Much misconstruction and bitterness are spared to him who thinksnaturally upon what he owes to others, rather than on what he oughtto expect from them.
- Elizabeth de Meulan Guizot, French author (1773-1827)
What do I owe to others? What do you owe to others? What do I owe to you?
Should anyone even care?
Yes.
To begin, those who are fully aware of what they should expect from others will always be disappointed. If nine people out of ten they meet do exactly as they expect, these people--the expectors--will remember the tenth. The tenth, the violator of norms the expectors expect of others, will stand out in their memories like the proverbial sore thumb.
That's human nature. The behaviour that violates norms is not just remembered, but is often held up as indicative of the kind of person who does "that kind of thing." We tend to forgive ourselves our misdeeds before we are prepared to forgive others. A generalization, to be sure, but still typical of human nature.
Tell a lie and it may take you decades of truth telling to overcome the memory others have of that lie. Violate the fidelity of marriage and it will result in divorce in most cases. Fail to live up to a promise you made may cost you a friendship, or a customer, or the trust of who knows how many people who learn about it. Yet it's in the nature of humans to tell the occasional lie, in their hormonal and instinctive makeup to seek more than one sexual partner, and it's often nothing more than memory failure or being too busy that causes people to fail to fulfill their promises.
Putting too much emphasis on what we expect of others is fundamentally fraught with failure.
Think now about someone you know who offers a lot of himself or herself to help others. That person is usually (but not universally) loved and respected. There will always be those who resent what such givers accomplish and the respect and accolades they may receive because they are jealous. But jealousy and envy are sicknesses that fortunately live in few people.
Do I owe something to you? Well, you may say, I owe you a good read since you took the time to read this. From my point of view, I spent over five decades of my life actively learning from others, while having little to offer them in return. By writing this article and many others, I share what I have learned as a way of paying forward what others gave to me over so many years.
I am happier now than I have ever been in my life. To a great extent, that happiness is based on what I learned from others. In some cases, what I learned from them was how to cope with misfortune and errors. In others it was how to do things I had never tackled before and to see them through to completion and success. If I share that with you, you have a better chance of achieving what I have, of feeling the way I feel.
I can't make you happy. I can only point you in the right direction. Your motivation must come from within you. If you focus on how others disappoint you, you will often be disappointed, have negative feelings about others and the world in general. If you focus on what you might do to make their lives a little better, you will have successes. Some greater than others, that's true. Some successes you may never learn about because the others involved moved on before changing their lives.
But you will know.
More than gratitude and self satisfaction result from helping others. It takes time and many instances of helping. But something happens within you that changes your life forever. I don't want to be specific about what this mystery is because I don't want you to use it as an incentive to help others. Do that because it's the right thing to do.
Doing that kind of right thing feels good. Try it if you haven't. Do more if you have. If the latter, you will understand the mystery already.
Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers and parents who want to grow healthy and well balanced children who will take better care of their world, their families and their lives than their ancestors did.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Showing posts with label goals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goals. Show all posts
Friday, April 17, 2009
Saturday, June 07, 2008
How To Live A Meaningful Life (seriously!)
When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life.
- Greg Anderson
I can't tell you more about the author of this quote than his name. The quote is so popular that most citations on Google's lists didn't even provide that much. The Greg Andersons Google did turn up seemed to have darker sides than I would prefer.
The quote itself could be dissected with surgical precision. It begins with the idea of motivation. Motivation is a positive or proactive action in this case. Most people seem to react to life, not to treat it proactively. That is, they do what needs to be done because it needs to be done, not because they are motivated by some strong feelings to do it.
The quote says that goals should be the motivating factor, not simply a reaction to surroundings or events. Specifically, goals that have deep meaning. What's that?
A goal with deep meaning would be one that requires much effort to accomplish and that would provide considerable satisfaction on achieving it. It would also be one that would enhance our edification as an individual. Saving a life or making a difference in someone else's life might be such a goal. Getting a university degree. Raising a child successfully.
"Dreams that need completion" is a re-expression of the previous phrase. Dreams, by themselves, go nowhere. They are nothing more than hopes, only with less chance of coming to pass than most hopes. Dreaming of world peace would be one like that.
World peace does not, could not, be achieved without many intervening steps, smaller and more manageable things that could be accomplished. Each of those would have a recognizable end point which, when reached, a person could say it has been accomplished.
Dreams can be goals, but only if they are carved into smaller and more manageable portions, each of which can be accomplished with a plan and considerable effort. World peace will never happen by itself, even if a million people decided to pray about it, all together. Somebody actually has to do something, something concrete and quantifiable, something that can be seen to have been accomplished when the job is done.
