Saturday, February 26, 2011

On learning from life's cliches....

"Be the change you want to see."

It sounds so idyllic, so cliche, so positively obnoxious. I heard that quote on the radio the other day during an ad for a university.

It's true though, isn't it? And in so many ways.

We can all think of ways where this statment applies to either our lives or the world at large. Most often, we think of it in the context of changing our world for the better...treating people with the kindness we desire, volunteering at homeless shelters, teaching (which, frankly, is one of the most noble professions I can think of).

Recently, however, I've been putting that statement into the context of the day-to-day work life. I have a penchant for proper formatting. Correct grammar and punctuation are a bit of an obsession for me. Aesthetically pleasing and industry-accurate documents are the only kinds I want to send to my clients. The problem is that there aren't a lot of standarized documents to be had...so I've created them. Most at the request of my boss several years ago, but many of them I've just done for the sake of consistency across documents. Everything should have the same (or at least a similar) header/footer, right?

Well, I think so. So I went ahead and became the change I wanted to see. And now? My boss actually digs the majority of my documents and things are slowly, but surely, being standarized...something I've been itching for, for a LONG time.

Within "Be the change you want to see" is also the idea of simple initiative. It's a little like the idea of "asking for forgiveness is easier than asking for permission." Now, in no way am I suggesting that we should all go ahead and change companies, lives, and the world without a thought for the consequences (good or bad). What I mean is that, more often than not, people are looking for a solution, not just a complaint. So rather than complaining tirelessly about how so much the formatting is wrong or the grammar is off or the documents aren't attractive enough, my co-worker and I just fixed them and went to our boss with a solution. Something tangible that could actually be taken care of...quickly and easily.

How many times can any of us count that we've complained and complained about something, only to have it remain the same? If we came to our own selves with nothing but complaints and never a solution, the CEO in me would yell at me, "Quit bitching and DO something!"

So here we go,everyone...let's do something!
Is there something in your life that causes you to whine incessantly? How can you be the change?

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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

On getting that lovin' feeling....

I've been learning a lot about compassion in the last several months. It's a difficult concept, that's for sure. It's very multi-faceted and much more complex than I think I ever really thought it was. The most incomprehensible thing I've come to learn is that understanding compassion also results in a great deal more intolerance than I previously had.

In general, I'm a pretty intolerant person. Now, let me explain a little bit there lest I sound like a wildly heartless bitch. The more I learn about the world and myself, the more intolerant I seem to become with those who aren't the least bit tolerant of another worldview or way of life. I tend to lead a very "live and let live" kind of life, to a certain extent. There are plenty of "ways of life" that I totally disagree with...things like pedophilia and other such disgusting nonsense.

In learning more about compassion, however, I'm understanding that it has a lot to do with being able to look beyond oneself and making an effort to see another's point of view. I recently watched Disney's "Lady and the Tramp" (I'm working my way through the Disney library on Netflix right now) and, prior to owning a dog, the way Lady reacted to Jim-Dear and Darling's new baby meant very little to me. Now, as a puppy-owner, it just broke my heart the way little Lady must have felt and it certainly made me want to ensure that Leo and Suki still know that we love them whenever babies come into play for our family.

Often times, when a very compassionless situation arises, I like to play the internal head-game of "What the F**k Is Wrong With You?" It's a game I usually play while I'm watching the news. Because honestly, some stories can only result in that question. The game gets played in real life sometimes as well. There are just things that happen that I really wonder, "Why would someone do or say that?" Is it just a complete lack of regard for another person? Most times, the answer seems to be "Yes" which is rather unfortunate.

Compassion certainly isn't something that every human is born with. It's not like the ability to breathe or speak. It's something that has to be learned; it's something that needs to be taught. A person has to be willing to undergo the process of learning how to think beyond their own world and life. Not everyone is willing to do that, however. Which begs the question: Is a dis-compassionate person deserving of compassion themselves? My gut reaction is a resounding "NO!" I'm a firm believer in the golden rule and if someone is going to treat me with disrespect and disregard, well, back at ya! But that's a pretty ugly cycle to get myself into.

And isn't my own character worth far more, in the end, than trying to see to it that another person feel the lack of compassion they display?


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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

On predicting the future....

"Anyone can imagine a car or an interstate highway system. It takes a science fiction writer to come up with a traffic jam."

So said one of the panelists, Connie Willis, during a discussion last weekend at COSine in Colorado Springs on the relevancy of Robert Heinlein.

I feel like I might need to justify my weekend actions momentarily. I never, not in my wildest dreams, thought I'd be an attender of a Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention, let alone an ANNUAL attender. What I know about both of those genres is limited to Star Wars and Lord of the Rings...and that's a feeble attempt at understanding, at best. But my husband is nuts about fantasy novels and can appreciate sci-fi stories so we started going to this tiny "con" a few years ago and we've started to really enjoy ourselves. The whole weekend is full of discussion panels which meant little to nothing to me at first. Now I can appreciate them for the underlying information they represent. I digress.

I wound up at the Heinlein discussion at the behest of my husband who, incidentally, wound up playing with our dogs during the discussion, thereby missing most of it. Heinlein is sort of the father of science fiction. I don't know anything about his work, but I do know that he played an important role in science fiction as we know it today. In fact, it's been said that he influenced an entire generation to pursue the study of space travel and technology. Where would Niel Armstrong and Steve Jobs be without Mr. Heinlein?

Connie Willis brought up what I think was the most important issue of the entire discussion: Predicting technology isn't necessarily hard or amazing; it's trying to predict the effects that technology will have on social mores that gets really tricky.

Think about it. Without cars, there would be no backseat sex, right? Before cell phones and email, people actually walked to each other's homes, sat down over coffee or wine, and had long conversations because it might be a while before they saw each other again. Microwave ovens and TV dinners have all but negated the necessity of someone actually making a legitimate meal from real, non-preserved food. Credit cards have resulted in the notion that we can have whatever we want right now and worry about it later.

None of these things were ever "problems" 50, 60, 100 years ago. It just wasn't heard of. Yet Heinlein and many other like him could pretty accurately extrapolate on what a credit care, cell phone, or microwave looked like and how they worked. I mean, he was pretty dead on when it came to these technological advancements. But never once in his novels (and I'm guessing here, simply going on what I learned over the COSine weekend) did the idea come up of cheating on your spouse or nuclear families being broken or rushing through meals to watch a television program. There's really no way to accurately predict any of that.

So it makes me wonder: how will the iPad ultimately affect our society? What will happen if space travel becomes something us civilians can do on the regular? Will flying cars and hoverboards change our society in the dramatic ways that the automobile did? And with all the technology we do have, is it possible to even TRY to predict the societal implications of future technologies? Or should we just leave it to the sci-fi writers like we always have?




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