Thought and Action

I saw this photo on LinkedIn today, with an inscription wishing us all a brave new week. I loved it, and then began to think. I wrote a comment and now will expand a bit.

I love this picture for many reasons. For one, it shows the importance of paying attention to the gaps. Don't just look at what's there before you, put in place prior to your arrival, but also attend carefully to what's not there. Every plan and path forward has gaps. And you're much better off seeing them in advance rather than, unaware, stepping into them.

Second, this is an image that can give many people inner chills. And that's good. Even when you don't do extreme sports and outdoor challenges like the one depicted, you can metaphorically confront a version of the same sort of fear as you try anything new and daunting. All genuine adventures are surrounded by fog and fraught with danger and seem to promise a precipitous fall if things don't go just right. So, it's only the equally brave and careful who can reliably get to the other side. Thought and action together work best. And those with the vision to see the unseen most often gain the most of both.

Three Kinds of People

You may have heard an old proverb: There are three kinds of people in the world—Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who go around saying, "What happened?" I’ve always loved that distinction.

A different but related three-fold difference has been on my mind recently. There are lots of people who will run way from a building that's on fire; there are many others who, from a safe distance, will watch a building burn; and then there are a few brave souls who will actually run toward a building in flames—to see if they can be of help to anyone in there who might desperately need their assistance.

Most of us will go through a time in our lives when it seems that things are burning up, or burning down. An important business or financial opportunity has burned to the ground. A trusted relationship is being consumed by flames. An inner psychological or emotional conflagration has been sparked unexpectedly. And some people we thought we could count on will see it happening and run away. Others may choose to watch from a safe distance. And yet, there are a precious few who will run toward the fire, and into the building, to try to be of help. When there's someone like that in your life, you should be very glad. But what’s even more important is to try your best to be that person for others.

The late novelist Reynolds Price once wrote an amazing short book with the title, Letter to a Man in the Fire. It was a heartfelt response to a correspondence he had with a young medical student whose life and career were suddenly being consumed by the inferno of cancer. The young man had deep and personal questions. The writer ran to the fire and sought to bring him answers.

There are people in our lives who are in a fire. They’re in a burning building. Will you run away to keep yourself safe, or just far from the discomfort it might bring you? Will you watch it all burn from a distance? Or will you run toward the flames to bring whatever help you’re capable of offering? We should want and strive to be in that category. We won’t always succeed. We’ll sometimes fail our fellows and friends. But we can seek to embody that courage in all things to run toward the fire and seek to aid anyone who might be endangered by the flames and need, perhaps, such as we can bring.

On the Necessity for Virtuous Action

"Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,

Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues

Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike

As if we had them not."

Measure for Measure, Act I, scene 1.

On Kindness

Am I centered enough, grounded enough, confident enough and strong enough to be kind? Those who aren't display these other deficiencies for all to see.

Any small act of kindness that I offer another person typically ends up doing me more good than it accomplishes for the recipient. It even seems to be the most reliable path to my own happiness. And in a world that seems not to value it nearly enough, it's simply the right thing, whenever possible, to do and to be.

Therefore, I hereby vow in any situation to think: How can I be kind?

Our Actions Matter

Our actions matter. All of them do. And that’s a lesson most often learned from the more unfortunate of our choices, rather than through the better things we produce. 

In the novel, A Place on Earth, by Wendell Berry, a father has long taught his son to farm, and the time has come to turn over a patch of land to the young man to let him plow and plant it on his own. The father is later reminiscing on the event, and ruminating on how much topsoil has been lost over the years to bad decisions—from mistakes he saw his own father make, as well as from his own misjudgments. He then tells what happened with his son:

“Anyhow, Virgil broke his ground farther over the brow of the hill than he should have. Like a boy, you know. Didn’t stop in time. But he got his rows laid off about right, and got his crop out—and I didn’t say anything, hoping he’d have luck and get that mistake free. Thought I’d show him later what he’d done wrong, soon as I could do it without hurting his feelings.

