The Complexity of Morality Duality

Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions. - Ayn Rand

Everybody makes excuses for themselves they wouldn't be prepared to make for other people. - Rebecca Goldstein

The ego is a mean mechanism which mobilizes the absolute strongest rationalization traps in order to preserve itself. - David Jascha

The #1206 “fiction” series continues …

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The two lawyers sat in a Starbucks in a city in Alberta and stared in silence at their respective coffee cups.

The older of the two alternated between sighing heavily and biting his lip in frustration while his younger colleague said nothing.

“What really ticks me off more than anything”, said the older lawyer as he broke the silence, “is the lack of morality in this matter.  How dare someone do such a thing and think that they can get away with it?  There is something seriously wrong in a world where people seem to think that they can get away with acts highly deficit of ethical or moral substance while thinking they can do so without fear of retribution or rebuke.”

He lightly struck the table between them with his fist as he shook his head in anger.

“How dare they?”, he said forcefully but not loudly.

“I don’t know”, muttered his younger colleague.  He had always looked up to the partner seated across from him but now he wondered if he had aligned himself with the wrong mentor.

“What do you think I should do?”, asked the older lawyer.

His younger colleague shrugged.  “I’m not sure”, he replied, “I don’t have any experience with stuff like this.  I don’t know if there is much you can do at all.”

“Well”, continued the older lawyer, “there is one thing that I can guarantee you.  If I find the son of a bitch who did it, I will have his butt hanging from the flagpole.  It is a sad day when we allow the immoral and unethical to do things that interfere with hard working people like us.”

He was interrupted by a chime from his phone.  He picked it up and examined the message displayed.

His face began to darken in anger and he looked up at his younger colleague.  “I’ve got to go”, he said tersely, “she is sending me some material and I need to respond to it before the day is out.”

He got up and without so much as a nod of thanks to his younger colleague, walked out of the coffee shop.

One of his partners had been watching the interaction from the other side of the coffee shop and walked over to the younger colleague.

“He seems pretty angry about something”, he observed, “Is everything ok?”

Feeling a little uncomfortable about revealing something shared in confidence but not wanted to anger the partner now seated across the table from him, he shrugged and asked, “Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course”, the partner assured him.

“He’s angry because someone just sent his wife a list of the women, including clients, that he has been having affairs with for years”, said the younger lawyer, “and now he wants revenge on the person who did it.”

The younger lawyer paused for a moment before continuing.

“What I don’t understand”, he said uncertainly, “is that he is saying that what that person did was immoral and yet he doesn’t see the immorality of what he has done.”

He paused again before looking the elder partner directly in the eye.

“How is that possible?”, he asked.

The two men looked down at their coffee cups in silence for a moment before the elder lawyer pulled out his mobile phone and texted to a colleague.

I have a secret that we can use to finally get rid of you-know-who.

To be continued.

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© 2015 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Background

While some things have been altered here to present a coherent story, the basic facts of the story are true.

In my world of Wall St., I have always been fascinated with the duality of morality, the notion that what I do is “always proper, ethical and moral” while the other guy who is doing the same thing suffers from a serious deficiency of ethics, morals and practically anything else.

There is also the point of how some people leverage the immorality of others for their own gain (and some people specialize in this technique).  Is that any better than the original immoral act?  I don’t think so.

The ego, when motivated by the wrong things and a twisted sense of perspective, can produce some interesting results and how the results are perceived by different people.

Ah the concept of duality.

I spoke to a farmer last week who was all wound up about what we are doing to our environment (including our food supply) in the name of money and how we all needed to do something about it.  I agreed totally and then asked the farmer if he used Round-Up ready seed from Monsanto and he indicated that he did.

I asked him why he would use such a product when it has been demonstrated that Round-Up, one of the most poisonous chemicals known to man, is now turning up in our food and water supply, especially when he was so fired up about what we are doing to our environment.

“Could this be a variant of greed?”, I asked.

“This is different”, he replied, “this is all about maximizing yield quantity and quality.  That has nothing to do with greed.”

“Possibly”, I replied, “but if you are maximizing your yield quantity and quality, is this not all about maximizing profit?”

“Of course it is”, replied the farmer.

“As a businessman, I have nothing against maximizing profit”, I observed, “but could it be said that this is a variant of greed when we know that we may be sacrificing the health of others in order to achieve a maximized profit?”

The farmer was silent.

