Sincerely Enthusiastic

Sincerely Enthusiastic - Gretchen Rubin

I wanted to laugh more, I wanted to show more loving-kindness, and I also wanted to be more enthusiastic.

I knew that it wasn't nice to criticize but it was fun. Why was it so deliciously satisfying to criticize? Being critical made me feel more sophisticated and intelligent — and in fact, studies show that people who are critical are often perceived to be more discerning. In one study, for example, people judged the writers of negative book reviews as more expert and competent than the writers of positive reviews, even when the content of both reviews was deemed to be of high quality. Another study showed that people tend to think that someone who criticizes them is smarter than they are. Also, when a person disrupts a group's unanimity, he or she lessens its social power. I've seen people exploit this phenomenon; when a group is cheerfully unanimous on a topic like 'The teacher is doing a great job' or 'This restaurant is terrific,' such a person takes the opposite position to deflate the group's mood. Being critical has its advantages, and what's more, it's much easier to be hard to please. Although enthusiasm seems easy and undiscriminating, in fact, it's much harder to embrace something than to disdain it. It's riskier.

When I examined my reactions to other people, I realized that I do often view people who make critical remarks as more perceptive and more discriminating. At the same time, though, it's hard to find pleasure in the company of someone who finds nothing pleasing. I prefer the company of the more enthusiastic types, who seem less judgemental, more vital, more fun.

For example, one evening, as part of a surprise birthday party for a close friend, we went to a Barry Manilow concert, because my friend loves Barry Manilow. Afterward, I reflected that it showed considerable strength of character to be such an avowed Barry Manilow fan. After all, Barry Manilow is . . . well, Barry Manilow. It would be so much safer to mock his music, or to enjoy it in an ironic, campy way, than to admire it wholeheartedly as she did. Enthusiasm is a form of social courage. What's more, people's assessments are very influenced by other people's assessments. So when my friend said, 'This is terrific music, this is a great concert,' her enthusiasm lifted me up.

I wanted to embrace this kind of zest. I steeled myself to stop making certain kinds of unnecessarily negative statements: 'I really don't feel like going,' 'The food was too rich,' 'There's nothing worth reading in the paper.'

Instead, I tried to look for ways to be sincerely enthusiastic.

Going Beyond The Roles We Play

Going Beyond the Roles We Play - Mack Paul

We seem so very real. But our bodies are really not our own and we have no control over either their coming or going. We have roles that we play and try to convince ourselves that they are real. It is illuminating to watch this process in kids because with them, the process is very transparent. They try on identities like they are trying on t-shirts. When they find one they like, they identify with the narrative that supports it and then they split up into mutually antagonistic groups. Adults do the same thing but adult identities are covered up under thick layers of justification that appear reasonable.

Shakespeare had it right it when he said that "all the world's a stage and all the men and women are merely players." Roles are a good thing that give us structure and purpose. But when we really begin believing in the roles we play we become more and more willing to sacrifice ourselves and others to them.

Sports are a perfect example. They are popular melodramas that are absolutely meaningless and of no consequence whatsoever. We invest huge amounts of emotion in them involving a relatively mild form of human sacrifice. Thankfully, we don't drag people up on an altar to cut their throats and tear out their hearts any longer but we do dress them up in football uniforms and cheer as they beat their brains out. I saw a picture of Brazilian fans after their World Cup loss to Germany. Had I not known better I would have thought they were watching their children being torn apart by wild dogs.

The purpose of religion and spiritual practices is to see beyond our individual dramas to a greater, transcendent truth. Everyone who practices a religion understands this. Nevertheless, the practice of religion largely consists of bitter fighting over competing mythologies.

Mindfulness isn't about what we believe. It is the simple act of paying curious and non-judgemental attention to the present moment. The present moment sounds pretty good. We hear that and imagine a state of bliss. Then we spend a little time in the present we find that is mainly made up of one thought after another. We hate that and complain that we can't get the mind to stop. Minds don't stop. Minds think. We can only observe the endless stream of stories and witness our desire to believe them without actually believing them. That isn't so easy.

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Inspiring Talk By Aisha Chaudhary

Humbly request to please view an Insipriing Talk By Aisha Chaudhary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFExgTJzEV4

Aisha was born with an immune deficiency and an expected life expectancy of just 1 year. This talk has been recorded when she was 15 years old. Unfortunately she passed away on 24th January, 2015.

A lot which all of us can learn from her perspectives of life.

Thank you.