"But there was an awful rain one night after his crop had been out, I guess, two weeks. I heard it begin and lay listening to it, knowing what was bound to be happening. And the next morning I said, ‘Let’s go look at your crop.’ So we went, and walked all the way around it. It was hurt. Bound to have been. There’s no way to plow sideline ground so it’ll hold in a rain like that. ‘Virgil,’ I said, ‘this is your fault. This is one of your contributions to the world.’ That was hard for me to say. And he took it hard. I saw he was about to cry. And bad as I hated to do it, I let it work in him while we stood there and looked. I knew he was hating the day he ever thought of raising a crop, ready to give up. Finally I put my arm around him and I said, ‘Be sorry, but don’t quit. What’s asked of you now is to see what you’ve done, and learn better.’ And I told him that a man’s life is always dealing with permanence—that the most dangerous kind of irresponsibility is to think of your doings as temporary. That, anyhow, is what I’ve tried to keep before myself. What you do on the earth, the earth makes permanent.”

I love the words: Be sorry, but don’t quit. What’s asked of you now is to see what you’ve done and learn better.

We can recover from most mistakes. But the world somehow records them all. And that’s a serious thought. Equally important is the idea that we’ll all make mistakes, and our job then is to keep going, learn, and improve. We’re not here with the expectation of perfection, only with the hope of improvement. Our actions do matter. One way or another, they're all permanent. And we have to live with that fact.

Can You Be The Hero?

What does it take to be a hero? On a train, in a crowd, or in the quiet of your office? If you're ever in a situation of great peril or stress, can you step up and be the hero?

Lots of popular books and films are about apparently ordinary people who are thrust into situations of danger and step up to act courageously. Think of Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, Tris Prior in Divergent, or the Bruce Willis character in all those old Die Hard movies, An ordinary person is pushed into an extraordinary situation and steps up. 

I've just published a book called The Oasis Within, which is the prologue volume to a new series of novels where one of the main themes is how we can be prepared for greatness. One philosopher who has read that first book has written me that it's the first portrayal of a hero that really digs down deep into how a grounding in the right wisdom can equip any of us for more heroic action. 

There's an interesting article about this in the New York Times. Professor David Rand with his colleague Ziv Epstein studied 51 winners of the Carnegie Medal for Heroism and came to a conclusion that surprised them. The overwhelming majority of heroes who act to save another person or to otherwise do what needs to be done in a tense and pressure filled situation, do not deliberate or think it through carefully before doing anything, but instead act instinctively, intuitively, and fast.

There's an old saying. "He who hesitates is lost." That seems to apply to many situations of great value and risk. We often think of ethics and morality as all about rational decision making, as if the moral agent must first weigh all the values involved in a situation and then choose which to prioritize and pursue. Wrong. The late Iris Murdoch, philosopher and novelist, wrote a fascinating little book called The Sovereignty of Good. In it, she says that, typically, at the moment of moral decision making, the precise moment we choose this or that, the decision has already long been made by what we've been doing, valuing, thinking about, feeling, and paying attention to, in the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years preceding that moment. Most big decisions, and especially those involving some measure of courage or boldness, aren't deliberated at all, but simply arise out of who we are, or what we've become prior to the point of action. We do this or that because we are already committed to this or that, or because we already are this or that. 

Our actions show who we are. They arise from within, and in a way that can be quick and intuitive.

The Americans on that high speed French train recently didn't hold a short seminar on the costs and benefits of all the possibilities and alternative potential responses available when they noticed the guy with the gun. They saw it and somebody said "Let's go." They took action. That's normally the trajectory of heroism. It sees a need and acts to meet the need. So, when you find yourself deliberating extensively over some choice, weighing the pros and cons, chances are that you're not getting ready to be a hero. The hero simply sees and does. The lesson for us is then simple. We need to be preparing ourselves carefully to do the right thing instantly when such a situation arises.

Are you paying attention to the right things, day-to-day? Are you valuing the truly best things? Are your feelings guided by real wisdom? Do you have enlightened commitments, or is the culture getting under your skin a little bit, to encourage selfish superficiality, personal aloofness, or short term ease? We become what we habitually do, in the life of the mind, the emotions, and in our actions. Today, you can begin to create the moral hero within who will act fast and instinctively tomorrow. Or you can deepen and reinforce the good tendencies you already have. It's up to you.

Patient Waiting

Patience means waiting. But waiting doesn't necessarily mean not doing. We all understand the former. And yet, few seem to grasp the latter.