“What I would recommend”, I said, “is that you need to remove the duality from your Life.  You can either focus on maximizing profit using the products you are using, not care about the impact of the health of others and stop complaining that people need to stop contaminating the environment or you can start making the difference on your own farm that you so passionately believe is needed and thus be the change you want to see in others.  You cannot live both sides of duality.”

“That makes me a hypocrite, doesn't it?”, asked the farmer.

“Not necessarily”, I replied, “although the duality you are trying to live doesn’t work at all and eventually you will be called out on it or you will drive yourself crazy.”

The conversation ended without a stated purpose on the farmer’s part.

I suspect that profit will win in the case of this farmer – it is the preferred path of most people in the world today.

As a businessman, I understand the importance of profit.

However, the duality within our lives, whether in how we generate a profit or how we live our lives in general, often leads to complexities in our Lives as the things we desire, the things we demand of others and the things we do run into conflict with each other (often at the sacrifice of someone else).

Do you have unresolved dualities?

What do they say about you?

What are they doing to you?

Should you do something about them?

Why or why not?

How do you know?

Series Origin

This series, a departure from my usual musings, is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

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Addendum – Duality Examples – August 12, 2015

I rarely post addendums to #1206 blogs but I had an interesting event occur today that illustrates dualities perfectly.

Someone who taught me in theology some years ago posted a photo today of a naked man standing in water and made an observation that if we had more of this type of thing, we could get more women interested in fishing.

It might have been amusing had it not been for the fact that this person, a woman, is highly sensitive regarding pictures and comments that men post about women, especially when it looks like the man is objectivizing the woman.

Recognizing the duality of “do as I say and not as I do”, I politely asked what she would do if I had posted a similar photo of a woman.  After she made her point (poorly) that she is proving what women have to go through, she disconnected me from her social media account before I could reply.

It brings to mind this duality variant.

When people call us on something, we can either observe the following (with context specific information included from this event):

1. If we teach or have taught theology (including application of morality and ethics behavior), we don't post pictures of naked men to make "a fun point".
2. If we are offended by men who objectivize women when they post pictures of naked women "for fun", we don't post pictures of naked men in return.
3. We don’t "make a point" by performing the same act as the person who affronts us (two wrongs never make anything right).
4. If we don't see the inconsistency of what we do versus what we demand (or what we teach), we should remember that Life teaches us to:

a. Understand dissenting / questioning opinion when expressed respectfully.
b. Discuss differences of opinion maturely.
c. Entertain dialog in give and take without getting emotional.

OR ... we can do this:

1. Make a point and then immediately unfriend / block the other person before our action can be explored or questioned (thankfully we got the last word in before disconnecting from them).

JR once said:

The more social media we have, the more we think we're connecting, yet we are really disconnecting from each other.

They say that social media keeps us connected but I think it is providing us with new ways of forgetting how to connect with each other in respectful, mature ways that matter, creating many opportunities for new dualities to be created in our lives.

I also think social media creates many opportunities for us to be inconsistent, with our dualities in plain sight for all to see (even if we are blind to them).

It doesn’t create the dualities themselves but merely reveals them.

The only issue is that when we get caught in our dualities, it is not the other person’s fault and so we shouldn’t be angry with them.

The fault is our own and so we should accept blame and responsibility accordingly.

What do you think?

If you don’t agree with me, don’t bother emailing me – I’ve already disconnected from you in a proactive, pre-emptive fashion.

Destroying Our World One Bias at a Time

All of us show bias when it comes to what information we take in. We typically focus on anything that agrees with the outcome we want. - Noreena Hertz

Fortunately for serious minds, a bias recognized is a bias sterilized. - Benjamin Haydon

I have always been fascinated with lateral puzzles, simple puzzles that challenge our preconceptions and biases by presenting a simple puzzle with a simple, obvious solution that we often overlook because of biases created by our Life experiences

Here’s an example of a lateral puzzle:

Acting on an anonymous phone call, the police raid a house to arrest a suspected murderer. They don't know what he looks like but they know his name is John and that he is inside the house. The police bust in on a carpenter, a truck driver, a mechanic and a fireman all playing poker. Without hesitation or communication of any kind, they immediately arrest the fireman. How do they know they've got their man?

The person solving the puzzle must ask a series of questions to which only yes or no answers can be provided until the puzzle is solved.

The difficulty in solving such puzzles is that our biases drive our perception of things and so the person solving the puzzle will often amuse us as they dance so close to the answer without seeing the obvious solution.

