I struggle. Often I feel as if my feet are dragging through the mud of life. As I lift one the other is sucked deeper into the mire.
Our grandparents had the answer. "Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today"... "A stitch in time saves nine"... "A rolling stone gathers no moss"... and so forth. I can still see my adolescent eyes rolling...
In each generation we gain a lot, but I also believe we lose wisdom. Technology allows instant access to information, technology, services and products. Our lives are convenient, and ready to serve. In the days of our grandparents, they worked for each gain. The ethic of working for gains was apparent, and self evident. If you didn't embrace it you didn't eat. The ethic of getting 'your ducks in a row' was not a matter of good organisation it was a matter of survival.
In our soft, welfare fuelled world where has the drive and competitiveness that kept us healthy and alive gone... Depression is rife... Obesity and diabetes is out of control... our love for our fellow man and our community is desensitised. We are sedantary, in fact energetically we have slowed down so much it is a wonder we are still alive. I despair for us. For our race.
It is time to regain our energy, our self respect, and our connection with life. Issues and problems have a way of clumping together to look bigger than they are. Like the bogey man in the closet, our brains love to over dramatise. I am consistently amazed at problems I solved, almost without effort after months of worrying and procrastination. The Chinese were thinkers. I love thinkers. If you ask the Chinese how to eat an elephant they would tell you 'one bite at a time'. This is also the secret to getting your feet out of the mud and regaining some sense of control in your life.
Identify each of your problems as individual issues, don't waste time with 'what if's' or 'if only's' you will only sink deeper. Once you identify a problem, identify the first thing that can be done about it. Now comes the big secret. DO IT! Do that one thing that can be done right now! Suddenly, like a ball of wool, the problem, that thing that has been holding you back will unravel. Follow the string through to the end. Let it go. This is important once a problem is solved, let it go! Visualise the end of that string being pulled out of your hands or cut with a pair of scissors. It is no longer your problem. Recover the energy you were wasting by worrying and relax. Of course then repeat until you can see the light.
Get your gumboots on and start chewing!
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Learn from history or repeat it...
The more I watch my three sons the more I learn about myself. I see three individuals, unique mixes and blends of both their mother and myself. A mix yes, but something new, a forging of a new layer, as a katana is forged layer after layer each finer and more precise than the previous.
I see myself, they are my mirror. Yet something more, more capable, more talented. It is in these moments that I believe a parent should rejoice. If you leave the planet, imbuing your children with more than you ever were... then I believe that, as a parent, you have succeeded..
Do your children, cope better, understand more, love more openly? Are they the better model? Yes? Be content. That is our job.
I used to relish being able to expose my children to the truth and lessons that I learnt, or didn't learn quickly enough, or perhaps not at all. Yes! I can save these children that I love, the grief of my mistakes. I was and still am naive in this regard. I still persist in trying to 'teach' my children life lessons. Offer them solutions to problems they are yet to face. It is futile. You cannot teach anyone anything they are not ready to learn. As the Chinese proverb teaches us... "when the student is ready the teacher will appear". I never understood this. Now I do.
As humans to learn anything in a life changing way, we must live it. Of course having information is important, being prepared and educated is important, but until you have context, and the experience to temper the need, learning is just information we remember. We must live what we learn to truly learn. This is the core of my belief.
Consider if as a child someone tried to talk us through how to walk before we were ready to walk, and before we had real need. Of course it seems laughable and backward. Why then do we persist in trying to teach children lessons about life when they have no context in which to understand? Now please don't misunderstand me, of course we teach our children daily... as we should as is our purpose as parents. Children develop the context to understand things daily, be patient because as the need arises, so you will be ready to teach it. Why believe that they will understand how to handle a fight at school or bullying, for example, until if and when they experience it. The experience is the context that raises the need to learn.
Consider how difficult as a child we found the grind of daily education. Yet as adults, when identify the need and desire to understand a certain topic we absorb information like a sponge. It is because our context has changed. Likewise as a parent you much watch, listen, understand and communicate with your children so that you can identify when the contextual change occurs and they are ready to learn.
When it does, apply now your own contextual experience, re-evaluate it, broaden your understanding of it, and examine how it can be improved... then share it with your child. In this way, we not only improve the understanding of ourselves but we ensure that our improved understanding is passed onto our children and they in turn will learn to improve and add to their own contextual awareness and understanding as the information is handed down over generations. Tribal communities understand this only too well and continue to share ancient wisdom through stories, rituals and fables.
So are we doomed to repeat history? I believe that the way to learn from history is to be ready or even precognitive when you see familiar circumstances repeating. It is not enough to just learn our lessons rote, we must be vigilant in our understanding of ourselves and the reflection of ourselves in our children. Then and only then can we move ahead watching our children mitigate our past mistakes and improve on our own struggle through life. Be happy for your children's successes and understanding of their failures.
