks.
With all the ways we have of storing video data these days it came as a shock when NASA announced it had lost all the videotapes of the TV broadcast from the Apollo 11 mission ("That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.")
The longest running talk show is either Ireland's Late Late Show, which started in 1962, or The Tonight Show, which began in 1954. The reason for debate is that the latter show didn't settled into a regular format until Johnny Carson took over, a few months after the Irish show launched.
To demonstrate that copyright for television was an issue long before today's battles, when Sony launched the first VCRs in the 1970s the film studios took it to court for promoting piracy. The U.S. Supreme Court favoured Sony in the litigation, but the public was not so fond of Sony's Betamax format. While JVC's VHS failed in Japan as Sony dominated the market there, VHS (more accurately advertising for VHS recorders) won the hearts of people in North America. VHS eventually had four formats in different countries and they couldn't play on machines with a VHS format other than their own.
Are TV's days numbered? While networks switch to digital format for large TVs and about half the cell phones sold today have the ability to receive television signals, billions of streams of TV signals are received on computers each month.
Queen Elizabeth II has her own channel on YouTube. No, she doesn't sing, dance or take her clothes off. I checked.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers and parents who want to know what lessons their children need to learn about social skills and emotional coping, stuff kids desperately need but usually don't get at home or in school.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/
[Primary source: Discover, February 2009]
Sunday, April 27, 2008
What We Miss Most
When you are eight years old, nothing is any of your business.
- Lenny Bruce, comedian (1925-1966)
It's a good laugh line for a comedian. Just about everyone remembers that when they were eight years old nobody wanted to include them in adult affairs or conversations. And the adults in Lenny's audience likely did the same with their own kids.
I remember a man I overheard speaking to another man, when I was about 15 years old, saying "I don't bother trying to have conversations with anyone younger than 25 because they don't know enough to hold a decent conversation." It impressed me so much I decided to learn enough to be able to hold a good conversation by the age of 25.
I certainly didn't consider including my own children in conversations I had with my wife when they were that age. They weren't interested anyway.
I was wrong.
My kids were wrong, but maybe because of our practice of excluding our kids from adult conversations they just got used to how things were.
It's the sole purpose in life of a child to learn what it's like in the adult world they are enter within a few years. The young of every species has that same purpose.
If we, as parents and grandparents, don't include kids in our conversations, they miss out on opportunities to learn from us.
What we don't teach with intention, kids learn by our example. If our parents didn't talk about sex or even indicate that they had sex with each other, they likely didn't say much to us about the subject. We learn the hard way, probably the way our parents did. There's a pretty good chance that we and our parents both missed out on much of what we could have had and done if we and they had known more.
In turn, our kids miss out if we don't know what to teach them and how.
Kids most often follow the examples of their parents when they reach the age of majority and have to choose a political party to vote for. They have overheard discussions among their parents that led them to the conclusion that one party is better than the other(s). Most parents don't even indicate to their kids that voters have more than one choice. The young adults vote the way their parents would.
We're forced to learn too much the hard way. We make too many mistakes on stuff where there was no reason we shouldn't have known better, stuff that someone should have taught us.
Why should a child learn a foreign language and trigonometry in school if that child will never use it as an adult, but that child never receives proper instruction about how to make and keep friends, how to be a good spouse in a marriage or how to be a good parent?
We fail at friendships, marriages and parenting. We never get a chance to fail at speaking the foreign language or using trig in most cases, but that's just as well because we likely forgot most of it since we had no use for it.
Do the arithmetic. Which is more important, knowing how to make and keep friends, how to have a compatible marriage and how to be a good parent or how to speak a foreign language and do trigonometry?
That's not to put down learning languages or trig, only to state that we have other more important needs that our parents, our grandparents and our teachers seldom or never address.
We accept this because "That's the way it has always been done." It's clearly wrong, so does that mean that many generations of our ancestors were wrong? It's a sharp edged pill to swallow, but, yup, they were wrong.
When we chose to exclude ourselves from the natural courses of nature in our modern world, we didn't compensate for the important lessons that nature teaches to every other species on the planet. We miss some of the most important lessons in life. Parents don't know them so they can't teach what they don't know. Or they are reticent about teaching what they learned themselves by doing and making mistakes.
