I am about a third of the way through an incredible book called “What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything” written by Rob Bell. The book is a treatment of the Bible that I’ve never read before. The author turns the book over and over and throughout every story, poem and letter he points out how the books through line is hope, love, redemption and reconciliation. If you are reading a story, poem, letter or song in this book and do not experience hope, love ore redemption than you are missing the point.
When you read a story letter or poem with the purpose of finding this through line of love and redemption you experience hope. If you read a story without this perspective it can be dark and abysmal and make you feel hopeless. The bible can be violent and give you nightmares if you are not approaching it with that filter. The author explains why the filter is rightfully applied, mostly because of history context and culture.
One of the worst things we can do in life is lose hope. Lost hope can result in a cynical apathic life and may even lead to depression. How can we in the face of so much bad news find hope? Through education and learning the “whole story”. Often we only hear the headlines and nothing else but stories are layered and nuanced and one viewpoint of a much larger thing called life. Next time you feel like throwing in the towel I encourage you to dig deeper learn more and find hope. Hope was at the bottom of pandoras box,
“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”
I have had many different positions in my short career one of these positions was a manager for a development team. The team was a rather large group of computer programmers all of them were quite young too. I think the average age of my teams was 24 years old. The developers were pretty smart and had a good grasp on the programming tools and languages we used however they lacked some of the skills involved in effectively interacting with colleagues’. After realizing this I took time every Monday to motivate the teams with a meeting that involved going over one life skill. I still remember one meeting in particular in which I told the team that no matter what job and where they worked the most important skill they could posses and use was going to always be a positive attitude. That was true then and is still true today. With a positive attitude nearly anything is possible. The inverse is also true a negative attitude will make the smallest task a chore and bring progress to a staggering halt. The only attitude we can ever control is our own so I encourage you to accentuate the positive today>
My wife and I watched a movie called “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”, the movie is all about a young man who restores a hotel in India and opens it up as a retirement home. Many ex pats from the UK live there and comedic misadventure ensues.
One of my favorite lines from the movie comes from a conversation between two of the hotels residents. One resident hates the country the people and the hotel another one loves all of it. She asks the resident who loves the experience why he loves it he responds that he loves the people because the look at life as a gift.
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
When we approach everything as gift life changes and we change. Gratitude is one of the most powerful ways you can make a change in your life. With gratitude we can truly live our lives and experience everything.
“I am just not a fan of diversity for diversity sake.” I was floored when I heard the words from someone who I didn’t think was racist until they made that statement. Diversity is part of what makes any organization thrive grow and function optimally. The world is big and robust and we should always be leaning as much as we can about all parts of the world. A diverse workplace makes this learning possible.
“You not only have a right to be an individual. You have a responsibility.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Diversity relies on two types of respect. 1. respect for others 2. respect for yourself. My hope is that we are all brave enough to live our truths and let others live theirs.
I took my kids to the movies to watch the Pixar instant classic named WALL-E. The name WALL-E is an Acronym short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth class. WALL-E is one of the main protagonists and a robot. Earth is so full of trash that it can no longer support human life. Humans are living on a space cruise ship waiting for WALL-E to clean up the planet. The humans have been gone so long they have unlearned botany. The captain of the ship learns that earth can support them and he teaches himself botany kind of… His learning of botany is where the title for this post comes from. “We will grow Pizza.” The captain says this when, he is speaking to a child about earth. He understands that planting and sowing is how food is made on earth but pizza is kind of complex and as of now there is not a pizza seed or plant.
When we plant seeds we are setting up ourselves for the future. Living now and planning for the future is a fine line. We should not spend all our time planning for the future so that we do not enjoy now however we should know that the future will come and if we haven’t planted anything we may not eat.
“I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Planting seeds is a good choice and action. It is doing good things now that will give us good results in the future and allow us to enjoy now. There is never really a wrong time to do good.
So lets all do as much good as we can today and I guarantee tomorrow will be brighter and better for everyone.
I’ve never eaten an elephant but I imagine that you would eat the massive majestic almost magical beast one bite at a time.
I used to teach new web developers how to create websites using the ASP stack. The course was a boot camp style course and a lot of information was thrown at the students at one time. Some students would start coding and I could see and sense the feeling of being overwhelmed that’s when I would ask. “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer was always one bite at a time.