"Pure love that needs expressing" may seem simple, but it could be confused by someone who takes it out of context. Love, in this case, is not sex or romantic love, or even motherly love. This love that needs expressing is about the goals with deep meaning. It's a matter of being devoted to accomplishing each stage of the development and eventually achieving the goal with deep meaning. It means loving what you're doing.
That is how to truly live life.
Doesn't everyone do that? Actually, very few people do.
Most of us have life goals as young adults. Whether we accomplish them or not could depend on whether they had manageable steps, whether we had the resources of time and money to accomplish them, but most of all whether we devoted ourselves to reaching those goals. Most life goals get lost along the way, according to the people I have asked about their own.
Perspiration is the fuel by which goals are accomplished, not inspiration. Most people find they don't want to put that much effort into accomplishing their long term goals. So they satisfy themselves that they just "got too busy."
Is it necessary to live life at that level? I mean, it's really hard work, isn't it?
Spend some time in a crowded place, such as a market or a fair, and observe how similar people behave to worker bees in a hive. Worker bees are extremely important to a beehive. And basic workers are important to a society. But, once gone, they are forgotten and quickly replaced with others of their kind. Dead workers are forgotten quickly.
It isn't necessary to live life at the level of accomplishing meaningful goals. Worker bees don't regret their contributions to the welfare of the hive. But not one of them accomplishes a goal with meaning because they spend their lives doing little tasks that need to be done.
I submit that if you look at people who truly live life at the level of meaningful goal accomplishment recommended in the quote, you will find people who feel the same way about life as those who firmly believe that God lives within them.
And that's pretty good.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teaches who want to teach their children the important lessons of life. Many of those lessons are provided in the book.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Greg Anderson
I can't tell you more about the author of this quote than his name. The quote is so popular that most citations on Google's lists didn't even provide that much. The Greg Andersons Google did turn up seemed to have darker sides than I would prefer.
The quote itself could be dissected with surgical precision. It begins with the idea of motivation. Motivation is a positive or proactive action in this case. Most people seem to react to life, not to treat it proactively. That is, they do what needs to be done because it needs to be done, not because they are motivated by some strong feelings to do it.
The quote says that goals should be the motivating factor, not simply a reaction to surroundings or events. Specifically, goals that have deep meaning. What's that?
A goal with deep meaning would be one that requires much effort to accomplish and that would provide considerable satisfaction on achieving it. It would also be one that would enhance our edification as an individual. Saving a life or making a difference in someone else's life might be such a goal. Getting a university degree. Raising a child successfully.
"Dreams that need completion" is a re-expression of the previous phrase. Dreams, by themselves, go nowhere. They are nothing more than hopes, only with less chance of coming to pass than most hopes. Dreaming of world peace would be one like that.
World peace does not, could not, be achieved without many intervening steps, smaller and more manageable things that could be accomplished. Each of those would have a recognizable end point which, when reached, a person could say it has been accomplished.
Dreams can be goals, but only if they are carved into smaller and more manageable portions, each of which can be accomplished with a plan and considerable effort. World peace will never happen by itself, even if a million people decided to pray about it, all together. Somebody actually has to do something, something concrete and quantifiable, something that can be seen to have been accomplished when the job is done.
"Pure love that needs expressing" may seem simple, but it could be confused by someone who takes it out of context. Love, in this case, is not sex or romantic love, or even motherly love. This love that needs expressing is about the goals with deep meaning. It's a matter of being devoted to accomplishing each stage of the development and eventually achieving the goal with deep meaning. It means loving what you're doing.
That is how to truly live life.
Doesn't everyone do that? Actually, very few people do.
Most of us have life goals as young adults. Whether we accomplish them or not could depend on whether they had manageable steps, whether we had the resources of time and money to accomplish them, but most of all whether we devoted ourselves to reaching those goals. Most life goals get lost along the way, according to the people I have asked about their own.
Perspiration is the fuel by which goals are accomplished, not inspiration. Most people find they don't want to put that much effort into accomplishing their long term goals. So they satisfy themselves that they just "got too busy."
Is it necessary to live life at that level? I mean, it's really hard work, isn't it?
Spend some time in a crowded place, such as a market or a fair, and observe how similar people behave to worker bees in a hive. Worker bees are extremely important to a beehive. And basic workers are important to a society. But, once gone, they are forgotten and quickly replaced with others of their kind. Dead workers are forgotten quickly.
It isn't necessary to live life at the level of accomplishing meaningful goals. Worker bees don't regret their contributions to the welfare of the hive. But not one of them accomplishes a goal with meaning because they spend their lives doing little tasks that need to be done.
I submit that if you look at people who truly live life at the level of meaningful goal accomplishment recommended in the quote, you will find people who feel the same way about life as those who firmly believe that God lives within them.