There are times when we need to be still and at peace, take a break, and rest from our work, while simply allowing the world its turn to play a role in our endeavors. Every quest for achievement in the world is a partnership with powers that go beyond our own. And often it takes patience to allow our partner to do the work that we can't do alone. We have a phrase, "Watch and Wait." We've done all we can. We've tossed our little toy boat into the stream. Will it float? We await the results.

Waiting. It's something we might do in repose, on a beach, in a hammock, or utterly relaxed in a comfortable chair. We can wait on a yoga mat, or even while taking a nap.

But waiting does not have to be an utterly passive state. It's not the same thing as being inert, frozen, now helpless, and without options for action. "Waiting" is a verb. And it can connote all sorts of different actions. 

Waiting. It's a good time to pray, or play, or otherwise turn away from the focus of activity that has otherwise occupied us. A cook puts a pot on the stove. And then it's the pot's turn to boil. Sometimes, the cook can merely turn away to chat, or check email, or sit and sip coffee while gazing at the garden outside. Waiting can take many forms. And, of course, in some of those forms, the cook can stay quite busy in the kitchen.

Waiting often means preparing.

You've done all that you can do to get the project out there into the potential client's hands. Now, you wait. What does that require? Well, it can mean preparing for the positive go-ahead you hope to receive, and in this way playing a different role in the process, getting yourself ready for the success you want. There will be a next step. So, while you wait, you prepare for whatever is next. Waiting here takes the form of preparation. And at other times, it can mean just turning your attention elsewhere, while allowing the water to heat.

So, in the most general sense, there are two forms of waiting. One does involve resting. But the other involves a different form of doing. Either can help equip you for whatever is to come. But neither will serve you well if it's heavily spiced with hot anxiety. And that, for many people, is the problem. 

You're awaiting a decision. It could go either way. Uncertainty mixed with desire produces anxiety. Or you're awaiting a result that's not uncertain, but is not as yet in hand. Anticipation mixed with desire, or the very different aversion of fear, brings another form of anxiety. There are many ways in which waiting is fraught, tense, and hard. But, fortunately, there are two solutions to any such anxiety.

First, you can emotionally release the situation, whatever it is. Shed it. Let it go. Find a zen peace within. Trust God. Or reconcile yourself to the constant vicissitudes of the cosmos, as the stoics did. They believed that hardly anything is as good as it seems or as bad as it seems, so we should all just calm down. They understood that the discipline of waiting is largely the skill of governing our emotions well. But they also understood something else that's vital.

We all have to learn how to turn our attention from what we can't control to what we can control. And that's often facilitated by engaging in some new, and even slightly different, activity that engages our minds and hearts while we wait. Maybe it's in preparation for the result we want, or the one we'd prefer to avoid, or both. At other times, it's another activity altogether, perhaps one that has nothing to do with the focus of our concern. That doing then becomes a useful and happy distraction that can ease the worry, or the anticipation, which otherwise can be so tough. Action can displace agitation. And action can be the form that waiting takes.

If you have trouble waiting for things, analyze what exactly the problem is, and then take the proper action to solve it. For as you see, action can be just what waiting needs.

The Purpose of Fear

One of the greatest pieces of advice ever given is this: Seek to live from love, not from fear. Over the long run, a few important things are true. Love expands us. Fear contracts us. A life mainly guided by fear is a small, shrunken substitute for what it could have been. 

But most of us can't completely avoid the experience of fear. And in this world, we probably shouldn't, anyway. So. In order to deal with it properly, we need to know its purpose. And here's a surprise.

The purpose of fear is to make us act. It's not to make us freeze.

Think about it: How many times do we ever find ourselves explaining someone's tremendous success in a challenging situation by saying, "She froze. That's why she prevailed."

The deer in the headlights doesn't escape danger by becoming motionless. The purpose of fear is to motivate action - often avoidance, sometimes preparation, always a new level of focused concentration. When we're trying something new where great gains or losses are at stake, fear will often arise. It's a certain form of emotional energy. The question then becomes: What do we do with it? Sometimes, it properly makes us stop and think and then proceed no farther. Often, it makes us stop and think and then proceed better. Courage can listen to fear but doesn't misunderstand it as nature's ultimate Stop Sign. Courage can be counseled by fear, but is never undermined by it.