No matter, we have sports, drugs, other addictions, abuse, volunteering, exercising and lots of other ways to compensate for our lack of knowledge about important human subjects.
That won't change until some of us decide to change it. The longer we wait to change the system by teaching kids what they need to know as adults, the bigger the job will be.
It could all change in a flash if school curriculums were changed. That's not hard because curriculums change almost every year to some extent.
Doing nothing is easier. Except the problems keep getting worse.
Maybe we should talk about this subject more.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers that provides material that all kids should know but that most never get at home or in school.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Lenny Bruce, comedian (1925-1966)
It's a good laugh line for a comedian. Just about everyone remembers that when they were eight years old nobody wanted to include them in adult affairs or conversations. And the adults in Lenny's audience likely did the same with their own kids.
I remember a man I overheard speaking to another man, when I was about 15 years old, saying "I don't bother trying to have conversations with anyone younger than 25 because they don't know enough to hold a decent conversation." It impressed me so much I decided to learn enough to be able to hold a good conversation by the age of 25.
I certainly didn't consider including my own children in conversations I had with my wife when they were that age. They weren't interested anyway.
I was wrong.
My kids were wrong, but maybe because of our practice of excluding our kids from adult conversations they just got used to how things were.
It's the sole purpose in life of a child to learn what it's like in the adult world they are enter within a few years. The young of every species has that same purpose.
If we, as parents and grandparents, don't include kids in our conversations, they miss out on opportunities to learn from us.
What we don't teach with intention, kids learn by our example. If our parents didn't talk about sex or even indicate that they had sex with each other, they likely didn't say much to us about the subject. We learn the hard way, probably the way our parents did. There's a pretty good chance that we and our parents both missed out on much of what we could have had and done if we and they had known more.
In turn, our kids miss out if we don't know what to teach them and how.
Kids most often follow the examples of their parents when they reach the age of majority and have to choose a political party to vote for. They have overheard discussions among their parents that led them to the conclusion that one party is better than the other(s). Most parents don't even indicate to their kids that voters have more than one choice. The young adults vote the way their parents would.
We're forced to learn too much the hard way. We make too many mistakes on stuff where there was no reason we shouldn't have known better, stuff that someone should have taught us.
Why should a child learn a foreign language and trigonometry in school if that child will never use it as an adult, but that child never receives proper instruction about how to make and keep friends, how to be a good spouse in a marriage or how to be a good parent?
We fail at friendships, marriages and parenting. We never get a chance to fail at speaking the foreign language or using trig in most cases, but that's just as well because we likely forgot most of it since we had no use for it.
Do the arithmetic. Which is more important, knowing how to make and keep friends, how to have a compatible marriage and how to be a good parent or how to speak a foreign language and do trigonometry?
That's not to put down learning languages or trig, only to state that we have other more important needs that our parents, our grandparents and our teachers seldom or never address.
We accept this because "That's the way it has always been done." It's clearly wrong, so does that mean that many generations of our ancestors were wrong? It's a sharp edged pill to swallow, but, yup, they were wrong.
When we chose to exclude ourselves from the natural courses of nature in our modern world, we didn't compensate for the important lessons that nature teaches to every other species on the planet. We miss some of the most important lessons in life. Parents don't know them so they can't teach what they don't know. Or they are reticent about teaching what they learned themselves by doing and making mistakes.
No matter, we have sports, drugs, other addictions, abuse, volunteering, exercising and lots of other ways to compensate for our lack of knowledge about important human subjects.
That won't change until some of us decide to change it. The longer we wait to change the system by teaching kids what they need to know as adults, the bigger the job will be.
It could all change in a flash if school curriculums were changed. That's not hard because curriculums change almost every year to some extent.
Doing nothing is easier. Except the problems keep getting worse.
Maybe we should talk about this subject more.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers that provides material that all kids should know but that most never get at home or in school.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Who Appointed Them God?
Someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality.