And that's pretty good.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teaches who want to teach their children the important lessons of life. Many of those lessons are provided in the book.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Friday, May 30, 2008
One Life Goal: Achieved
The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want now.
- Hilary Hinton "Zig" Ziglar, American author, motivational speaker (b. 1926)
While I am not fond of absolute pronouncements (they leave no room for exceptions), Mr. Ziglar's statement contains a great deal of truth.
Why do we trade long term goals for short term pleasures or desires?
This happens more today than ever before in history, likely because people have more opportunities to gratify themselves now rather than struggle to achieve long term goals that may or may not pan out later.
People accept jobs that have them working 75 to 90 hours per week, carry around laptops and cell phones, even grouse when they must turn their phones off while in a theatre, all to accumulate a high income they don't have time to spend effectively. They may lose their families and spend their income on stuff they would not need if they didn't work all the time. Their pleasure comes from buying, not from doing.
People take drugs for a few minutes of bliss, then forget from one time to the next the horrifying experience of regaining their undrugged senses after the fact. Their marriages, their families and their friendships eventually disintegrate, but they need that hit of pleasure for a few minutes no matter what the cost later.
People marry the wrong partners because they believe it will help them in years to come. They get the looks and recognition for a short time, but live years of misery later when it doesn't work out.
People buy products they see advertised--such as cosmetics, cosmetic surgery, fashion design clothing or upscale cars--despite the fact that these rarely achieve their intended purpose (real enjoyment) and often leave the buyer cash-poor, unable to engage in other worthwhile activities because they don't have enough money left. They don't "get it" that a $100,000 a year income is the same as a $20,000 a year income if both spend it all and have nothing left to show for it.
Why? The answer, I believe, is that we no longer encourage children to have long term goals for their lives as adults. Rather than urging them to determine what they want to make of their lives, what they want to accomplish with their time on this planet, our culture teaches them to buy for pleasure and recognition and work as hard as you must to get the necessary income (as high as possible) to do it.
In my personal life, I didn't have much in the way of goals as a young man. With my intellectual and physical impairments, social backwardness and emotional late development, I thought I would be lucky just to survive long enough to retire from something.
However, I did have one long term goal. One summer day when I was about 16 years old and working for the summer in a factory, a overheard one worker tell another "I never have conversations with people younger than 25 because they don't know anything." A quick self-examination persuaded me that I fit that, I didn't know anything, not much about any subject, no skills at any trade, no aspirations to get them, no hope.
I decided on the spot that one day I would like to know enough that I could speak with knowledge and confidence on some subject. As I had no idea which subject to choose, I decided that I had better gain a bit of knowledge on as many subjects as possible before I selected one to specialize in.
In the process of devouring information on a wide variety of topics over many years, I managed to neglect deciding which subject would be my specialty. Coincidentally, I became a teacher because teaching held more security for a man with a young family than the media work I had been in. That was an accomplishment in itself, since I was functionally illiterate at the time.
As getting an undergraduate degree, then a master's degree from a university brought in more money for a teacher in my region, I secured those as well. Still functionally illiterate. I became skilled at thinking through a subject for a paper, then searching out quotes in books I had not read to support my theses. (It was easy as I only had to read the quotes the authors of the books had quoted, not the whole of the books. Then I requoted the quotes and gave attribution to both authors.)
In my mid 40s, I learned to read for content and enjoyment. That improved my ability to accumulate more information and knowledge.
Eventually I became someone people turned to for information and answers. As my university experience specialized in sociology, people come to me for advice on subjects relating to the social sciences. I had reached my goal.
It had taken nearly 50 years from that first motivational prompt, but I had accomplished what few others had, achieved my life goal.
Looking around at people I know, I realize that few of them have life goals. Real goals they work towards. Most of them have more expensive cars than mine, have bigger homes than mine and pay taxes on higher incomes than mine.
But they aren't as happy. They don't understand why. So they go smoke some grass or get drunk and forget about it.
Remember, our job as adults is to teach the generations following us to make the world better, not to screw it up more than we did. Long term goals, life goals, are important.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents, teachers and anyone who wants to teach children what they need to know (outside of schoolwork) to make successes of their lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Hilary Hinton "Zig" Ziglar, American author, motivational speaker (b. 1926)
While I am not fond of absolute pronouncements (they leave no room for exceptions), Mr. Ziglar's statement contains a great deal of truth.
Why do we trade long term goals for short term pleasures or desires?
This happens more today than ever before in history, likely because people have more opportunities to gratify themselves now rather than struggle to achieve long term goals that may or may not pan out later.
People accept jobs that have them working 75 to 90 hours per week, carry around laptops and cell phones, even grouse when they must turn their phones off while in a theatre, all to accumulate a high income they don't have time to spend effectively. They may lose their families and spend their income on stuff they would not need if they didn't work all the time. Their pleasure comes from buying, not from doing.