“We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it as not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Lately the world has thrown a lot at people. It seems like a chore to just exist and that is because it can be. The good news is that you can handle anything and if you feel that you can’t you probably have others that will help you if you ask. Just take a breath look at what is going on right now, and deal with that. Once you finish dealing with now acknowledge and celebrate and move on to now again. You can really do way more than you think you can you just need to put one foot in front of the other and lean forward.
At its’ height the Roman Empire had one of the most sophisticated road systems in the world. With new evidence however it seems that the Mayans may have also had one of the most sophisticated road systems as well. Researchers are still learning about the Mayan road system.
A lot is known about and documented concerning the Roman road system, One interesting aspect of the Roman road system was that, all the roads lead out of and into Rome. Rome was the center of the Roman empire. so it made sense to build all roads in this manner. The idiom “all roads lead to Rome” dates back to the 11th century and was first recorded by Alian de Lille a theologian and poet.
All roads lead to Rome, means that there are many ways to get the same result. Often we here people tell us that results matter. I don’t care how you do it I just want it done. It is a trap that is baited with simplicity, the concept that results matter.
Results are not all that matter. Goals are important and results do matter however, results have to be meet in a certain fashion or way. See the thinking that all roads lead to Rome is short term thinking and that is dangerous.
Long term thinking is more concerned with how we navigate the roads. Life is a long term infinite goal game and often so are our careers. When you are doing something the best that you should results will come. You will get to Rome, you will meet your bosses quota. Your travels to and from Rome will be most likely smooth and almost event free if you are doing it right. Your 8 hour work day will not give you back pains and bad knees if you are lifting boxes correctly or sitting at your desk with the right posture.
You will get to your goals eventually that is never the question. Who do you want to be when you make it? That question is probably the most important one ever.
An absent parent or spouse more concerned with career than family life? A slacker always arriving late at work putting in minimal effort and leaving early? Every day at home or work you are gaining or loosing capital. The capital is not the result of the work it is the result of how the work is done.
It has been 100 years since women have gotten the right to vote in the United States of America and there is still dramatic inequality when it comes to women’s and men’s rights in the United States of America. Right now The United States is ranked 17th for women. Just all around there are 16 more countries, all of which have less money, influence and power than the United States and yet women are treated better there.
It’s not the money, or military might that makes a nation good or bad, it is the way the nation treats its citizens.
The United States has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world, if the anti choice movement takes away the right to abortion it can be assumed that this rate will grow even larger. In 2020 17 women died for every 100 000 births. To compare the UK was 7, New Zealand was 3, and South Korea was 2.8. In the top ten richest countries in the world the United States has the highest rate for killing women while they are giving birth.
1 out of six women in the United States have been raped in their lifetime. Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark are among the top ten safest places for women, the United States is the tenth least safe country in the world for women.
After the civil war came the reconstruction period in the United States and that was the beginning of Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action is a plan to address racism in the United States. The program was working well and getting better until somethings happened in the supreme court and the White House.
In 1978 the supreme court ruled that quotas for measuring affirmative action were unconstitutional, in 2017the Whitehouse advocated for using “ace-neutral alternatives” for admitting students.
Affirmative Action was moving and had a way to measure it’s success however there have been some bumps in the road. Affirmative action also benefits women when it is executed and protected.
The playing field is not equal women and minorities start and often stay at lower levels than white men. To argue against this is to argue against the numbers and facts.
To make the United States better for women we must treat women with more that respect. We must bring women to the level of the white male in all facets of life. In the home, the workplace. the religions, and the government.
Women are 51% of the population but only make up 20% of representation in the government. That has to be fixed and it starts with our votes. The majority of Americans did vote for a women president however the antiquated broken system that the United States uses to count votes made it so that the unpopular male won. So we are getting there now we just need to look at the rules that have been created by the white males to keep white males in power. Its a lot of work but it can and will be done and it needs to start with men. We need to show women more respect than we do our fellow men. We need to be sure that we always consider representation when we are hiring, and we need to be aware of our training and unconscious bias against women.
Instead of scoffing at this post and ones like it perhaps consider your own actions or inactions. I certainly am going to try. I know that we can do better than 17th place!!
My wife gives the greatest gifts and that’s because she loves me. When you love the person you are giving a gift to it shows and the gifts tend to be more treasured than a gift given out of obligation or reluctantly.
Giving gifts is something humans have done since the beginning of time. The ancient Egyptians were the first to give gifts on birthdays, The Greeks and Native Americans gave gifts during religious celebrations.