- Les Brown, American motivational speaker
Let's do a little self-test. Think of all the people about whom you have strong opinions. Take a moment, I'm not going anywhere.
If you thought both of people about whom you have strong positive feelings and those you think negatively about, you are likely within the normal range if you had more people on your negative list than on the positive.
Part of our nature causes us to pick out the negative behaviour of someone and form opinions about them--especially strong opinions--rather than to look for positives for that person. It's related to what social scientists call the natural pecking order. Naturally, we want to feel superior to some other people.
If we can feel superior to others who appear to have more fame, more wealth, more charisma, more friends than ourselves, we have an inner and secret feeling of accomplishment or of superiority. Nature did that. All social animals, despite how cooperatively they may work together or how much they love each other, have a hierarchical pecking order.
You would likely have an answer if someone asked you who was the boss in your parents' family, whose word was the final ruling on an issue of debate. And you would likely know who you could and couldn't boss around of your siblings when you were all kids. That's the pecking order.
We want to feel that we are as far up in that hierarchy as we possibly can be. That means that we may recognize the negatives about others who we perceive to be higher in the order than we are so that we can feel better about ourselves. We identify them by their negatives, their weaknesses, their faults, their sins.
For many people, when they hear the name of former US President Bill Clinton, the first thing they think of is his sexual exploitations. The fact that he did more good to heal and to promote the good name of his country than any other US president in the past half century means nothing to them. He sinned and that's good enough for those people to label him.
Do you think that if one or more of these people were to express to Bill Clinton their opinions about his personal life (while ignoring his professional accomplishments) that would alter how Mr. Clinton thinks of himself? Not likely. He would not allow their opinions to become his reality.
Was Bill Clinton guilty of misbehaviour during his terms of office? Given the amount of lying that has been perpetrated on the American people over the past eight years and considering the fact that the same people castigated and attempted to removed Bill Clinton from office, we must consider the possibility that the former president was tried by the court of public opinion more than by a valid court..
Small misdemeanors may have been blown out of proportion to make him seem to be a big sinner by those we know as liars today. Yet Mr. Clinton's self esteem hasn't bowed. And Mrs. Clinton--whom no one considers a fool--didn't leave her husband. Likely she knew more than the many Clinton-hating conclusion-jumpers. His kids still love him.
Should my opinion of you affect how you live your life and whether you enjoy life or not? You may say no, because you don't know me personally. But you know many other people personally and what they think of you may affect your comfort level. Why?
Many people will have false or mistaken impressions about you in your lifetime. That doesn't mean that you should act the part or play the role of the guilty party.
Don't allow yourself to pay for the sins of others who think badly of you. They want you to be lower in their hierarchy.
Consider this: By their speaking negatively about you, they acknowledge that you hold a higher position in their social hierarchy than they do. Their insults should be interpreted as your compliment, only the speaker doesn't know how to use the right words.
Nobody spends much time thinking bad thoughts about those lower on the social hierarchy than they are. Nature doesn't work that way. We tend to focus more on those we believe are better than us in some ways.
If some nitwit bad-mouths you, it's nature's way of complimenting you. Don't take it personally. Remember, you don't want to give much time to people who are below you on their own social scale.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow healthy and competent adults from the children in their charge.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Les Brown, American motivational speaker
Let's do a little self-test. Think of all the people about whom you have strong opinions. Take a moment, I'm not going anywhere.
If you thought both of people about whom you have strong positive feelings and those you think negatively about, you are likely within the normal range if you had more people on your negative list than on the positive.
Part of our nature causes us to pick out the negative behaviour of someone and form opinions about them--especially strong opinions--rather than to look for positives for that person. It's related to what social scientists call the natural pecking order. Naturally, we want to feel superior to some other people.
If we can feel superior to others who appear to have more fame, more wealth, more charisma, more friends than ourselves, we have an inner and secret feeling of accomplishment or of superiority. Nature did that. All social animals, despite how cooperatively they may work together or how much they love each other, have a hierarchical pecking order.
You would likely have an answer if someone asked you who was the boss in your parents' family, whose word was the final ruling on an issue of debate. And you would likely know who you could and couldn't boss around of your siblings when you were all kids. That's the pecking order.