People take drugs for a few minutes of bliss, then forget from one time to the next the horrifying experience of regaining their undrugged senses after the fact. Their marriages, their families and their friendships eventually disintegrate, but they need that hit of pleasure for a few minutes no matter what the cost later.
People marry the wrong partners because they believe it will help them in years to come. They get the looks and recognition for a short time, but live years of misery later when it doesn't work out.
People buy products they see advertised--such as cosmetics, cosmetic surgery, fashion design clothing or upscale cars--despite the fact that these rarely achieve their intended purpose (real enjoyment) and often leave the buyer cash-poor, unable to engage in other worthwhile activities because they don't have enough money left. They don't "get it" that a $100,000 a year income is the same as a $20,000 a year income if both spend it all and have nothing left to show for it.
Why? The answer, I believe, is that we no longer encourage children to have long term goals for their lives as adults. Rather than urging them to determine what they want to make of their lives, what they want to accomplish with their time on this planet, our culture teaches them to buy for pleasure and recognition and work as hard as you must to get the necessary income (as high as possible) to do it.
In my personal life, I didn't have much in the way of goals as a young man. With my intellectual and physical impairments, social backwardness and emotional late development, I thought I would be lucky just to survive long enough to retire from something.
However, I did have one long term goal. One summer day when I was about 16 years old and working for the summer in a factory, a overheard one worker tell another "I never have conversations with people younger than 25 because they don't know anything." A quick self-examination persuaded me that I fit that, I didn't know anything, not much about any subject, no skills at any trade, no aspirations to get them, no hope.
I decided on the spot that one day I would like to know enough that I could speak with knowledge and confidence on some subject. As I had no idea which subject to choose, I decided that I had better gain a bit of knowledge on as many subjects as possible before I selected one to specialize in.
In the process of devouring information on a wide variety of topics over many years, I managed to neglect deciding which subject would be my specialty. Coincidentally, I became a teacher because teaching held more security for a man with a young family than the media work I had been in. That was an accomplishment in itself, since I was functionally illiterate at the time.
As getting an undergraduate degree, then a master's degree from a university brought in more money for a teacher in my region, I secured those as well. Still functionally illiterate. I became skilled at thinking through a subject for a paper, then searching out quotes in books I had not read to support my theses. (It was easy as I only had to read the quotes the authors of the books had quoted, not the whole of the books. Then I requoted the quotes and gave attribution to both authors.)
In my mid 40s, I learned to read for content and enjoyment. That improved my ability to accumulate more information and knowledge.
Eventually I became someone people turned to for information and answers. As my university experience specialized in sociology, people come to me for advice on subjects relating to the social sciences. I had reached my goal.
It had taken nearly 50 years from that first motivational prompt, but I had accomplished what few others had, achieved my life goal.
Looking around at people I know, I realize that few of them have life goals. Real goals they work towards. Most of them have more expensive cars than mine, have bigger homes than mine and pay taxes on higher incomes than mine.
But they aren't as happy. They don't understand why. So they go smoke some grass or get drunk and forget about it.
Remember, our job as adults is to teach the generations following us to make the world better, not to screw it up more than we did. Long term goals, life goals, are important.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents, teachers and anyone who wants to teach children what they need to know (outside of schoolwork) to make successes of their lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monday, January 21, 2008
Objectives: Peace And Happiness
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
- Mitch Hedberg, stand-up comic
Good line. Seems like one you would laugh at then throw away. Let's look closer.
"I'm sick of following my dreams." If you take the words literally, he has followed something but doesn't know what the destination is. Without knowing the objective or goal of a project, it would be hard to commit to it.
Imagine someone dreaming about peace in the world. Something many people wish for, but don't take seriously. They don't take it seriously because they have no idea how peace could be accomplished. They might take some initiatives, such as attending a seminar or being part of a demonstration for peace, but these activities are usually without goals or objectives (other than to advance the careers or reputations of the organizers).
It wouldn't take long or participation in many events for peace before most people would realize that it's a wish without a goal or even a plan to achieve it.
What would peace in the world look like? Surely genocide such as we have seen all too often in the past century would be a thing of the past. War might be forbidden, by international decree, with intervention by the United Nations (an independent security force) or some future version of NATO being a requirement where two or more parties seemed unwilling or unable to participate in dialogue.
Compared to today, Iraq was peaceful before the fall of Saddam and Afghanistan was at peace before the fall of the Taliban. Would rule by an iron-fisted theocracy be acceptable, or a dictatorship where one culture dominated others within the same country be tolerated?
Looking closer to home (for those of us not in war zones), would pharmaceutical companies still be able to control medical studies and sway democratic governments to make people believe that living unhealthy lifestyles and taking drugs to try to fix what we broke ourselves be allowed to continue?