While the lateral puzzles may be a lot of fun and are a great exercise for our brain, they reveal surprising details about how our Life experiences cause us to jump to conclusions or ignore important but obvious details.

In the case of a game such as a lateral puzzle, the impact of asking the wrong questions or jumping to poor conclusions is insignificant.

However, in areas such as business, politics (domestic and international), society, relationships and other areas, our biases play a significant role in the individual and collective choices we make and thus the results we produce.

The Two Extremes

There are people who believe that love and love alone conquers all.  Such people blindly go about thinking positive thoughts as ignorant, indifferent and evil people go about accomplishing what they wish to accomplish.  Tell the “love conquers all” people that the world is at risk from things like cyber attacks on our infrastructure, nuclear war, collapsing economies and the like and they will ignore you, leaving society vulnerable to such challenges which in the coming years are becoming more and more likely.  No matter what is happening in the world, you will find them sharing things like this on social media:

Love: Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Conversely, there are people who believe that the world is inevitably doomed and they are blind to acts of love, kindness, generosity and service that occur all around them.  Tell these people that miracles are in play all around us and they will tell you that it doesn’t matter as the world is coming to an end anyway as they allow their sense of defeatism to prevent them (or us) from seeking solutions.  You will probably find posters like this one hung up in their office:

Positivity: If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. And put your face between 'em when you do. You'll save me a lot of trouble. Thanks.

The reality is that the potential for either to be true exists as the forces of good and evil struggle for supremacy in a world filled with challenge and unlimited potential.  What exacerbates this battle is that in many situations, the interpretation of good and evil is both perspective and Life context-based and so battle lines and objectives are often blurry.

Meanwhile ….. Oil and the Economy - When Biases Go Wrong

As the price of oil continues to fall ($48.00 per barrel USD as I write this), people are celebrating that cheaper gasoline is available on the market.  Many of these people are celebrating the idea (proven or not) that the “large and greedy oil companies” are finally being punished for years of alleged obscene profits.  Others believe that lower energy costs will drive the economy in a positive direction, forgetting that counter forces are in play that may negate the positive effect derived from cheaper energy and transportation costs.

One writer in Calgary, Alberta went as far as to cheer on the collapse of the energy sector, conjecturing that if the Alberta economy collapses, it will be easier for people like him to buy a house.  His article is here – It’s Hard Not to Cheer For Economic Downtown.  He forgets that if the economy collapses, credit rules will tighten and he will still unlikely be able to buy a house.  He also forgets that if the economy collapses, many government services will be reduced because of tightened budgets, thus hurting many people who rely on such services while sparing those who are already financially secure.  His belief that an economic collapse narrows the gap between the haves and the have-nots is unfounded since such a collapse would likely increase the gap.

All of these people fail to notice the larger, more significant play – that declining prices in commodities, specifically the energy sector, could play a significant role in a larger global destabilization that may impact ALL of us. 

The Bottom Line

A commodities market in free fall, especially in the energy sector, creates opportunities to destabilize economies already built upon the house of cards that is our debt-based political and societal systems.  It may also reveal how well prepared our political leaders are for the market collapse which many of us have been predicting for some time since they won’t be able to candy coat the scenarios that the collapse creates.  Likely they will act surprised and say that no one could see it coming.  *Yawn*

The collapse may also create a problematic situation for countries like Russia, whose economy is already in economic free fall.  If Russia gets desperate for cash, Putin gets desperate to retain his hold on power or he is desperate to find an opportunity to restore national pride, we may have more trouble than we realize.  Never underestimate what desperation can produce in a person or a nation.

In either situation, the cheaper gasoline we are enjoying today may seem desirable but we may pay a much higher price down the road and because of this, we need to be careful what we cheer for.

Unrestrained love alone will not solve the potential problems this creates nor will unrestrained pessimism do much better as either creates the opportunity to hurt everyone significantly if we guess wrong.

An effective solution must be found quickly but in seeking such a solution, some questions come to mind:

1. Can we find a long term solution in time or are we content to harvest what we believe serves our needs for the short term?
2. Do we even care?
3. Do we understand what may happen if we don’t care?

Would your answers be different if you knew that political and military leaders were planning for potential disasters on a national and international level should things go wrong with what is developing in the energy sector?

Some of these leaders believe that such disasters are inevitable and are planning political, law-enforcement and military-based responses for such events.

Do you believe that such disasters are possible?

Are you prepared for what could be produced as a result of the current commodities free fall?

I guess it depends on what kind of biases you have, doesn’t it?