When you next feel fear, let it make you act. Don't react in paralysis instead. Act. The right action may be a higher level of thinking, which, after all, is an action in its own right. Or what's called for could be a matter of physical movement. Fear isn't always our enemy, simply something to be overcome. It can be a stimulus to act properly, with consciousness, and focus. It can guide us to adapt, adjust, and act well.

It always signals the unknown. And the unknown is where the amazing can be found.

Just don't let fear stop you from acting at all. And remember, still, that the highest motivation is love. And perfect love, as we're told, casts out fear, even if it first feels it, and listens, and acts - it just never lets fear be the final word.

The Goodness Guarantee

There are very few guarantees in the world. One of the rare ones is that if, from a perspective of basically true belief, you try to do good or try to do evil, you're guaranteed to succeed. Let me make it clear what this means.

The single condition for this guarantee is that you have mostly, and at least roughly, true beliefs about what's good, and what's evil. You don't have to be a master of ethical insight, but have generally accurate and non delusional views of what's right and wrong, at a simple and basic level. Then, the guarantee kicks in. If you're trying to do good for the world, beyond your own narrow interests, in your pursuit of a goal or in your treatment of another person, then, whether you succeed in accomplishing exactly what you're attempting or not, your effort to do good is itself a form of good. In even trying to do good, you've brought a dose of good into the world.

Likewise, and conversely, if you're trying to do evil in the world, of any kind, in your pursuit of a goal or in your treatment of another person, then, whether you succeed in accomplishing exactly what you're attempting or not, your effort itself is a form of evil. It is evil to try to accomplish evil. 

To sum up, armed with a basically correct grasp of good and evil, then you get a rare guarantee. When you try to do good, you actually do good. When you try to do evil, you really do evil. And this is true regardless of circumstances. Because of that truth, something important follows.

There's aren't many such guarantees in life. When you try to make a lot of money, there's no guarantee that you'll succeed financially. If you try to get famous, there's also no guarantee that your intent will be realized in any form. Likewise for the pursuit of power, or status, or any other external thing distinct from good or evil.

So, therefore what should we make of this realization? Our conclusion is crucially important, and potentially even life changing.

Consider this. One way not to waste your time and energy in this life is to seek first and foremost a goal that's guaranteed. That leaves two options. Whatever we do, we should either seek to do good, or to do evil. But seeking evil, as Socrates long ago pointed out, is in itself wrong and, in addition, will just make your world a worse place for you. We should not seek evil. Therefore, the opposite conclusion follows quickly: We should always intentionally seek to do good, whatever the particulars might be. 

This conclusion then comes with a cosmic promise. Your effort to make a positive addition to the world will itself be one. And then, everything else is gravy. Or icing on the cake - depending on whether you prefer the savory or the sweet, each of which is available to the seeker of good.

First, seek to know what is good and what isn't. Strip off false beliefs, and escape illusion. Then, the job is clear. Determine, whatever you do, to do good, and good will follow. Even if you're somewhat mistaken in your understanding of what the good requires, a sincere and humble pursuit of the good is more open than any other mindset to correction about what it truly entails. That way, in seeking to do good, you position yourself to both do good and become better. And I have just one question: As a fundamental starting point, what could be better than that?

Making Something Happen

The best people most often have a simple common tendency. They dwell not on how hard a task is, but on how to make it happen. In the New York Times Sunday Business section, the current CEO and President of Montblanc North America, Mike Giannattasio, talks about his office and his work life. At one point he says:

When I suggest that employees do something, they'll sometimes say, "It's not that easy." I gave everyone in the office a Staples Easy Button, and I tell them "You are able because you think you are able," which I've paraphrased from Virgil. People need a good understanding of what they can do.

I once heard that the New York Times was doing an article on bringing philosophy to a broader public audience. I had just published Philosophy for Dummies in the famous Dummies series of books, to help jump start their foray into the Humanities with the Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Thomas Hoving, who wrote for them the estimable Art for Dummies. I called the publicist for the series and told him what I'd heard about the Times piece being done, and that I'd love to be interviewed for the article. He said, in a trembling voice, "Well, I don't know. The New York Times is a REALLY big place." I sighed, and thanked him, and found the writer doing the article myself, and ended up being the lead person interviewed.