Most health authorities with a conscience agree that too many people live unhealthy lifestyles that cause them to contract cancer, diabetes and dozens of other afflictions, resulting in their deaths much earlier than the average. Would democratic governments in peacetime fund and promote the results of fair studies so that everyone would know what their bodies need and what kinds of activities would compromise their health?
Would oil companies that now make fortunes daily by supplying fuel to fighting militaries settle for simply providing fuel for homes and vehicles and industries that manufacture hundreds of the items most of us use every day?
Would our religions that have continued to gain our attention, devotion and contributions for centuries be able to convert from their violence-supporting ways to teaching us how to live in harmony? No other existing agencies could manage such a mammoth task.
Peace, like many dreams, remains elusive so long as we don't have a clear idea of what it would mean. We can't reach an objective if we don't know what objective to aim for. Most people, I suspect, would have little idea what a world at peace would be like and how life would change for them.
Peace can only be achieved one person at a time, one mind at a time, one life at a time. Until we can feel peace within ourselves, we can never know peace in our families, our communities, our countries or the world.
Peace, like happiness, begins within ourselves. If we look for them from others, we will never achieve them.
Each of us is like a state within one body. Until that state is at peace within itself, it can't manage to have peaceful relations with other states. Until the state is happy with itself, it will have trouble being happy with others.
Dream what you like, but know the objective you want or you will never achieve it.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, when and what to teach children so that they can lead peaceful and healthy adult lives, even if their parents grew up on a different kind of environment.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Mitch Hedberg, stand-up comic
Good line. Seems like one you would laugh at then throw away. Let's look closer.
"I'm sick of following my dreams." If you take the words literally, he has followed something but doesn't know what the destination is. Without knowing the objective or goal of a project, it would be hard to commit to it.
Imagine someone dreaming about peace in the world. Something many people wish for, but don't take seriously. They don't take it seriously because they have no idea how peace could be accomplished. They might take some initiatives, such as attending a seminar or being part of a demonstration for peace, but these activities are usually without goals or objectives (other than to advance the careers or reputations of the organizers).
It wouldn't take long or participation in many events for peace before most people would realize that it's a wish without a goal or even a plan to achieve it.
What would peace in the world look like? Surely genocide such as we have seen all too often in the past century would be a thing of the past. War might be forbidden, by international decree, with intervention by the United Nations (an independent security force) or some future version of NATO being a requirement where two or more parties seemed unwilling or unable to participate in dialogue.
Compared to today, Iraq was peaceful before the fall of Saddam and Afghanistan was at peace before the fall of the Taliban. Would rule by an iron-fisted theocracy be acceptable, or a dictatorship where one culture dominated others within the same country be tolerated?
Looking closer to home (for those of us not in war zones), would pharmaceutical companies still be able to control medical studies and sway democratic governments to make people believe that living unhealthy lifestyles and taking drugs to try to fix what we broke ourselves be allowed to continue?
Most health authorities with a conscience agree that too many people live unhealthy lifestyles that cause them to contract cancer, diabetes and dozens of other afflictions, resulting in their deaths much earlier than the average. Would democratic governments in peacetime fund and promote the results of fair studies so that everyone would know what their bodies need and what kinds of activities would compromise their health?
Would oil companies that now make fortunes daily by supplying fuel to fighting militaries settle for simply providing fuel for homes and vehicles and industries that manufacture hundreds of the items most of us use every day?
Would our religions that have continued to gain our attention, devotion and contributions for centuries be able to convert from their violence-supporting ways to teaching us how to live in harmony? No other existing agencies could manage such a mammoth task.
Peace, like many dreams, remains elusive so long as we don't have a clear idea of what it would mean. We can't reach an objective if we don't know what objective to aim for. Most people, I suspect, would have little idea what a world at peace would be like and how life would change for them.
Peace can only be achieved one person at a time, one mind at a time, one life at a time. Until we can feel peace within ourselves, we can never know peace in our families, our communities, our countries or the world.
Peace, like happiness, begins within ourselves. If we look for them from others, we will never achieve them.
Each of us is like a state within one body. Until that state is at peace within itself, it can't manage to have peaceful relations with other states. Until the state is happy with itself, it will have trouble being happy with others.
Dream what you like, but know the objective you want or you will never achieve it.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, when and what to teach children so that they can lead peaceful and healthy adult lives, even if their parents grew up on a different kind of environment.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Sunday, March 25, 2007
The Only Way To Succeed
"I’d spent my whole life feeling like a freak and an outsider and that nobody understood me and suddenly I felt like it's OK to feel different."
- Madonna
You may have wondered how the performer who has reinventd herself several times to remain among the leaders of the music industry got to be the way she is.