5 Traits Of Emotionally Intelligent Leaders

5 Traits Of Emotionally Intelligent Leaders - Joel Peterson

(Sourced From World Economic Forum Website)

In November 1974, not long after I joined the real estate development firm Trammell Crow Company, Fortune magazine ran a profile of company founder Trammell Crow. Entitled “Trammell Crow Succeeds Because You Want Him To,” the article, by author Wyndham Robertson, captured Crow’s uncanny gift for recruiting people to root for his success. Seven years later, I saw firsthand one of the ways he did this when he launched Wyndham Hotels.

Trammell was a pioneer in the real estate industry, and during my almost two decades working at Crow, several people told me that they were the one who made Trammell his first loan. People felt invested in his success because he shared it with them. He gave others credit. He actively looked for small ways to acknowledge those with whom he worked.

One time I made an off-hand remark about a watch he was wearing. The following Monday when I arrived in the office, there was a box with a new watch on my desk – no note. There was no question in my mind who’d gone out of his way to make the unexpected gift.

When it came to hiring, Trammell similarly put a priority on human interactions. He used to say that brains and heart were baseline requirements, but that new hires had to be people you’d “want to go out and have a beer with.” Today, the entire real estate industry is filled with former Crow partners selected by Trammell for their people skills.

Trammell figured out that there’s genius in emotional intelligence, just as there is with intellectual intelligence. People with high EQs not only relate to others, but they have a situational awareness and a sense of priorities that are hard to teach.

After years of searching out this type of person for business leadership roles, I’ve concluded that they share several common traits.

1. They like team sports. Those with overwhelming personal agendas often drown others out, don’t listen well, see everything through a personal lens and are combative to a fault. While they may be great individual performers, they can destroy a team and they rarely have a big cheering section of their own.
2. They’re quietly self-confident. The brashest people I know are generally insecure. It’s often the quieter ones who run deep and are truly unafraid when they’re under stress. So don’t confuse outward confidence with inner strength – they can be inversely proportional. When the chips are down, it’s often the reserved, stable personalities that people want to follow.
3. They take the long view. Everyone is self-interested – this is to be expected. However, those who make good leaders, good partners and solid contributors can discern second- and third-order consequences. They have the ability to “see around corners,” and they anticipate the long-run and the all-things-considered wisdom of the options before them. They also make decisions with an enlightened self-interest that takes into account others’ perspectives.
4. They are kind. This is something I saw in Trammell, but that I really learned from my mother, who always said that it costs nothing to say a kind word and to lift others’ spirits. Going back to Trammell, I recall him skipping out of an awards banquet that he was attending when one of guests at his table suffered an offense. Rather than staying for the festivities, Trammell took the offended party out to a private dinner.
5. They don’t look for a quid pro quo. The people who others wish to see succeed often do things without any anticipation of reward and without keeping a scorecard. The trick is to find those who love to win, but who have the emotional intelligence to want others to win, too.

Those who are short-term selfish, who make getting ahead the top priority, will find that their behavior is likely counterproductive. While people may not always remember or repay good deeds, they nearly always remember deeds that hurt them, and will often look for opportunities to repay in kind. Those who make such behavior a habit will find themselves with empty cheering sections, and perhaps no teammates either.

Motivational speaker and sales wizard Harry “Zig” Ziglar claimed, “You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” The trick to this often boils down to how you order these priorities. If you can make helping others succeed a top priority, you’ll find it’s sometimes repaid. But you’ll also find that more often than not, it isn’t – and you can’t let that make a difference.

The trick is not to change your course when the favor isn’t returned. If you can live your life in such a way, you will find that many wonderful fans, friends and teammates will quietly want you to succeed.

Author: Joel Peterson is the Chairman of JetBlue Airways.

Significance Of Lent ...

In spirit of the ongoing holy period of Lent ...

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God Is At The Window

God Is At The Window

There was a little boy visiting his grandparents on their farm. He was given a slingshot to play with out in the woods. He practiced in the woods; but he could never hit the target.

Getting a little discouraged, he headed back for dinner... as he was walking back he saw Grandma's pet duck. Just out of impulse, he let the slingshot fly, hit the duck square in the head and killed it. He was shocked and grieved!

In a panic, he hid the dead duck in the wood pile; only to see his Sister watching! Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing.

After lunch the next day Grandma said, 'Sally, let's wash the dishes'. But Sally said, 'Grandma, Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen.' Then she whispered to him, "Remember the duck?'. So Johnny did the dishes.

Later that day, Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing and Grandma said, 'I'm sorry but I need Sally to help make supper.' Sally just smiled and said, 'well that's all right because Johnny told me he wanted to help? She whispered again, 'Remember the duck?' So Sally went fishing and Johnny stayed to help.