One of the smallest bestselling books ever written was on this precise problem. It's called, enigmatically, A Message to Garcia, and is by Elbert Hubbard. The President of the United States needed to get a message to a rebel leader named Garcia somewhere in Cuba. He was told that there was one man who could do the job, no matter what it took. The President summoned him and gave him the message. The messenger didn't ask where Garcia was, or explain how hard it might be to find him. He didn't make excuses, dwell on obstacles, or "manage expectations." He got going, took a boat, went into the jungle for three weeks, and accomplished his mission. Hubbard suggests that we almost never come across a person who is ready, willing, and able to do such a thing. Those who are able to take a message to Garcia will be the ones who make a big impact on the world.

If we're in a managerial or leadership position, how often do we ask someone to do something interesting and hear them say, "Well that's harder than you might think." And how often do we already know both exactly how hard it is and that the person we've asked can certainly do it if they actually try? And of course, most of us have also been on the other side of the request. I was once asked to do a talk about Steve Jobs. I could have said, "Well, I really don't know anything about Steve Jobs, and it would be really hard to put together a talk that was both original and helpful on him." But instead, I said, "Sure. Let me look into it. I'll come up with something great." And it was hard. And I made it happen. I've given that talk several times and even have the draft of a book based on it.

I've often said that if I was asked what the most important quality is that successful people share in common, I'd probably identify an overall action orientation - the proclivity toward making it happen, whatever the relevant "it" is, in context. They don't ignore obstacles. But they don't dwell on them either. The success mindset is one of making things happen.

And, no, that's not me at the top of this blog post. I still have hair. But not all great thinkers do. That's Seth Godin. Take his advice and mine. Go make something happen. Now.

Life While-You-Wait

Today I just want to share a powerful and profound short poem by Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012). It comes from her book Map: Collected and Last Poems. I came across it on www.brainpickings.org, one of my favorite websites. Read it twice if you can. The last two lines are particularly striking, in the context of the poem, and of our lives. I do grieve for some of what I will forever have done. Perhaps you do, too. But there is an alchemy that can redeem and reweave even our worst into a different and never expected best.

LIFE WHILE-YOU-WAIT

Life While-You-Wait.
Performance without rehearsal.
Body without alterations.
Head without premeditation.

I know nothing of the role I play.
I only know it’s mine. I can’t exchange it.

I have to guess on the spot
just what this play’s all about.

Ill-prepared for the privilege of living,
I can barely keep up with the pace that the action demands.
I improvise, although I loathe improvisation.
I trip at every step over my own ignorance.
I can’t conceal my hayseed manners.
My instincts are for happy histrionics.
Stage fright makes excuses for me, which humiliate me more.
Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel.

Words and impulses you can’t take back,
stars you’ll never get counted,
your character like a raincoat you button on the run —
the pitiful results of all this unexpectedness.

If only I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance,
or repeat a single Thursday that has passed!
But here comes Friday with a script I haven’t seen.
Is it fair, I ask
(my voice a little hoarse,
since I couldn’t even clear my throat offstage).

You’d be wrong to think that it’s just a slapdash quiz
taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh no.
I’m standing on the set and I see how strong it is.
The props are surprisingly precise.
The machine rotating the stage has been around even longer.
The farthest galaxies have been turned on.
Oh no, there’s no question, this must be the premiere.
And whatever I do
will become forever what I’ve done.

When Things Go Wrong

We live in a world where things often go wrong. In fact, you can divide all of your life into three basic kinds of time segments:

1. The time when you're waiting for something to happen, wanting it to happen, and perhaps doing all you can to make it happen,

2. The time when it either happens, and you're glad, maybe even elated, or perhaps relieved, or else,

3. The time when it was supposed to happen and didn't, and you're either sad, or mad, discouraged, or even worse.

In the book by Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha, published in 1922, which I wrote about yesterday, there's one very interesting story. The young man Siddhartha is working for a very successful and wealthy businessman. The rich man is always worried about something, or angry when anything doesn't go right. Siddhartha is never worried or angry. He treats business like a sport to play, and in a very pure way, where he simply enjoys the playing, without any concern about who wins or loses. And because of his attitude, he wins much more often than he loses.