She knew something special. She knew that she had to be among the best in her field--whatever field she chose to enter--and she committed herself to work extremely hard to the best of her ability to reach that goal and to stay there.
That may seem trite, that someone has to work hard. But in Madonna's case she worked hard in a field in which she was considered an outsider, because she was a woman, because she was aggressive, because she was talented, because she was bright and because she would not allow anyone to put her down. She was determined to be who she wanted to be.
Not many people can say that they plotted the course for their lives and have followed it through relentlessly. The reason is that most of us face too many setbacks that cause us to take detours, so many that we lose our way and become someone we didn't plan to be.
Staying the course for a lifetime is very difficult because there are always people who want to divert us, for their own reasons and often for their own benefit. Ignoring the naysayers requires a kind of devotion of its own, one in which a person must develop a kind of emotional armour to let attacks against them bounce off while they continue on their chosen path.
No doubt detours will happen along the way. Life's detours get most people lost from their course. Those who eventually reach their goals find their way back to the direction they were headed after every detour. Every time.
Along the way they find others who want to either join them or to support them. They become the few good friends that persistent goal-seekers have.
Those who succeed at anything always have fair-weather supporters and hangers-on friends. These are accepted with gratitude, with the understanding that they will disappear again when the going gets rough again.
The going has got rough again many times for Madonna. Recently it was because she wanted to adopt a child from Africa. The media searched endlessly for some way to trash what she wanted to do. To help the media, several people were prepared to lie along the way to get their share of attention.
She will win again because her attitude is "To hell with the naysayers and the trash media!"
Sometimes winners can only succeed by turning and walking away from detractors. Over the long term, the critics disappear while the winners continue on. The winners work harder and never lose sight of their goal.
Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to shine a light on the path through the mess that life can sometimes become.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Madonna
You may have wondered how the performer who has reinventd herself several times to remain among the leaders of the music industry got to be the way she is.
She knew something special. She knew that she had to be among the best in her field--whatever field she chose to enter--and she committed herself to work extremely hard to the best of her ability to reach that goal and to stay there.
That may seem trite, that someone has to work hard. But in Madonna's case she worked hard in a field in which she was considered an outsider, because she was a woman, because she was aggressive, because she was talented, because she was bright and because she would not allow anyone to put her down. She was determined to be who she wanted to be.
Not many people can say that they plotted the course for their lives and have followed it through relentlessly. The reason is that most of us face too many setbacks that cause us to take detours, so many that we lose our way and become someone we didn't plan to be.
Staying the course for a lifetime is very difficult because there are always people who want to divert us, for their own reasons and often for their own benefit. Ignoring the naysayers requires a kind of devotion of its own, one in which a person must develop a kind of emotional armour to let attacks against them bounce off while they continue on their chosen path.
No doubt detours will happen along the way. Life's detours get most people lost from their course. Those who eventually reach their goals find their way back to the direction they were headed after every detour. Every time.
Along the way they find others who want to either join them or to support them. They become the few good friends that persistent goal-seekers have.
Those who succeed at anything always have fair-weather supporters and hangers-on friends. These are accepted with gratitude, with the understanding that they will disappear again when the going gets rough again.
The going has got rough again many times for Madonna. Recently it was because she wanted to adopt a child from Africa. The media searched endlessly for some way to trash what she wanted to do. To help the media, several people were prepared to lie along the way to get their share of attention.
She will win again because her attitude is "To hell with the naysayers and the trash media!"
Sometimes winners can only succeed by turning and walking away from detractors. Over the long term, the critics disappear while the winners continue on. The winners work harder and never lose sight of their goal.
Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to shine a light on the path through the mess that life can sometimes become.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Why Having Long Term Life Goals Might Save You
The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.
- J.M. Barrie, novelist and playwright (1860-1937)
How many people really do plan their lives, lay out the objectives and goals they hope to achieve? That would have to be in a meaningful and realistic way, as some people plan to make their first million by age 30 but few make it. Most of those people are divorced by age 30 instead.
Most people I have met have a vague idea of what they would like their lives to be like a few decades down the road. With divorce being so common today and security in jobs more a dream of the past than a reality of the present, surely most plans will go astray somewhere.
Not necessarily. Life plans can go astray the way we have to make detours around the roads we planned to take on a long trip because of construction. The destination or life goals can remain in place even if we have to take different routes to get there than we planned.
I planned what I wanted to be, the kind of person I wanted to be and position I wanted to be in life at my present age, when I was 15. I had no idea how to get there, took a variety of interesting detours along the way--some delightful, some petrifying.
Whether I reached the goals I had for myself may be less important that the fact that I explored many avenues, especially paths I didn't think I was suited for, and made at least modest successes out of each. In taking those unplanned routes, I learned how to turn weaknesses into strengths as I had to accomplish tasks and objectives I had not previously prepared for.