We want to feel that we are as far up in that hierarchy as we possibly can be. That means that we may recognize the negatives about others who we perceive to be higher in the order than we are so that we can feel better about ourselves. We identify them by their negatives, their weaknesses, their faults, their sins.
For many people, when they hear the name of former US President Bill Clinton, the first thing they think of is his sexual exploitations. The fact that he did more good to heal and to promote the good name of his country than any other US president in the past half century means nothing to them. He sinned and that's good enough for those people to label him.
Do you think that if one or more of these people were to express to Bill Clinton their opinions about his personal life (while ignoring his professional accomplishments) that would alter how Mr. Clinton thinks of himself? Not likely. He would not allow their opinions to become his reality.
Was Bill Clinton guilty of misbehaviour during his terms of office? Given the amount of lying that has been perpetrated on the American people over the past eight years and considering the fact that the same people castigated and attempted to removed Bill Clinton from office, we must consider the possibility that the former president was tried by the court of public opinion more than by a valid court..
Small misdemeanors may have been blown out of proportion to make him seem to be a big sinner by those we know as liars today. Yet Mr. Clinton's self esteem hasn't bowed. And Mrs. Clinton--whom no one considers a fool--didn't leave her husband. Likely she knew more than the many Clinton-hating conclusion-jumpers. His kids still love him.
Should my opinion of you affect how you live your life and whether you enjoy life or not? You may say no, because you don't know me personally. But you know many other people personally and what they think of you may affect your comfort level. Why?
Many people will have false or mistaken impressions about you in your lifetime. That doesn't mean that you should act the part or play the role of the guilty party.
Don't allow yourself to pay for the sins of others who think badly of you. They want you to be lower in their hierarchy.
Consider this: By their speaking negatively about you, they acknowledge that you hold a higher position in their social hierarchy than they do. Their insults should be interpreted as your compliment, only the speaker doesn't know how to use the right words.
Nobody spends much time thinking bad thoughts about those lower on the social hierarchy than they are. Nature doesn't work that way. We tend to focus more on those we believe are better than us in some ways.
If some nitwit bad-mouths you, it's nature's way of complimenting you. Don't take it personally. Remember, you don't want to give much time to people who are below you on their own social scale.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow healthy and competent adults from the children in their charge.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Getting The Best Out Of People
If you cannot mould yourself entirely as you would wish, how can you expect other people to be entirely to your liking?
- Thomas รก Kempis, Roman Catholic monk and author (ca.1380 - July 25, 1471)
It's so common we could say it's a part of our human nature. We expect things of others that we don't expect of ourselves.
Or we expect more of others than we do of ourselves. We allow ourselves the maximum leeway (give ourselves a break) because we understand the circumstances under which we are living and working, but we don't understand the constraints others have so we don't give them much slack.
If we could mould another person exactly to our liking, what would that make us? God? Slave owner? Mystic? Magician? Brainwasher? In truth, if we did mould someone exactly the way we would like them to be, that would mean having control over their behaviour, which means over their life. That would be against the law of every country and the moral code of every religion of today.
Rather than being disappointed at how others don't meet up to our standards to satisfy our needs (even if we are paying for the service), we should celebrate the fact that we have people we can depend on to some extent. Many people have isolated themselves from others so much that they have no one to turn to when they have needs they can't meet themselves. That's really a state of helplessness.
We can't get people to do whatever we want them to do, even if we pay them. However, we can encourage them, coax them along, express the unfortunate state we find ourselves in because the job we want done has not been completed. Encouragement helps. Patience, when it's demonstrated as patience and not as shutting up and taking what we get, is appreciated.
Three friends who I depend on for various important tasks I can't do myself--one fixing cars, the second fixing computers, the third doing odd jobs like welding and other skilled projects--routinely take longer than I would like to complete what they do for me. However, by explaining how important the job is to me and attempting to show patience by understanding the time problems they have themselves, I usually get more than I pay for when each job is done. If not, I often get special favours later.
