My cousin Larry and I were younger and at our grandmothers house. I was sitting on the couch and Larry was sitting in a chair. Larry reached into his back pack and pulled out a sketchbook. I asked Larry what he was doing and he told me that he was drawing a character that he had created in his DND campaign. If this were a movie or dramatization of my life there would be a montage in which I would be plunged into the Dungeons and Dragons world but it is not a movie.
I still have never played the Dungeons and Dragons game but I have a lot of respect for fantasy role playing gamers. The imagination is used with the table top game rules and that is impressive.
The importance of imagination is almost a fact amongst psychological professionals. Without active imaginations life can and is hard. We individually and collectively will be faced with situations that require imaginative responses. In the 90’s and 80’s the dungeons and dragons scene was counter culture and some of the main stream thought it a little weird but today we see how the main stream needs the imagination and people who played dungeons and dragons more than ever.
When my children were younger I watched the movie Nims Island with them. I really enjoyed this movie. The plot is that Nim lives on an island with her father and the animals. Nims father has to leave the island and a storm keeps him from getting back home, so Nim or communicating with Nim. Nim reaches out to her childhood hero an author to come to her and her fathers rescue on the island.
When Nims father leaves the island he lets her know that he will be back shortly and that she should take care of herself and the island.
We take care of our island, Nim,
our island's gonna take care of us.
Humanities worst enemy has been and will continue to be humanity. Instead of working together to live better lives humans draw imaginary lines on the earth and then kill each other when one someone from the other side of the imaginary line crosses over.
Instead of working together to live better lives humans find traits that are insignificant like race to divide the species and then kill each other.
Instead of working in harmony with the earth, humans destroy the land to produce food that is slowing killing them and then kill the animals to produce food that is slowly killing them.
There is a blueprint for a successful species and it involves harmony. Harmony within the species and the habitat that it inhabits.
If we take care of each other others will take care of us, if we take care of earth earth will take care of us. If we do not take care at all then no care will be given and by 2050 the earth will be a very terrible place.
When I consider the intelligent life question I wonder about the phrase Intelligent life.. Some would say that humans are the intelligent life here on earth and I cannot help but think that this is wrong and participating in lite speciesism. Humans have accomplished some incredible things however so have ants, Gorillas, Meerkats, Giraffe’s and many other animals on earth. The only major difference I see between Humans and Gorillas is the ability to completely lay waste to ones home. I am not referring to the home that has a roof and walls I am referring to the earth itself. Humans have done more damage to the earth than any other species on the planet. Humans are only .01% of all living things yet they have caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half the plants.
I am all for space exploration however I do not think we as a species will ever be able to accomplish great things like the other animals on earth have accomplished until we as a species learn to respect life here on earth. Even though humans do not respect or protect the rights of animals the animals have rights and they should be respected.
History and present times show that the only thing humans do better than the animals is lay waste to life up to and including the life of their own species..
Lets all try to be the best animal we can and act more like our pets.
As I stand in the class and look at the poster I wonder if this type of motivation is the correct motivation. The poster reads “Students fail by choice.” I try hard but it becomes pretty hard to understand what good this poster serves. I know that the audience is a student and the purpose is to have the student understand that their choices are powerful. Choices are powerful that is true but to say that a Student fails by choice seems a bit simplistic.
Critical thinking and decision making can be difficult often we want to satisfy our immediate desires in spite of damage that can result in the future. Obviously we want to teach our students the importance of critical thinking and decision making and one way to teach them is a scare tactic like the poster points out however, I cannot help but put myself back into my shoes in school and consider how many poor choices I made and wonder how dire the consequences actually were.
I had a pretty amazing support structure with family and community while growing up. My parents, other family members, teachers and community members did a great job to make sure that I was safe healthy and that I could drive. There were moments when my parents “got real’ with me and used some scare tactics but they were few and far between definitely not enough moments to warrant the creation of a poster about them,
I know that choices matter however I do not think anyone ever choices to fail. I think everyone wants to win and when we see someone who seems to choice failure they are making a choice that seems like winning because of how dire their situation is. Perhaps instead of scaring a student time would be better spent understanding how that student sees the world and maybe opening their perspectives so that they can make a better choice.
Just recently in the United States the government signed into law a pretty extensive budget package. The money in the package will go towards combating climate change and inflation.
Some people are very vocal about the law because this will involve a tax to help pay for the changes made. The tax is minimum almost non existent for most of the population and actually not an abhorrent amount for the wealthy. By wealthy I mean anyone making over 400000 dollars a year.
When I hear citizens complain about taxes that they will not pay or are less that 2 % of their income I start to wonder why. The climate crisis that our world is facing is one of the largest crisis that humanity has ever faced and it is existential. To pay just a little bit of money in taxes is well worth the continued existence of the human race.
I think part of the problem is that in the United States many of the citizens have been conditioned to be Consumers first then citizens. I have seen this ideology with Union votes in factories and warehouses. The major reason most people vote against unionization in a warehouse or factory is that the employer promises that they will raise the cost of their goods if a Union is voted in. A good citizen would support safe working conditions and equitable pay that comes with a good workers union, however a consumer would only care what a good cost them. The same attitude seems to be going on with the climate. A good citizen would support laws that address climate change but a consumer would care less bot the climate and more about the cost of goods produced.