I don't want to set myself up as a role model. However, each young person needs to know that they should set life goals for themselves, that they may take diverse paths to reach them, but that the goals are worth having.
Life goals keep us from straying too far from our course, such as by seeking short term pleasures with drugs or other addictions, and such as taking liberties with the law when we find ourselves short of income and long on bills owing and finding ourselves in prison as a result. And such as destroying our marriage because we can't cope with some of the unpleasantness of it. Or allowing ourselves to sink into depression or another state of (manageable) mental illness because we can't cope with the problems of the day.
We need to have a clear idea of what we want from life and we need to keep heading in that direction, more or less. Expecting someone else to tell us what life is all about won't get us to a destination or life goal. If we don't set our own goals, we won't be committed enough to stick to the course along the way.
Life is complicated if we look at all the little problems and diversions along the way. It's much simpler if we understand that these are not very important over the long term, but our forging our way toward our goal is what matters. We are the architect of the person we will become.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to give some perspective to what life is about.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- J.M. Barrie, novelist and playwright (1860-1937)
How many people really do plan their lives, lay out the objectives and goals they hope to achieve? That would have to be in a meaningful and realistic way, as some people plan to make their first million by age 30 but few make it. Most of those people are divorced by age 30 instead.
Most people I have met have a vague idea of what they would like their lives to be like a few decades down the road. With divorce being so common today and security in jobs more a dream of the past than a reality of the present, surely most plans will go astray somewhere.
Not necessarily. Life plans can go astray the way we have to make detours around the roads we planned to take on a long trip because of construction. The destination or life goals can remain in place even if we have to take different routes to get there than we planned.
I planned what I wanted to be, the kind of person I wanted to be and position I wanted to be in life at my present age, when I was 15. I had no idea how to get there, took a variety of interesting detours along the way--some delightful, some petrifying.
Whether I reached the goals I had for myself may be less important that the fact that I explored many avenues, especially paths I didn't think I was suited for, and made at least modest successes out of each. In taking those unplanned routes, I learned how to turn weaknesses into strengths as I had to accomplish tasks and objectives I had not previously prepared for.
I don't want to set myself up as a role model. However, each young person needs to know that they should set life goals for themselves, that they may take diverse paths to reach them, but that the goals are worth having.
Life goals keep us from straying too far from our course, such as by seeking short term pleasures with drugs or other addictions, and such as taking liberties with the law when we find ourselves short of income and long on bills owing and finding ourselves in prison as a result. And such as destroying our marriage because we can't cope with some of the unpleasantness of it. Or allowing ourselves to sink into depression or another state of (manageable) mental illness because we can't cope with the problems of the day.
We need to have a clear idea of what we want from life and we need to keep heading in that direction, more or less. Expecting someone else to tell us what life is all about won't get us to a destination or life goal. If we don't set our own goals, we won't be committed enough to stick to the course along the way.
Life is complicated if we look at all the little problems and diversions along the way. It's much simpler if we understand that these are not very important over the long term, but our forging our way toward our goal is what matters. We are the architect of the person we will become.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to give some perspective to what life is about.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
What's Behind The Fanatical Cults?
When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.
- Robert T. Pirsig, author and philosopher (1928- )
Just to clarify, the doubt would be on part of the "believers." The vast majority of people know the dogmas and goals are hogwash.
While this seems a contradiction--why believe something about which you have doubts?--it is a strange fact of human nature. It's not like the captain going down with the sinking ship. It's more like the crew of a sinking ship vowing to defy all the facts of their sinking and a force their ship to refloat by virtue of their collective will.
Going back into history, the cultures that fought the invasion of the barbarians in the late Roman times of Europe tended to be the ones that disappeared by being wiped out. Those that succumbed to the invading hordes from the east usually survived and found the newcomers prepared to mostly assimilate into their new culture and blend the two. Belief in the purity of your own culture, it turned out, resulted in annihilation.
In modern times, the Palestinians are a prime example of a people who are fighting a losing battle because they believe they have a right to wipe out Israel and own all the land that now comprises the Israeli state.
In fact, the only reason there is a war now is that the states neighbouring Israel refused to accept what became known as the Palestinians as citizens of their own countries because the latter were considered too crude and brutal. Former Jordanians and Egyptians, for example, now identify themselves as Palestinians because their former home countries rejected their repatriation. No one wanted them.
Israel was created in lands where the Arab people had been supporters of the Germans during the world wars and the international community wanted to silence the troublemakers by giving their land to the new state of Israel. Then they provided economic, financial and moral support to ensure that the troublemakers remained silent. The fact that present day Israel exists on biblical Israeli lands was a bonus, not a true founding principle.