One of the greatest gifts ever given to any man or woman alive today is their life. The odds of you being born are 1 in 400 trillion. A lot of things had to happen to make you happen and a lot of people were involved. The easy way out is to say that you were gifted life by a creator or the universe and I am not here to argue against that concept however consider this your life is a gift from your mother and father. Their lives from their mother and father. If you think about it the reason you are here is because of everything everyone in the world did prior to your life so your life is a result of the whole world. Are you treating your life as a special unique gift from your ancestors? Imagine if we did do that…
What would a life lived as if it were a gift from previous generations look like? I think that life would be less rushed’
Life is not a race, it is a gift. Enjoy it, don’t rush through it.
Daniella Kessler
A few weeks back my wife and I went to a restaurant with our dog to eat. We were but on the list because the restaurant was full and the three of us waited out on the restaurants patio. Maybe it was the company of two of my favorite souls, the drinks’ or the beautiful weather but I was not in a hurry to go eat. I loved every moment the three of us spent waiting.
I think the life would be more grateful.
If you’re awake, you are blessed/ Life is a priceless gift, appreciate every minute of it(:
Unknown
8 Years ago I did participated in a grateful exercise. I bought 50 blank cards and envelopes from the store and wrote out to 50 people in 50 days why I was grateful that they were in my life then I mailed out the cards. Time passed months even and I was at the park on a jogging trail I was waved down by the someone he stopped me and let me know that my letter to his wife made her so happy. Being grateful takes practice and it is worth it! Being grateful changes our perspective and can change our situations and even if it doesn’t change the situation it will change the affect that the situation has on your life.
I think the life would be more giving.
Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.
Tony Robbins
You have talents, passions, maybe even some wealth. If you are not giving that back to people the talents, passions, and wealth is wasted. Becoming more is only accomplished by charity.
Next time you feel the urge to hurry, complain, or be selfish consider how great and rare a gift you were given (1 in 400 trillion!).
On Saturday 5/14/2022 a gunmen shot and killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo NY. On the same day a gunmen opened fire at a church picnic in Laguna Woods CA and killed one person.
I am not trying to bum you out but the news is pretty depressing. It really makes you sad to think about the 11 people who will not be with their loved ones here on earth anymore.
There are 137 days that have passed so far this year and the police in the United States have shot and killed 358 people.
There have been multiple news stories and editorials detailing the violence in the United States this year last year and the year before. Violence is on the rise, deaths are too and some of the editorials are trying to find correlations among the senseless cowardly violence. One thing that is abundantly clear is the lack of concern for life by those that are committing the violence.
If you ask anyone if life is valuable that will almost always say yes of course it is but, when you become more pointed with your questions the value of lie seems to drop quickly and dramatically.
What matters most above anything else you do on earth is the relationships you take part in with other humans. The number one reason people quit and leave companies are toxic work places. Another way to describe it is bad relationships with coworkers and management.
Make a habit of to things: to help; or at least to do no harm
Hippocrates
We have to value everyone. Every person everywhere we have to value them. In July 2013 a unarmed young black man was shot to death. The killer was found not guilty and upon further investigations society realized that black Americans were being slaughtered at a much higher rate than any other race in the country and much of the murder ended the same way as the death of the young man without justice. This realization started the movement Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter works to bring social justice to the forefront and supports the black community in the United States with scholarships and community service projects.
Black lives do matter, however it does not seem like they do. There is almost no justice for the death of black men and women. There is little respect in the United States for life and less respect in the United States for the lives of minorities.
How can this be fixed? It has to start with me and you and then our families.
No death should ever be considered justified ( I will try my best to make sure that I never promote or believe this concept. Life is a precious gift and should never be taken from anyone that has been rewarded it)
Take an interest in everyone. (everyone matters and everyone is interesting. everyone has a story to tell and is doing something that matters if we learn about this we will place more value on this person)
Invest in others (I try to give regularly to charities that seem to make a difference and I want to give more. When I give I like to think of this as not just charity but an investment. I am investing in a better world for the next generation)
Make time for everyone. (It is easy to “be too busy” no one and everyone is “too busy” if someone or something really matters you and I will make time for them. I am going to strike the words too busy from my vocabulary it is always a lie and there is really truly no way to measure it)
Let people be great. (Sometimes getting out of the way and letting people impress you is one of the best and coolest things you can do. Letting people impress you requires trust and practice. Some one will tell you they will do something 10 times before they actually do it but you have to let them try and fail at least 10 times)
Let us all work together for a better future that will not include so much violence. I promise that it is possible but only if we value life, others as well as our own.
The Corrigan Encore 