Money is a medium of exchange, it is a payment for resources or services. The resources that money can buy like clean water and safe food those are what matters not really the money. Being a good citizen should have very little to do with money and everything to do with how a nation or world divides and uses their natural resources.
I wonder how much better would our world be if as a society we focused less on money and more on.. well everything else?
I was recently in a coaches office and couldn’t help but notice some of the motivational posters on the wall. The poster was read desire in bright red letters and under the word desire it said “some people want it to happen…. some people wish it to happen… others make it happen”
This poster really resonates with me. I have some wants and desires so I meet the first two criteria now I want to meet the last. The last is truly the crux of it all. This is the most important point of desire getting it done or making it happen.
Desire is the act of wanting something and it is important to gaining fulfillment however unfulfilled desire is often life. We will always desire something more, this is the desire paradox. Understanding desires can help with mitigating the damage that desire does when we try to “make it happen”. Ranking our desires helps too.
I wish for a healthy happy family more than a thriving business so I will choose to attend the childrens little league games over spending late nights in my office.
I think desires matter and everyone should have healthy desires and I hope they achieve them. I just hope that we do not loose sight of what will truly make us happy and that is honestly our relationships with friends and family.
Life can become mundane, we wake up go to work come home, wash rinse and repeat. Getting stuck in a rut happens to all of us, here is an article that explains how to deal with that. That article is also a pretty good read honestly not as good as the one that describes movement of everything.
So we are always moving and sometimes that movement can seem repetitive, this is why direction matters so much and knowing ourselves does as well. If you know who you are you will know what you need and then you can set up and move in the direction to get those needs. The direction to meet my needs is what I call forward.
You will always be moving so lets point ourselves towards happiness and contentment and joy and move forward
Saturday afternoon was spent with my wife the dog and my niece kayaking out to a light house and an island. We stopped on the island swam tried to get the dog into the water ( failed) and then got back into the kayaks. My wife took pictures and they were saved in her phone and marked as moments.
These are truly moments, last year we did the same thing with my daughter (we left the dog at home then). At the end of the day Saturday we were; wet, tired, a little sun burnt but I felt content. Just thinking back on the time spent Saturday and last year makes me smile.
Take time every day to have these moments with family and friends. You will experience all kinds of moments and how you live it out will make a huge difference on whether or not thinking about the moments make you smile or frown.
No matter what the moment is be kind (that is a tough one because in some moments friends and families are not always agreeable). No matter what the moment is realize it is that a moment so stay present.
Yesterday in the blog I used the statement Sour Grapes, to describe why some workers wish for other workers to suffer consequences. Sour Grapes means; disparagement of something that has been proven unattainable. Yesterday I should have used the words comeuppance. Comeuppance is a punishment or fate that someone deserves. I should have wrote that many workers feel that their fellow workers should suffer consequence as part of their comeuppance.
So yesterday was a mistake and I apologize for using the wrong word. I have learned from my mistake and apologized for it. I think that when mistakes are made we should do this right away learn our lessons, apologize and make the hurt parties whole and move on.
The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing
There is a quote that seems to make the rounds on the internet about this time of the year. The quote is by J.D. Roberts and it reads
When there is no consequence for poor work ethic, and no reward for good work ethic, there is no motivation.
JD Roberts
I assume the reason for this quote at this time of year is that hard workers in organizations begin to experience burnout. Part of the burnout may involve some sour grapes type of thinking. Jim works hard is always on time and stays late it is August because of his late nights he is tired Bob sits one cubicle over and is late leaves early and doesn’t seem to be tired. While doom scrolling Jim sees this JD Roberts quote on insta and likes it shares it on Facebook and now he is angry at Bob their manager and the entire corporation.
I feel like, the moment we begin to compare our lives to others is the moment we start to go to dark places that no one should be in. There is a scripture in the Old testament and Torah it reads
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s
Exodous 20:17
I always assumed covet meant steal but I think on deeper inspection covet can me long for. When we compare ourselves with others covet is quickly behind. “I wish I could be like Bob and have 0 cares in the world concerning work and 0 consequences for my poor work ethic. The scripture calls covet a sin. A sin is a big deal in the spiritual world and coveting can do some serious damage to morale and mental well being.
Everybody will experience burn out when this happens we should avoid looking out side ourselves and look internally. How did you let work do this to you? How can you stop this from happening? Set a schedule for work and stick to it. Do not spread yourself to thin and say no sometimes.
If you are a manager and you are contemplating giving out consequences for poor work ethic consider another quote first…
Hard work IS its own reward. Integrity IS priceless. Art DOES feed the soul.
Marcus Samuelsson
Are you properly motivating your work force? Do you have the proper workforce? Ideally your employees would be passionate about their work so much so that they feel like their work is more of an art form than just a job.
The jobs that are being staffed are they BS jobs? There is this great book about these types of jobs.
The Corrigan Encore 