We have no real way of knowing the problems that others live with and the effect these problems have on them. What we can do is to explain the problems that are bothering us and hope that this spurs the others to act on our behalf sooner or more completely. And we can be patient with them when they need it from us.
Every person in our lives, no matter how important they are to us, will eventually disappoint us. No exceptions. However, there is no rule telling us that we have to hold their faults against them. We can achieve more by overlooking their short term disappointments while focussing on the long term benefits we derive from associating with these people.
A saying people have around where I live is: Look at the donut, not at the hole.
Give most people an opportunity to deliver their best for you, even when they are under pressure, and most times they will come through much better than strangers we pay more would. True, we don't have the opportunity to tell our friends and associates what we really think of them at the time we need to most, but holding back pays of in the long run if we manage our relationships properly. And it builds better relationships.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, what and when to teach children what they need to know to be competent and confident adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Thomas รก Kempis, Roman Catholic monk and author (ca.1380 - July 25, 1471)
It's so common we could say it's a part of our human nature. We expect things of others that we don't expect of ourselves.
Or we expect more of others than we do of ourselves. We allow ourselves the maximum leeway (give ourselves a break) because we understand the circumstances under which we are living and working, but we don't understand the constraints others have so we don't give them much slack.
If we could mould another person exactly to our liking, what would that make us? God? Slave owner? Mystic? Magician? Brainwasher? In truth, if we did mould someone exactly the way we would like them to be, that would mean having control over their behaviour, which means over their life. That would be against the law of every country and the moral code of every religion of today.
Rather than being disappointed at how others don't meet up to our standards to satisfy our needs (even if we are paying for the service), we should celebrate the fact that we have people we can depend on to some extent. Many people have isolated themselves from others so much that they have no one to turn to when they have needs they can't meet themselves. That's really a state of helplessness.
We can't get people to do whatever we want them to do, even if we pay them. However, we can encourage them, coax them along, express the unfortunate state we find ourselves in because the job we want done has not been completed. Encouragement helps. Patience, when it's demonstrated as patience and not as shutting up and taking what we get, is appreciated.
Three friends who I depend on for various important tasks I can't do myself--one fixing cars, the second fixing computers, the third doing odd jobs like welding and other skilled projects--routinely take longer than I would like to complete what they do for me. However, by explaining how important the job is to me and attempting to show patience by understanding the time problems they have themselves, I usually get more than I pay for when each job is done. If not, I often get special favours later.
We have no real way of knowing the problems that others live with and the effect these problems have on them. What we can do is to explain the problems that are bothering us and hope that this spurs the others to act on our behalf sooner or more completely. And we can be patient with them when they need it from us.
Every person in our lives, no matter how important they are to us, will eventually disappoint us. No exceptions. However, there is no rule telling us that we have to hold their faults against them. We can achieve more by overlooking their short term disappointments while focussing on the long term benefits we derive from associating with these people.
A saying people have around where I live is: Look at the donut, not at the hole.
Give most people an opportunity to deliver their best for you, even when they are under pressure, and most times they will come through much better than strangers we pay more would. True, we don't have the opportunity to tell our friends and associates what we really think of them at the time we need to most, but holding back pays of in the long run if we manage our relationships properly. And it builds better relationships.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, what and when to teach children what they need to know to be competent and confident adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Friday, April 13, 2007
Help or Please Your Friend? Which Is Right?
In giving advice, seek to help, not please, your friend.
- Solon
This simple, concise maxim delivers a great wealth of benefit.
Why would you not want to please your friend, rather than to help him? Because friends are not for pleasing.
We please those from whom we hope or expect some gain for ourselves. We please those about whom we feel superior, in gracious gestures of beneficience. We seldom do gestures to please our equals, other than our mate, even though they might greatly appreciate them.
Pleasing someone is like buying their love or respect. A friend doesn't want what he already has, by definition, as a friend.
Helping a friend does not always mean pleasing him either. Often you can help your friend by providing oppposition against which he may carefully consider a choice of action which could prove risky. Or he may be thinking along one line of thought without considering arguments or facts that oppose or contradict them. A bad choice or political association or religious affiliation would be examples.