After several days of Johnny doing both his chores and Sally's; he finally couldn't stand it any longer.

He came to Grandma and confessed that he had killed the duck. Grandma knelt down, gave him a hug and said, 'Sweetheart, I know. You see, I was standing at the window and I saw the whole thing, but because I love you, I forgave you. I was just wondering how long you would let Sally make a slave of you.'

Thought for the day and every day thereafter:

Whatever is in your past, whatever you have done...? And the devil keeps throwing it up in your face (lying, cheating, debt, fear, bad habits, hatred, anger, bitterness, etc...)...whatever it is..You need to know that: God was standing at the window and He saw the whole thing.

He has seen your whole life... He wants you to know that He loves you and that you are forgiven. He's just wondering how long you will let the devil make a slave of you..

The great thing about God is that when you ask for forgiveness; He not only forgives you, but He forgets. It is by God's grace and mercy that we are saved.

Go ahead and make the difference in someone's life today!

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Some Soulful Lines ...

Some Soulful Lines ...

• Prayer is not a "spare wheel" that you pull out when in trouble, but it is a "steering wheel" that directs the right path throughout life.
• Why is a car's wind shield so large and the rear view mirror so small? Because our PAST is not as important as our FUTURE. So, look ahead and move on.
• Friendship is like a BOOK. It takes a few seconds to burn, but it takes years to write.
• All things in life are temporary. If they are going well, enjoy them, they will not last forever. If they are going wrong, don't worry, they can't last long either.
• Old friends are gold! New friends are diamond! If you get a diamond, don't forget the gold! To hold a diamond, you always need a base of gold!
• Often when we lose hope and think this is the end, God smiles from above and says, "Relax, sweetheart; it's just a bend, not the end!"
• A blind person asked God: "Can there be anything worse than losing eye sight?" He replied: "Yes, losing your vision!"
• When you pray for others, God listens to you and blesses them, and sometimes, when you are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for you.
• Worrying does not take away tomorrow's troubles; it takes away today's PEACE. 
• When God solves your problems, you have faith in HIS abilities; when God doesn't solve your problems, He has faith in YOUR abilities.

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Don't Look Back In Sorrow Or Regret.

Don't look back in sorrow or regret.

Know deep in your heart that everything up to this point has helped to shape your life and mould you into the beautiful soul you are today.

Remember that soul growth can only come from change, and hardships force us to do just that.

When you think back and wish things could have been different, take a moment to examine the beauty around you and remember that without your past, you wouldn't be where you are today.

Embrace it. Love it. Learn from it. You are continuously growing.

Be grateful for all that has transpired and for the lessons and experiences that they have shown you to help you along your journey.

Do You Feel Stuck In Life?

One of the hardest things in life is feeling stuck in a situation that we don’t like and want to change.

We may have exhausted ourselves trying to figure out how to make change, and we may even have given up. However, each day offers us an opportunity to renew our resolve and to declare to the universe (by way of a prayer) that we are ready for change. We may even say out loud that we have tried and struggled and have not found a way, but that we are open to help, and that we intend to keep working to create change for ourselves. Making this declaration to the universe, and to ourselves, may be just the remedy for the stagnation we are experiencing. And, it can be done today, right now.

It is difficult to understand, even with hindsight, how the choices we have made have added up to our current situation, but it is a good idea to examine the story we tell ourselves. If we tend to regard ourselves as having failed, this will block our ability to allow ourselves to succeed. We have the power to change the story we tell ourselves by acknowledging that in the past, we did our best, and we exhibited many positive qualities, and had many fine moments on our path to the present moment. We can also recognize that we have learned from our experiences, and that this will help us with our current choices.

When we do this kind of work on how we view our past self, we make it possible for the future to be based on a positive self-assessment. This inner shift may allow us to get out of the cycle we’ve been in that’s been keeping us stuck. Now we can declare our intentions to the universe, knowing that we have done the inner work necessary to allow our lives to change.

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Link To Divine Messages

A Bad Day Can Be A Memorable One

We all have days from time to time when it feels like the world is against us or that the chaos we are experiencing will never end. One negative circumstance seems to lead to another.

You may wonder, whether anything in your life will ever go right again. Bad days can certainly cause you to experience uncomfortable feelings you would prefer to avoid.

Yet a bad day may also give you a potent means to learn about yourself. Bad days contribute to the people we become.