Which way are you biased?

Are your biases destroying or saving the world?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Lateral Puzzle Answer:

The answer to the puzzle is fairly obvious.  The mechanic, the truck driver and the carpenter are all women.

Perspective and the Scale of “Stuff”

As an avid observer of the human experience, I find it intriguing to think about how we categorize the events, victories and challenges in our Life.

Many things seem larger than they really are and for many people, this is especially true of the challenges they face as they project an aura of insurmountability on solvable problems.

When considering a difficulty one may be facing, think of this.

Imagine the challenge as it compares to the challenges being faced by others in the city one lives in and then expand this consideration outwards to the province / state, country, continent and the planet.

And if so inclined and depending on your beliefs and knowledge, expand your thinking to the solar system, galaxy, universe, multiverse and so on.

Also consider that there is a high likelihood (statistically speaking) that as we stumble around worrying about “the small stuff”, that intelligent Life exists in the Universe that is facing the annihilation of their culture because of war, self-destructive habits or a natural event.  Some day, millions or billions of years down the road and in the unlikely event that we haven’t figured out how to move beyond our own solar system, we will face the same difficulties as our sun finally expires.

When one looks at challenges with the right perspective, while they feel larger than Life for the person experiencing or witnessing them, in the grand scheme of things many of the challenges are so small as to seem to not even exist.  In the annals of human history they will be forgotten, known only to the person who experienced them.

This is true for most (not all) of the difficulties we face in the human experience.

By the same token, solving such “small” problems has the potential to positively impact our lives with the impact expanding outwards to our city, province / state, country, continent, planet, solar system, galaxy, universe, multiverse and so on ….. maybe even impacting an off-world civilization in our distant or not-so-distant future.

And so while many of our challenges are actually so small as to be immeasurable in the grand experience, the potential and impact in overcoming them is immeasurably huge.

We must focus on this impact and potential and not the challenge itself as we move towards creating a better experience at all levels of existence.

Are you aware of your impact on a greater scale or do you choose to focus on the the noise and difficulties at hand?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

The Gun Debate and Lousy Message Promotion

I’m always leery of wide-eyed fanatics who blindly push material on me with a message that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny or that I’m not allowed to question.

Wide-eyed fanatics come in many flavors ….

…. the ones who are trying to save my soul.  When I tell them that part of my background is in theology, they are undeterred and proceed to tell me that everything I have learned in the past is wrong but they will “straighten me up”.  Apparently they have the real hotline to God.

…. the ones who are trying to save my body from the scourges of the pending Mayan apocalypse or some other pending disaster that has been revealed to them alone.

…. the ones who are trying to save my mind by attempting to convince me that Twilight, Harry Potter or some other popular book is the best book I will ever read, bar none.

They remind me of robots in a “take over the world” science fiction.  They can only answer questions that they have been programmed to answer.  Thinking outside of those parameters is not permitted.

I don’t mind them being passionate but some people don’t understand that there needs to be limits to their passion. :-)

I guess I need to add a lot of people for and against guns to this list of wide-eyed, unthinking human beings.

Personally, I have no issue with weapons for self protection, for hunting and the like.  When I was a kid, I would go duck hunting with my Dad.

However, when it comes to automatic or semi-automatic weapons, grenade launchers, machine guns (yes, there are over 1/2 million registered machine guns in America), large magazines, the ability to buy guns at gun shows without a background check and the like, I merely ask the question “why do you need them or need the right to buy them without a background check?”

I haven’t made my mind up when I ask questions like this.  I really want to know.  Perhaps there is a reason that I have missed or that is not readily apparent and when I ask such questions, I am providing people with an opportunity to educate me and perhaps sway my opinion.

However, I’ve been disappointed many times in recent days when it comes to the gun discussion.

Some gun proponents explain constitutional history (to the best of their ability), self defense and the like.   Fair enough.

However, many fall back on things like protecting their family against the alleged corrupt government that is coming to get them.

And many fall back on insults right out of the gate.

For the latter two, when I ask why they believe that the government is “coming to get them” or why they have to answer a normal, cordial question with insults and nothing else, many of these people fall back on more insults and even threats.

As an outspoken public figure, I have received my share of death threats and so I’m not really concerned by such “expressions of passion”.

But if the best that a lot of these people have are threats of violence with no hint of rationalization or attempts to convince me with information, I wonder if they realize they are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy for themselves and their right to own firearms.