A friend does not necessarily want to know that you have helped him. Pride may make him want to hide or disguise his need for help. It's not uncommon for people with a serious need to have few friends, not because others don't want to help, but because the person with the need may subconsciously back away from a close relationship for fear of the other person finding out his need and considering it a weakness.
A need or a weakness may be among the things a person least wants another to know. Even though we all have them and we often can't resolve our needs or overcome our weaknesses ourselves. We have been taught that we must be independent, that appearing to be self sufficient is even more important than actually being self sufficient.
Help may be what your friend most needs. Yet it may be something you must use care to put into effect in order to preserve your friendship. A real friendship involves needs that each can help the other with. It may need to be done with care so that the friend is helped up rather than made to feel lower by being needy.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the difficult things in life seem a little easier to understand.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Solon
This simple, concise maxim delivers a great wealth of benefit.
Why would you not want to please your friend, rather than to help him? Because friends are not for pleasing.
We please those from whom we hope or expect some gain for ourselves. We please those about whom we feel superior, in gracious gestures of beneficience. We seldom do gestures to please our equals, other than our mate, even though they might greatly appreciate them.
Pleasing someone is like buying their love or respect. A friend doesn't want what he already has, by definition, as a friend.
Helping a friend does not always mean pleasing him either. Often you can help your friend by providing oppposition against which he may carefully consider a choice of action which could prove risky. Or he may be thinking along one line of thought without considering arguments or facts that oppose or contradict them. A bad choice or political association or religious affiliation would be examples.
A friend does not necessarily want to know that you have helped him. Pride may make him want to hide or disguise his need for help. It's not uncommon for people with a serious need to have few friends, not because others don't want to help, but because the person with the need may subconsciously back away from a close relationship for fear of the other person finding out his need and considering it a weakness.
A need or a weakness may be among the things a person least wants another to know. Even though we all have them and we often can't resolve our needs or overcome our weaknesses ourselves. We have been taught that we must be independent, that appearing to be self sufficient is even more important than actually being self sufficient.
Help may be what your friend most needs. Yet it may be something you must use care to put into effect in order to preserve your friendship. A real friendship involves needs that each can help the other with. It may need to be done with care so that the friend is helped up rather than made to feel lower by being needy.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the difficult things in life seem a little easier to understand.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Listen, Hear, Make A Friend
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.
- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)
Many people equate hearing with listening. They believe that if they are facing a speaker and not talking themselves, they are listening and hearing. Listening, more than anything, requires a person to point their face at the speaker. Hearing obliges the non-speaker to engage his brain with the purpose of making sense of what is spoken and replying to it.
Some people don't hear what another person is saying because they don't care what is being said. They are more interested in what they have to say themselves.
Many times two people appear to be carrying on a conversation, but it's not a dialogue. It's two adjacent and alternating monologues with each speaker smiling at the other and looking at him or her frequently. Everything in that conversation is out-going, with nothing coming in to be considered by the brain of either participant.
Actually taking the time to listen to someone, considering what they have said, then replying in such a way that they realize you have heard, understood and thought about it is one way (one social device) of making a new friend.
People get so used to being virtually ignored by others in a conversation that they treasure anyone who will take the time and effort to hear them and respond.
Of course, a friend is someone who will also listen, hear, consider and respond to what you have said. Not everyone will do that. But it's a good way to filter out those you don't want as friends if you are meeting new people with the objective of befriending some.
In any case, actually attending to what someone has said and repling accordingly is a form of respect. It's cheap and effective. It's a sign that you are a caring person, that you care about the speaker.
Bill Allin
Turning It Arounjd: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to clarify some social skills that every person should learn.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)
Many people equate hearing with listening. They believe that if they are facing a speaker and not talking themselves, they are listening and hearing. Listening, more than anything, requires a person to point their face at the speaker. Hearing obliges the non-speaker to engage his brain with the purpose of making sense of what is spoken and replying to it.
Some people don't hear what another person is saying because they don't care what is being said. They are more interested in what they have to say themselves.