Though we may feel discouraged and distressed, a bad day can teach us patience and perseverance. It is important to remember that your attitude drives your destiny and that one negative experience does not have to be the beginning of an ongoing stroke of bad luck.

A bad day is memorable because it is one day among many good days – otherwise, we wouldn’t even bother to acknowledge it as a bad day.

Do Not Allow Pain To Consume Your Life

Pain has the ability to consume your life . . . but only if you allow it.

Remember that you are on a journey, and you choose what direction you want to move every day. This is why it is important, as you awake in the morning, to express gratitude for the many blessings that have been bestowed upon you. If you instead rise each morning with your mind turned toward what hurts in your life, the universe delivers according to your expectation.

Deep down, you know you don’t want this suffering. Your subconscious mind also knows that focusing on it only makes it worse. So think instead about the love in your life and the things that bring you happiness.

The best way to prepare for the future is to take care of the present. Goodbyes will always hurt a little. Photographs can never replace the act of being there. Memories, good and bad, will sometimes bring tears. And words can never perfectly describe the feelings they represent.

But that’s OK. Pain is real. But so is hope.

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. You have to make peace with your past in order to keep your present and future from becoming hopeless battles.

We Cannot Skip Lessons Of Life

We might skip some lessons at school, but we can't skip any of the lessons of life. They will find us.

If a lesson is up for us and we don't learn it now, then it's programmed into the universe that we will just have to learn it later. But by mid-life, we're destined to learn. Whatever parts of you are blocking the emergence of the highest, best you, have simply got to go now. And one way or the other, they will.

Pain can burn you up and destroy you, or burn you up and redeem you. It can deliver you to an entrenched despair, or deliver you to your higher self. At mid-life we decide, consciously or unconsciously, the path of the victim or the path of the phoenix when it is rising up at last.

Growth can be hard, and labouring a new self very difficult. Growing older just happens; growing wise is something else again. And by a certain point in life, most of us have been hurt. We have been disappointed. We have had dreams die, and find it hard to forgive ourselves or others.

The challenge of age is not to skip life's disappointments but to transcend them. We transcend them by learning the lessons they taught us, however painful, and coming out on the other side prepared.

Top 5 Regrets Of The Dying (Hence To Avoid Before Dying)

Top 5 Regrets Of The Dying - Bronnie Ware

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last 3 to 12 weeks of their lives.

People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone's capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

This post was originally published on Inspiration and Chai.

Bronnie Ware is a writer and songwriter from Australia who spent several years caring for dying people in their homes. She has recently released a full-length book titled 'The Top Five Regrets of the Dying - A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing'. It is a memoir of her own life and how it was transformed through the regrets of the dying people she cared for. For more information, please visit Bronnie's official website at www.bronnieware.com or her blog atwww.inspirationandchai.com.

Reclaim Christmas

While we all love giving and getting  gifts, let’s also bring back the true spirit of Christmas by reinventing the way we celebrate it, writes MARGUERITE THEOPHIL

Many of us are disturbed at how the meaning of Christmas gets swamped or distorted by the sheer extent of consumerism around the season. One response is to drastically cut out the gift-giving and entertaining that can become unnecessarily stressful, leaving people grouchy and unfriendly.

But wait! We like giving and receiving gifts, we like the get-togethers, we like telling and listening to the religious story renewed with each hearing. It’s only the way we have let it all turn into a manic, meaningless chore that people don’t like and want to change.

I find it interesting that so many individuals are finding creative ways to ‘recover’ the spirit of caring and sharing that is the hallmark of the Holy Season. Asking around, I have learnt many things that we now incorporate into our own celebrations — the main one being celebrating Saint Nicholas, and his inspiring story of compassion and community on December 6, rather than the morphed Santa Claus figure we have turned him into.

Aiden Enns, one of the founders of the ‘Buy Nothing Christmas’, believes that we should give loved ones something more meaningful than commodities like power drills, smartphones, video games and the like. In Canada and the US, this movement is encouraging everyone to reinvent the way we celebrate Christmas. Enns and his wife make it a point to now give home-made presents as well as their time, to near and dear ones.

I don’t think it is so much about not buying any expensive or high-tech stuff, but rather a de-linking of this kind of giving with the festival. It is putting the focus on the kind of giving that conveys the deeper values that this season is meant to uphold. As the supporters of this movement tell us, the point is to get people thinking. And one thing we have to think through is that while giving is wonderful, buying alone is not the solution.