I see myself, they are my mirror. Yet something more, more capable, more talented. It is in these moments that I believe a parent should rejoice. If you leave the planet, imbuing your children with more than you ever were... then I believe that, as a parent, you have succeeded..
Do your children, cope better, understand more, love more openly? Are they the better model? Yes? Be content. That is our job.
I used to relish being able to expose my children to the truth and lessons that I learnt, or didn't learn quickly enough, or perhaps not at all. Yes! I can save these children that I love, the grief of my mistakes. I was and still am naive in this regard. I still persist in trying to 'teach' my children life lessons. Offer them solutions to problems they are yet to face. It is futile. You cannot teach anyone anything they are not ready to learn. As the Chinese proverb teaches us... "when the student is ready the teacher will appear". I never understood this. Now I do.
As humans to learn anything in a life changing way, we must live it. Of course having information is important, being prepared and educated is important, but until you have context, and the experience to temper the need, learning is just information we remember. We must live what we learn to truly learn. This is the core of my belief.
Consider if as a child someone tried to talk us through how to walk before we were ready to walk, and before we had real need. Of course it seems laughable and backward. Why then do we persist in trying to teach children lessons about life when they have no context in which to understand? Now please don't misunderstand me, of course we teach our children daily... as we should as is our purpose as parents. Children develop the context to understand things daily, be patient because as the need arises, so you will be ready to teach it. Why believe that they will understand how to handle a fight at school or bullying, for example, until if and when they experience it. The experience is the context that raises the need to learn.
Consider how difficult as a child we found the grind of daily education. Yet as adults, when identify the need and desire to understand a certain topic we absorb information like a sponge. It is because our context has changed. Likewise as a parent you much watch, listen, understand and communicate with your children so that you can identify when the contextual change occurs and they are ready to learn.
When it does, apply now your own contextual experience, re-evaluate it, broaden your understanding of it, and examine how it can be improved... then share it with your child. In this way, we not only improve the understanding of ourselves but we ensure that our improved understanding is passed onto our children and they in turn will learn to improve and add to their own contextual awareness and understanding as the information is handed down over generations. Tribal communities understand this only too well and continue to share ancient wisdom through stories, rituals and fables.
So are we doomed to repeat history? I believe that the way to learn from history is to be ready or even precognitive when you see familiar circumstances repeating. It is not enough to just learn our lessons rote, we must be vigilant in our understanding of ourselves and the reflection of ourselves in our children. Then and only then can we move ahead watching our children mitigate our past mistakes and improve on our own struggle through life. Be happy for your children's successes and understanding of their failures.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Truth.
I think that we are faced with two problems... We work too much in our mind and... we have forgotten how simple truth can be, to feel, and to achieve.
Ah dear reader... le auteur... he has the answer. I am sorry to disappoint you but no. Like anything idealism is about truth... a single truth. Universal, idealistic and stoic. My truth... my answer will unfortunately be mostly unlike yours. It is your own journey that defines your truth. Ah! but who cares... universal truths are not useful... to us.. in our individual lives, are they?
Well of course the answer is yes, they are. It is by having a desire to understand universal truth that we develop our perception of, and our own unique truth. It is our personal interpretation of the universal truth that matters. Many people feel that because they are unable to obtain an understanding and grasp the ultimate definition of truth or of an ideal, that it is unreachable, and therefore useless. Worse, some individuals persist in taking their own truth and forcing it on those they perceive to be unenlightened, as if it IS the universal truth. Many a war has been fought over this form of human error.
The understanding we need to gain is that universal truths persisted before us, and will persist long after we are gone... They are timeless, they are not affected by our interpretation, they are not affected by our attempts to define them. We shall pass, truth will persist.
Let me illustrate.. If I was to be described as an honest man, is this true, is it a truth? No. Honesty is a truth. it is not negotiable. In the existence of a lie, honestly ceases to exist. So how given that all humans lie can I be described as an honest man. It is our personal truths, our acceptance of limitations to the universal truth, that allow this to be so. We collectively agree and accept that a certain degree of dishonesty is acceptable in a human being, that it is only aberrations to our collective agreement, that we describe as dishonesty.
It would be more accurate to describe me as "his level of dishonesty is not so extreme as to make me consider him a dishonest man he is therefore by agreement an 'honest man' " even though we know that not to be true, or truth.
It is VERY useful to accept that each of us possesses an interpretation of what is a common truth. Our human condition is rendered far easier by this understanding. Once we accept that everyone has, by nature, their own individual interpretation of what we all consider to be common truths, and by it being their nature, also their right. We suddenly understand that arguments over the interpretation of truth, are ultimately doomed. We each will interpret truth based on our desire, our discipline, our experience, and even our genetic makeup.
There is nothing to be done about it except accept that the personal search for truth is non negotiable, it is each person's right, in fact it is each person's obligation.
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