Anytime I see a wide-eyed person promoting gun ownership and espousing threats, I think they should be disarmed immediately.  Telling them that makes them very angry, exposing them for what they really are.

Paranoid, dangerous people who insist on being armed but who really need to be disarmed quickly.

In fairness, it’s not just the pro-gun side

On the flip side, there are anti-gun advocates who feel that an absence of guns means an absence of violence.  They forget that an intent to kill will be carried out with something else if a gun is not available.  It may not be as easy or as spontaneous in some situations but there is no stopping a person with an intention and a burning desire to carry out that intention.

And to prove that point, anti-gun advocates make their points with intimidation and insults.  In doing so, they seem to have lost sight of their own message that violence only exists when there is a gun present.

Dialog – a better way for both sides

Now, in truth, there are many wonderful, sane, intelligent people out there who have a strong desire to possess weapons for a variety of reasons – hunting, self-protection, as a hobby and the like.  For many of these people, I have no issue with their interest in firearms possession per se.

There are also many wonderful people out there who are trying to bring peace and love to the world but aren’t blind to the reality that expecting heaven on earth is not realistic.

Unfortunately, their respective messages are being lost in the cacophony of people who are unable to discuss, debate or dialog with data, facts, respect, restraint or a sense of decorum.

And as it is with many things, it is always a few people who spoil it for everyone else, regardless of what side of the issue they stand on.

In business, when I am trying to convince a client of a specific direction that I feel works best, I do so with facts, illustrations, respect and a sense of collaboration for the mutual benefit of all.  I stand firm on my beliefs while at the same time, I remain open to the other side’s view as long as it is delivered with data and respect.

Maybe the wide-eyed gun owners (not the sensible ones) should consider doing the same. 

And by the same token, the wide-eyed anti-gun people should also consider following suit.

It’s only when we listen to each other, understand each other’s perspective and then work on a solution that meets somewhere in the middle do we actually find a solution.  After all, if you don’t like it when people are in your face yelling and screaming, why do you think they in turn will be open to you doing the same?

In the meantime, all we get is a lot of noise …. a lot of anger …. and yes …. deaths that could and should have been prevented.

And when that happens, it’s NOT just the pro-gun advocates who own the responsibility of the event.

We all do.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Poetry in Chaos

Some time ago, while walking home after a very complex, challenge-filled day, I happened to reach for my mp3 player to shut out the noise of the world and I happened to choose Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.

As the soothing music relaxed me, I noticed something intriguing – the chaotic traffic around me seemed to be flowing in time with the music.

The seemingly random, stressful chaos that is the typical commute in most cities had transformed itself into fluid poetry right before my eyes.

I was reminded once again as I sat and watched this poetry in motion that the difference between chaos and poetry is often merely perspective.

That’s not to suggest that everything bad or evil in the world can be transformed into something good or enjoyable merely by playing a nice piece of music.  I’m not that naive.

However, much of what we in the western world stress over doesn’t really warrant the amount of bad energy that we tend to assign to things.

Much of it depends on our perspective.

Meanwhile in the world ….

In a similar way, much of the news we see these days tends to suggest that the world has become very chaotic in its day-to-day existence and news of war, evil and greed tends to shout over news of peace, love and sharing.

Sadly (and disturbingly), in meetings I have had in recent months with various Wall St., government and military officials, it appears that they are preparing for something even worse than that which is being reported in the news. It seems that many public officials are now more in the game of public relations, keeping people positive in a world filled with challenge as what they believe to be unstoppable moves closer to reality.

Playing relaxing or positive music won’t change this, of course.  I am not one of those Pollyanna types who believes that evil vanishes just because we pretend it’s not there or because we sit in meditation thinking good thoughts.

In fact, when we pretend that evil is not there, we give it a license to grow and spread.

However, when we change our perspective about the world and focus on the beauty that exists in nature and in the human spirit, we have a greater sense of how much beauty, peace, love and sharing is around us and within our reach to amplify instead of being beaten down by the negativity that seems common around us.

It reminds us that instead of lying down and assuming that the difficulties of today or the challenges on our horizon have doomed us, we instead have many wonderful causes that are worth fighting for.

After all, the human spirit is known for overcoming adversity no matter how dark the moment may be.

It seems that oftentimes, it’s when everything is on the line is when we REALLY shine.

In a world caught in the balance between chaos and poetry, we need people to shine more than ever.

Everything that is wonderful about the human spirit and the future that we create for our children depends on it.

Are you shining today?