Yes it’s true, shifting to this mode will meet with strong resistance in many families. And believe me — even those parents who grumble about all the crassness and commercialisation will beg off, saying it takes too much time, saying the children will sulk or be upset. But the thing is to be honest with ourselves. Truly,  what do we want? What do we want to teach our children?

Some of us some years ago eased into the change, by requiring everyone to make something, anything as a St Nicholas Day gift. The ‘commercial’ gifts were there too, but a price-limit was agreed on, and half the total money usually spent was given to a charity the whole family agreed on. Some of us do a recycled gift-giving. I’m sure many do it anyway, but here it is an upfront deal, an actual requirement! We agree to find things we’ve either used, but that are in a good condition to share, or something we bought or were gifted but probably never ever used.

So many individuals are finding creative ways to ‘recover’ the spirit of caring and sharing, the hallmark  of the Holy Season. Some invite students or people away from their homes to join in their celebrations. Some spend it with old people who are alone. There are hundreds of ways to keep alive the tradition of giving

There’s also something called the ‘Advent Conspiracy’. This started in 2006, when five pastors were commiserating about how Christmas now seemed only a bit about Christ’s birth and a huge part of it was presents and parties; some members of the congregations even went into unnecessary credit-card debt. They felt the falsity of proclaiming and celebrating the humble birth while they and their congregations participated in the excesses of consumerism. “We didn’t know what to expect, but knew we had to reclaim the story of Christmas, the foundational narrative of the Church,” they wrote in their 2009 book, Advent Conspiracy: Can Christmas Still Change the World?

Together they wondered how a better Christmas practice for their own communities might look. They felt it should be a movement designed to help us all slow down and experience a Christmas worth remembering. But doing this meant doing things somewhat differently. Today, Advent Conspiracy is a global movement of people and churches choosing a more meaningful Christmas through committing to four key principles: Worshipping fully, spending less, giving more, loving all.

Families are creating or adapting their own special traditions too. Some invite students or people away from their homes to join in their celebrations, some go over and spend it with old people who are alone. There are actually hundreds of ways to keep alive the tradition of giving.

I heard of a family in which the parents couldn’t afford expensive gifts, but started a ‘new tradition’ in which their five children were gifted new pajamas on Christmas Eve that they wore to bed that night, in which to ‘wait for Santa’. The children now have kids of their own, but they all continue this pajama tradition.

On the first Sunday of Advent, the children in another family receive a small empty wooden ‘manger’ that resembles the ‘bed’ in which it is believed the Christ child was placed when he was born, and a bundle of coloured wool cut into lengths. Every night at bedtime, each one recalls the kind deeds performed by them in honour of Baby Jesus for his ‘birthday surprise’. For each deed, a soft strand of wool is added to the cradle, and the children want to make as soft and comfortable a bed for the Holy Child as they possibly can. On Christmas, the figurine of the Christ-child is laid on this bed  made up of caring and sharing actions.

All these actions and rituals show us how important it is to understand through each symbolic action that this is more about presence, manifest in many different ways, which is infinitely more precious and more meaningful than only material presents.

To be here is immense. -- Rainer Maria Rilke

Kindness: The First Gift

--by John O'Donohue, syndicated from awakin.org, Nov 28, 2014

There is a kindness that dwells deep down in things; it presides everywhere, often in the places we least expect. The world can be harsh and negative, but if we remain generous and patient, kindness inevitably reveals itself. Something deep in the human soul seems to depend on the presence of kindness; something instinctive in us expects it, and once we sense it we are able to trust and open ourselves. Here in Conamara, the mountains are terse and dark; left to themselves they would make for a brooding atmosphere. However, everywhere around and in between there are lakes. The surface of these lakes takes on the variations of the surrounding light to create subtle diffusions of colour. Thus their presence qualifies the whole landscape with a sense of warmth and imagination. If we did not feel that some ultimate kindness holds sway, we would feel like outsiders confronted on every side by a world toward which we could make no real bridges.

"The word kindness has a gentle sound that seems to echo the presence of compassionate goodness. When someone is kind to you, you feel understood and seen. There is no judgement or harsh perception directed toward you. Kindness has gracious eyes; it is not small-minded or competitive; it wants nothing back for itself. Kindness strikes a resonance with the depths of your own heart; it also suggests that your vulnerability, though somehow exposed, is not taken advantage of; rather, it has become an occasion for dignity and empathy. Kindness casts a different light, an evening light that has the depth of colour and patience to illuminate what is complex and rich in difference.