Many times two people appear to be carrying on a conversation, but it's not a dialogue. It's two adjacent and alternating monologues with each speaker smiling at the other and looking at him or her frequently. Everything in that conversation is out-going, with nothing coming in to be considered by the brain of either participant.
Actually taking the time to listen to someone, considering what they have said, then replying in such a way that they realize you have heard, understood and thought about it is one way (one social device) of making a new friend.
People get so used to being virtually ignored by others in a conversation that they treasure anyone who will take the time and effort to hear them and respond.
Of course, a friend is someone who will also listen, hear, consider and respond to what you have said. Not everyone will do that. But it's a good way to filter out those you don't want as friends if you are meeting new people with the objective of befriending some.
In any case, actually attending to what someone has said and repling accordingly is a form of respect. It's cheap and effective. It's a sign that you are a caring person, that you care about the speaker.
Bill Allin
Turning It Arounjd: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to clarify some social skills that every person should learn.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monday, January 22, 2007
Why Make Friends When Things Are Going Well?
"The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining."
- John F. Kennedy
The old song Manana (Spanish word with ~ over the first n) comes to mind. Why fix the roof on such a sunny day? Kennedy's reference was to that song.
Why fix the roof indeed when the rain is not pouring in on top of us? In other words, why fuss about problems with relatives, friends, neighbours (be they personal or at the state level) when all is going well otherwise?
The answer of course is that the midst of a crisis is not the time to worry about patching up relationships. We need to do repairs when it's possible to do them with less risk than during a crisis.
The present situation with the US is an excellent example. Its friends are those countries with whom the US has courted good relationships over the past decade or more. Its enemies are those it has insulted or viewed with suspicion (if it gave them any attention at all) over the same period. In time of war, the US could not count on any non-friends to join it in its invasion of Iraq.
The recent US friendly relationship with India follows many years of courtship during the Clinton years. The US has trade to offer to India today, but it offered respect during the Clinton years. The years of respect led to the new trade relationship. Respect built trust.
When we have a personal crisis, such as a crisis between two friends, it's hard to patch things up on the spot. With the passage of time, it may be easier, but we then would have moved on to focus on other matters and other people. Yet that smoother time would be the ideal time to rekindle the friendship because there would be no conflict involved.
Failure to do that can mean a dwindling number of friends, whether they be friendly people or friendly nations.
The best time to make friends and to re-empower old ones is when things are going well for us.
But don't depend on the media to tell us when times are good. For the media, there is no such thing as a good time. Every period is always worse than previous ones.
Assess your own good times and act on them to build while you have the time and ability.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the difference between real life and what the media report.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- John F. Kennedy
The old song Manana (Spanish word with ~ over the first n) comes to mind. Why fix the roof on such a sunny day? Kennedy's reference was to that song.
Why fix the roof indeed when the rain is not pouring in on top of us? In other words, why fuss about problems with relatives, friends, neighbours (be they personal or at the state level) when all is going well otherwise?
The answer of course is that the midst of a crisis is not the time to worry about patching up relationships. We need to do repairs when it's possible to do them with less risk than during a crisis.
The present situation with the US is an excellent example. Its friends are those countries with whom the US has courted good relationships over the past decade or more. Its enemies are those it has insulted or viewed with suspicion (if it gave them any attention at all) over the same period. In time of war, the US could not count on any non-friends to join it in its invasion of Iraq.
The recent US friendly relationship with India follows many years of courtship during the Clinton years. The US has trade to offer to India today, but it offered respect during the Clinton years. The years of respect led to the new trade relationship. Respect built trust.
When we have a personal crisis, such as a crisis between two friends, it's hard to patch things up on the spot. With the passage of time, it may be easier, but we then would have moved on to focus on other matters and other people. Yet that smoother time would be the ideal time to rekindle the friendship because there would be no conflict involved.
Failure to do that can mean a dwindling number of friends, whether they be friendly people or friendly nations.
The best time to make friends and to re-empower old ones is when things are going well for us.
But don't depend on the media to tell us when times are good. For the media, there is no such thing as a good time. Every period is always worse than previous ones.
Assess your own good times and act on them to build while you have the time and ability.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the difference between real life and what the media report.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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