How do you know?

The world is waiting for your gifts.

The question is …. what are you waiting for?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Seeing It Again For the First Time

I was making a turn at an intersection today when I noticed, for the first time, that if I look between two buildings across the street, that I can see the Rocky Mountains in the distance.

I’ve made this turn a gazillion times.

I’ve seen those buildings a gazillion times.

Therefore, I have to have seen the Rocky Mountains between them a gazillion times.

But today is the first time I was aware of them.

A minor event that was occurring across the street as I was making the turn caused me to see them

As I completed my turn and drove on, I got to thinking about how often this happens in life.

Perhaps a similar situation exists in:

…. a relationship that is at an impasse because no one can see a way to heal it.

…. a business challenge that seems impossible to solve because it appears to be too complex.

…. a personal obstacle that one strains to overcome but stress levels or mental baggage prevent an objective evaluation of it.

…. an unexpected event that comes out of nowhere but threatens to delay a personal or professional project in play.

…. a global issue that threatens everyone but contains no obvious solution as people put posturing before solutions since posturing seems like the only way out.

Many times, the answer to the challenge that threatens to undermine the parties involved is right in front of them, literally staring back at them.

However, they have spent so long staring at the answer that they don’t actually see it.

Maybe, sometimes, we need to allow an external influence to help us to really SEE.

The external influence may be a seemingly random, insignificant event that distracts us for the brief moment that allows us to see things differently.

Perhaps it is something as simple as intentionally looking at something else for a short while (not recommended while driving).

Perhaps the external influence may be a fresh set of eyes who haven’t grown weary staring at the same thing that appears to have numbed our ability to see the obvious.

Perhaps …

Here’s an interesting experiment to try.

If you have a phone book (printed, electronic, whatever) look for your name or the name of someone you know who will be in the phonebook.

Scan down through the list until you find the person you are looking for and then scan across and look at their phone number.

Now …. close the book.

And with the book closed, identify the name of the person that appeared two names before the person you were looking for.

Most people cannot.   You saw the name, you processed it for the moment and then you discarded it from your memory as no longer being essential, having served its purpose.

Some things are like that – essential for the moment but not important from the standpoint of being analyzed and remembered.

However, many things are important and yet we still don’t see them or make cognitive note of them.

When an external event, an objective observer or other influence causes you to “stop and see”, make a note of what you are experiencing.  The message contained in what you see may be more important than you realize.

When I sit in quiet contemplation, seeking guidance to challenges and obstacles in front of me, I don’t pray for quick solutions or easy bailouts.

I quietly ask for guidance to help me to see.

What are you observing today?

More importantly, what do you SEE?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS.  Maybe when we stop to “see”, we might also discover the beauty that exists in what we previously perceived as “the mundane”. :-)

My Musings-in-a-Minute version of “Seeing It Again For the First Time” is the same as this one and can be found here.

Changing Your Perspective

I’m sitting in a coffee shop this morning where a food drive is under way to help the local food bank.  They are accepting whatever one chooses to give – non-perishables, money, etc.

As I observe the customers frequenting the coffee shop, there appears to be very few people contributing to either the food bin or the money container.  In our busy world, it is easy to overlook those who ask for help.  Sometimes we rationalize that too many people are asking for our help and it is time for someone else to carry the load.

It is important for all of us to know that for as abundant as our Life may be, the truth is that we are never far from being the one who needs help.  Life teaches us humbling lessons – not when we want them or are ready for them but when we need them.

I know – I’ve been there.  Most honest people will admit that they have been there also.

I noticed something else this morning.  When I change my viewpoint from one of not many people contributing to one of many people giving generously, I noticed that many more are giving to the person collecting.

Some people would say that visualizing more generous people actually creates a future of generous people.

Others would say that we see what we choose to see and so by changing my lens, I perceive what I wish to see – more people giving from their heart.

Others would say it is luck or coincidence.  Unfortunately for them, I don’t believe in either.

I believe everything happens with purpose.

And while many things feed your purpose (vision, mission, goals, beliefs, networks, knowledge, skills, talents, opportunities, courage, wisdom, etc), I am reminded this morning that one of the key things that is essential to what you experience is your perspective.

You have the power of choice – use your ability to choose your perspective to your advantage and to the advantage of others.  Act as if your personal and professional Life depends on it because it does.

What you choose to see today is what you create for yourself and others.

What do you see right now?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

My Musings-in-a-Minute version of “Changing Your Perspective” can be found here.