"Despite all the darkness, human hope is based on the instinct that at the deepest level of reality some intimate kindness holds sway. This is the heart of blessing. To believe in blessing is to believe that our being here, our very presence in the world, is itself the first gift, the primal blessing. As Rilke says: Hier zu sein ist so viel — to be here is immense. Nowhere does the silence of the infinite lean so intensely as around the form of a newly born infant. Once we arrive, we enter into the inheritance of everything that has preceded us; we become heirs to the world. To be born is to be chosen. To be created and come to birth is to be blessed. Some primal kindness chose us and brought us through the forest of dreaming until we could emerge into the clearance of individuality, with a path of life opening before us through the world.

"The beginning often holds the clue to everything that follows. Given the nature of our beginning, it is no wonder that our hearts are imbued with longing for beauty, meaning, order, creativity, compassion, and love. We approach the world with this roster of longings and expect that in some way the world will respond and confirm our desire. Our longing knows it cannot force the fulfilment of its desire; yet it does instinctively expect that primal benevolence to respond to it. This is the threshold where blessing comes alive.

Be The Change: Think back to when someone did something kind for you. How did it make you feel? See if these feelings can guide you in any way today.

Sourced from www.dailygood.org

An Open Letter To The Children Of The World

We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity. -- Maria Montessori

An Open Letter to the Children

--by Randall Amster, syndicated from huffingtonpost.com, Dec 14, 2014

Dear Children,

I know that this world must often seem confusing to you. It's noisy, dirty and filled with adults scurrying about their busy lives without noticing you all that much sometimes. It's filled with rules and people telling you what to do, mostly without asking what you want to do. It's also a world where adults teach you about all of the dangers around you, but not as much about the wonderful, beautiful things.

You see, things weren't quite like this when we were kids. We had our rules and dangers, to be sure, but nothing like the ones you face today. Back then (which is not really that long ago), people talked to each other more, neighbors knew one another and schools were less like factories and more like playgrounds. There were less televisions, computers and phones calling for our attention, and there were more open spaces to play like kids are supposed to do.

Most importantly, it wasn't a world where it felt like people were hurting each other all the time. Today, it seems like so many of the things you see -- both real things in the news and fake things like in video games and movies -- include people hurting each other, hurting themselves and hurting the world around them. It isn't your fault that things are like this. It's the fault of us adults, and we're sorry.

I know that an apology doesn't make it all better. I also know that you might have heard some terrible things lately about children who were hurt, and even killed, at a school in Connecticut. Please know that this horrible thing has a lot of adults feeling heartbroken, and that many of us are determined to work for a world where things like this don't happen anymore.

But we can't keep everything bad from happening. Most of the adults you know are just trying to live and work in the world, but don't always control what happens in it. We have appointments to keep, messages to answer, bills to pay and chores to do. All of this leaves us little time for the things that really matter. Sadly, it leaves us little time to think about what the world is doing to all of you.

This is not an excuse for our actions. We've let ourselves get caught up in the pace of our lives, and we've become distracted from the important issues that we all need to work on together. For too long, we've ignored your ideas and failed to listen to your voices. If we had, we would better appreciate the sense of wonder and innocence that you represent, how you see things from closer to the earth than we do, how you express your emotions honestly and revel in your imaginative play.

Meanwhile, too many of us adults have looked the other way while the world we're leaving behind for you has been damaged in ways that will be hard to fix. Basic things that people have mostly taken for granted in recent years -- like food, water and shelter -- will be harder for you to find. Quiet moments, nature experiences and open spaces will be more difficult to come by. Your chance to be hopeful about the future will be less than ours was, unless...

Unless adults listen to you more and stop acting like we have all the answers. We don't. We've just learned how to exist in this world, but we need you to help us remember how to live in it. Can you help us? That might sound strange, to have adults asking you to help us, but we really need you to. In return, you can count on us to help you, by making a better world, and mostly by loving you with all our hearts.

And that means all of you, every child in the world. We can't let even one of you go through this life feeling unloved or unappreciated. This means children here in the United States, and all around the world. It means that we have to start thinking more about other people's children, and about how too many of them are being hurt every day -- sometimes even by the choices we make as adults when we buy things, ignore things or focus only on our own lives and forget about all the other people out there.

It also means that you, as the future of the world, will have to start learning right away what it means to be a "citizen of the world." You are connected to people all over the globe and in the places where you live, and this will not change. You are connected to the trees and animals, to the air and water and to everything in nature that provides us with everything we need to live. You are connected to each other, to your families and friends, to the ancestors who came before you, and to the children of your own that you will have someday. Please do not forget this. It is probably the most important thing for you to know.