However, the Palestinians didn't remain silent. They devised a war in which their own people--by the design of the leaders of the warrior factions--died in much greater numbers than the "enemy." Apart from selling them weapons, the international community collectively offers little (or no) support for the Palestinian cause of taking control of Israeli lands and sending Israelis off in ships.
As annoying as Irael may be to its neighbours, it presents no threat to them. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have turned the Middle East into a potential war zone.
Finally, we must consider the terrorists of the world. Without exception, they subscribe to a version of Islam that is of their own invention, that doesn't really exist except in the minds the followers. The followers belong to many cults, none of which supports mainstream Islam nor is supported by it.
Consider these questions that the radicals refuse to think about. Do the men and women who commit suicide for the purpose of killing mostly other members of their own religion really believe that Allah wants this to happen? Do they really believe that 72 virgins--male virgins for the women, women for the males--await them when they reach heaven? Do they really believe that the world will be a better place because they have committed suicide--the worst sin in Islam--and created a bloodbath of body parts of innocent people (murder is the second worst sin)?
Of course they have doubts. But because that is the only course of action that their teaching has allowed--not Islam, but within the terrorist cults--they want desperately to believe it. And perhaps to die before their belief is proven wrong.
Think about it. If the belief set you had devoted your life to, the only one you knew, were about to be proven to be totally false and its members shamed, might you not seriously consider giving up on your wasted life? Especially if others of your ilk would praise you for your heroism when otherwise your life would be proven to be a waste of oxygen and protoplasm.
Fanaticism is a refuge for desperate people who have little else to live for.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make some sense of the difficult problems that confront our world.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Robert T. Pirsig, author and philosopher (1928- )
Just to clarify, the doubt would be on part of the "believers." The vast majority of people know the dogmas and goals are hogwash.
While this seems a contradiction--why believe something about which you have doubts?--it is a strange fact of human nature. It's not like the captain going down with the sinking ship. It's more like the crew of a sinking ship vowing to defy all the facts of their sinking and a force their ship to refloat by virtue of their collective will.
Going back into history, the cultures that fought the invasion of the barbarians in the late Roman times of Europe tended to be the ones that disappeared by being wiped out. Those that succumbed to the invading hordes from the east usually survived and found the newcomers prepared to mostly assimilate into their new culture and blend the two. Belief in the purity of your own culture, it turned out, resulted in annihilation.
In modern times, the Palestinians are a prime example of a people who are fighting a losing battle because they believe they have a right to wipe out Israel and own all the land that now comprises the Israeli state.
In fact, the only reason there is a war now is that the states neighbouring Israel refused to accept what became known as the Palestinians as citizens of their own countries because the latter were considered too crude and brutal. Former Jordanians and Egyptians, for example, now identify themselves as Palestinians because their former home countries rejected their repatriation. No one wanted them.
Israel was created in lands where the Arab people had been supporters of the Germans during the world wars and the international community wanted to silence the troublemakers by giving their land to the new state of Israel. Then they provided economic, financial and moral support to ensure that the troublemakers remained silent. The fact that present day Israel exists on biblical Israeli lands was a bonus, not a true founding principle.
However, the Palestinians didn't remain silent. They devised a war in which their own people--by the design of the leaders of the warrior factions--died in much greater numbers than the "enemy." Apart from selling them weapons, the international community collectively offers little (or no) support for the Palestinian cause of taking control of Israeli lands and sending Israelis off in ships.
As annoying as Irael may be to its neighbours, it presents no threat to them. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have turned the Middle East into a potential war zone.
Finally, we must consider the terrorists of the world. Without exception, they subscribe to a version of Islam that is of their own invention, that doesn't really exist except in the minds the followers. The followers belong to many cults, none of which supports mainstream Islam nor is supported by it.
Consider these questions that the radicals refuse to think about. Do the men and women who commit suicide for the purpose of killing mostly other members of their own religion really believe that Allah wants this to happen? Do they really believe that 72 virgins--male virgins for the women, women for the males--await them when they reach heaven? Do they really believe that the world will be a better place because they have committed suicide--the worst sin in Islam--and created a bloodbath of body parts of innocent people (murder is the second worst sin)?
Of course they have doubts. But because that is the only course of action that their teaching has allowed--not Islam, but within the terrorist cults--they want desperately to believe it. And perhaps to die before their belief is proven wrong.
Think about it. If the belief set you had devoted your life to, the only one you knew, were about to be proven to be totally false and its members shamed, might you not seriously consider giving up on your wasted life? Especially if others of your ilk would praise you for your heroism when otherwise your life would be proven to be a waste of oxygen and protoplasm.
Fanaticism is a refuge for desperate people who have little else to live for.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make some sense of the difficult problems that confront our world.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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