Please forgive us, dear children. Forgive us for not telling you all of this sooner, for not slowing down in our busy lives and looking in our hearts long enough to speak with you rather than at you. Please forgive us for waiting until a terrible tragedy happened to realize how important you all are to us, and how irresponsible we've been by not paying close enough attention to the future of the world we're leaving for you. It's your world, after all, and we're just borrowing it.

Finally, please know that we love you. We always have and we always will. If you ever felt unloved, it's our fault and not yours. We can't fix the past, but we can work together to make a better future. It won't be easy, but it can be fun: more playing, more sharing, more listening, more friends, more love! Not only will this help you -- it will also help us adults remember what it means to be happy, healthy, safe, valued, and filled with joy for life.

Thank you, children, for reminding us of this. You are our teachers, and we are ready to learn again.

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This article originally appeared in the Huffington Post and is republished here with permission. Randall Amster, J.D., Ph.D., is Director of the Program on Justice and Peace at Georgetown University, and serves as Executive Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Association. He is the author of books includingPeace Ecology (Paradigm Publishers, 2014), Anarchism Today (Praeger, 2012), and Lost in Space: The Criminalization, Globalization, and Urban Ecology of Homelessness (LFB Scholarly, 2008).  

Be The Change: Ask a child what is beautiful to them. Tell them what is beautiful to you, too.

Sourced from www.dailygood.org

HBR On The Future Of Degrees And Certificates - The Degree Is Doomed

The Degree is Doomed - Michael Staton

The credential — the degree or certificate — has long been the quintessential value proposition of higher education.  Americans have embraced degrees with a fervor generally reserved for bologna or hot dogs.  Everyone should have them!  Many and often! And their perceived value elsewhere in the world — in Asia in particular — is if anything even higher.

From the evaluator’s standpoint, credentials provide signals that allow one to make quick assumptions about a candidate’s potential contribution to an organization and their ability to flourish on the job. To a prospective student (or parent), the value lies in assuming these signals will be accepted in employment markets and other times of social evaluation.  These signals have long been known to be imperfect, but they were often the only game in town. Thus, a degree from a top university has been seen to contain crucial information about a person’s skills, networks, and work habits.

Higher education, however, is in the midst of dramatic, disruptive change. It is, to use the language of innovation theorists and practitioners, being unbundled. (Some more of my thoughts on higher-ed unbundling can be found here.) And with that unbundling, the traditional credential is rapidly losing relevance.  The value of paper degrees lies in a common agreement to accept them as a proxy for competence and status, and that agreement is less rock solid than the higher education establishment would like to believe.

The value of paper degrees will inevitably decline when employers or other evaluators avail themselves of more efficient and holistic ways for applicants to demonstrate aptitude and skill.  Evaluative information like work samples, personal representations, peer and manager reviews, shared content, and scores and badges are creating new signals of aptitude and different types of credentials. Education-technology companies EduClipper and Pathbrite, and also general-interest platforms such as Tumblr and WordPress, are used to show online portfolios.  Brilliant has built a math-and-physics community that identifies and challenges top young talent. Knack, Pymetrics, and Kalibrr use games and other assessments that measure work-relevant aptitudes and attitudes. HireArt is a supercharged job board that allows applicants to compete in work challenges relevant to job openings.  These new platforms are measuring signals of aptitude with a level of granularity and recency never before possible.

There are sites — notably Degreed and Accredible — that adapt existing notions of the credential to a world of online courses and project work. But there are also entire sectors of the innovation economy that are ceasing to rely on traditional credentials and don’t even bother with the skeumorph of an adapted degree.  Particularly in the Internet’s native careers – design and software engineering — communities of practicehave emerged that offer signals of types and varieties that we couldn’t even imagine five years ago.   Designers now show their work on Dribbble or other design posting and review sites.  Software engineers now store their code on GitHub, where other software engineers will follow them and evaluate the product of their labor.  On these sites, peers not only review each other but interact in ways that build reputations within the community. User profiles contain work samples and provide community generated indicators of status and skill.

In these fields in the innovation economy, traditional credentials are not only unnecessary but sometimes even a liability. A software CEO I spoke with recently said he avoids job candidates with advanced software engineering degrees because they represent an overinvestment in education that brings with it both higher salary demands and hubris. It’s a red flag that warns that a candidate is likely to be an expensive, hard-to-work-with diva who will show no loyalty to the company.  MBAs have an even more challenged reputation in the innovation economy.  Several of the education startups I advise that directly provide programs to students — notably Dev Bootcamp and the Fullbridge Program — recently met with other immersive unaccredited programs to consider whether to jointly develop a new type of credential. Their conclusion: Credentials are so 20th century.

Employers have never before had such easy access to specific and current information pertaining to a candidates’ potential.  It is truly unprecedented in all of human history.  And society will reorganize around it as we wake up to its power. Who stands to benefit from this reorganization is very much in question.

A credential, like any common currency, is valued only because of the collective agreement to assign it value.  The value of a college degree has been in question since the Great Recession, but there have yet to emerge clear alternatives for the public to rally the around.  There are plenty of contenders, though, and it won’t be long before one of them crystalizes the idea for the masses that the traditional degree is increasingly irrelevant in a world with immediate access to evaluative information.

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Michael Staton is a partner at Learn Capital, a venture capital firm focused on education. He is also founder and former CEO of Uversity, and a former public school teacher. Follow him on Twitter@mpstaton.

Understanding Is As Important As Love

Understanding is as important as Love - Julia Fernandes

“I understand you to the extent I Love you; the more I Love you the better I Understand you.”

Most people emphasize on love being a crucial factor in any relationship. While love is important, yes, understanding in a relationship takes on an unprecedented importance of its own. In many cases I have seen, its understanding those little things that prevent many a relationship from hitting sour notes.

While love is all about giving, understanding is all about holding back – pausing, holding your thoughts till you get a clear picture. More often than not things are not always what they seem. Never react blindly to all that you see, hear or read. It is said that truth puts on its shoes while lies is busy travelling the whole world.

More than half of all relationship woes can be solved only if people listen and understand more and talk less. Each person is right in their own way. It is highly erroneous to judge people whose journey you have no idea about. It is wrong to belittle or make people feel guilty or make them feel small just because you have an opinion on how the world should be.

There are many experiences – good, bad, ugly that sums up a person’s life and makes them what they are today. Nobody’s life is all black and white. We all have are greys. I have come to realize that proving someone wrong does not make you look right in any way! Love is the only area where you win when the one you love wins, and you lose when the one you love loses.

This world needs less of righteousness and more of love and understanding to gently guide people to becoming the best of what they can be. After all, all of us are work-in-progress. The next time you feel tempted to give someone a peace of your mind, pause. Hurtful words once said cannot be retrieved back.

Take time to understand, and you will realize that simple understanding can do you and your loved one a world of good for understanding is as important as love!

Are You Doing Enough For Yourself?

Anyone Else Suffer From Active Laziness?

Anyone Else Suffer From Active Laziness? - Sif Anna Dal

I was recently reading a book about a boy who becomes acquainted with philosophy through the need to answer questions about living and dying and the meaning of life after his mother is killed in a car accident.

In the book, the boy is introduced to "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche. Within the pages of the book, the boy is introduced to the concept of "active laziness", the need to keep busy in order to avoid thinking about one's own mortality, or even about other important things, like what makes the individual happy. Or, in other words, it's easier to keep oneself distracted than face one's own demons -- and for people who believe they have no demons to face, are you alive?

There is always plenty of discussion to be found about the fast paced nature of today's society, and how people today fill their lives with endless activity and distraction. Consumerism is a big part of that distraction. Rinpoche views all of this as avoiding thinking about the nature of living and dying; the short time that we have on this plane and what we do with that time, and how we feel, or experience that period of living.

It certainly rings true for me. Even with four children to raise and care for, a degree to finish and a household to maintain and keep running smoothly, I often feel I need to be doing MORE. I often lament at not having the energy or time to do MORE. So many people I know are the same. Busy to the point of breaking down, but unable to cut right back because, well, because - they don't even seem to be able to articulate why.

I know I often feel lonely, not because I'm alone - I'm hardly ever alone - but because I fail to connect with other people. Now, I have to ask myself, is the person I most fail to connect with, is actually me? Would I be better at connecting with other people if I understood myself better? And how much do other people actually connect with one another? Is shooting the breeze really connecting? Is being in the same place as someone, talking to them, the same as actually connecting with another person? Or is it just another way to distract oneself from being with oneself?

Frenetic energy springs to mind. It's everywhere. Everywhere we go, all the social media, shopping centers in particular, are BOOMING with frenetic energy. If a person isn't comfortable in the calm quiet places, isn't that a problem? If you cannot sit in a room with another human being without speaking, without the tv or the radio on, or something else to distract you -- the computer, the phone, the book -- can you really say you know how to be with yourself and with another person?

I sometimes sit just with myself and my thoughts. I don't often with someone else and our thoughts.

Anyone else suffer from active laziness?