One day, he makes a trip to a distant town where he's hoping to purchase a crop that he and his partner can then resell for a major profit. But when he arrives at the town, he learns the deal has already been made, with someone else. Rather than reacting with sadness, anger, frustration, irritation, regret, resentment, concern or worry, fuming that he's wasted all the time and energy of travel for nothing, he quickly turns nothing into something. He meets the people of the town and gets to know them. He visits with them, eats with them, and plays with their children. He has a wonderful time making new friends with those who will probably now very much want to do business with him in the future. His older partner wouldn't likely have done any of this, but would typically have stormed off in a huff, furious that he'd missed the great opportunity he'd pursued.

A CEO once told me that it's his job to worry. And from what I could see, he does it very well. But is that really a mission critical job? What does his worry accomplish that simple planning, checking, and exercising vigilant care couldn't do? I can't see how the worry, the tension of anxiety, adds anything to the mix of productive endeavor. Most negative emotions, in most situations, are the same. Our hero, Siddhartha, by not worrying or allowing any negative emotions to overtake him, was easily able to turn nothing into something. He showed how we can all be opportunistic in a very positive way, at those times when things initially don't seem to go our way, and, in fact, in almost any situation in which we find ourselves. We can deal positively and creatively with whatever happens, and make the best of it.

And I can't think of anything better than that.

Action, Opportunity, and Impact

We all know that personal action is required to take advantage of opportunities in life. Otherwise, they lie inert for us and then dissipate. But there's also a deeper perspective available. In Adam Bryant's New York Times column "Corner Office," Lori Senecal, Global CEO of ad agency C. P. &B. and CEO of the MDC Partner Network said something interesting this week while reflecting back on her own graduation from college and going for her first job. She got an offer and decided to take it without even realizing what all it involved. She comments:

That was a time when I embraced one of the philosophies that I go back to a lot today, which is that action creates opportunity. I didn’t know what the nature of the job would be, but I knew that if I took action, other possibilities would appear, and they did. Ever since then, I’ve often thought about action creating opportunity.

Bryant later asked her what advice she would give to new college graduates, and she said:

I talk to them about action creating opportunity. So dive in, and great things will come of it. The other thing I like to focus on is the importance of impact. You have to learn to prioritize the impact opportunities rather than just being busy. There’s an infinite amount of things that you can do, but focus on the things that will catapult the company and your career forward.

Action and opportunity - action and impact: Two vital connections. Taking action in reasonable ways, in ways that are right for us, creates opportunities, and then among those that arise, we should choose to act further on the ones that will have the greatest likely impact for good on the world, our businesses, and our own careers. Well directed action is the key, at both levels.

This is the philosophy I call activism. It's up to us to take action. Do things that matter, both by creating new possibilities, and by having impact. This is nice advice to keep in mind, not just for recent graduates, but for all of us along life's way.

Where's Your Cow or Goat?

I believe we all have a spiritual need to feel useful, to take action to make a difference in the world, on however big or small a scale. And I also think that this provides us with an important hint as to how we should approach each day.

In a recent New York Times article, Nicholas Kristof reported on some new studies on whether philanthropic giving really makes a difference, long term, for people living in poverty. It turns out that the most effective giving involves a cow, or a goat, or chickens. Seeds also help. What doesn't help much, it seems, is money. It's all about a certain way of giving hope, through an opportunity for action.

When impoverished people are given a useful animal, one that can provide milk or eggs, as well as a form of companionship, and almost a sort of partnership, they become more active generally in their lives. They work more, they take more odd jobs, they have a new form of hope. They've been given the possibility of an activity, a usefulness in their own lives, that can make a difference for how they and their families live. And this is a form of giving that works. You know the old adage about giving a man a fish, or teaching him how to fish. Research now bears this out in more ways that we might have imagined.

And this provides a hint for all of us. How much time do you spend wishing things were better, or simply regretting the way things are? Most of us perceive a gap between where we are and where we'd like to be. And it bothers us. We worry about it. Or we even resent it. Sometimes, we feel hopeless to change it. Imagining how things could be better can almost take the wind out of our sails, if we stay passive in those imaginings.

But here's the insight: We all need a cow or a goat or some chickens. We need seeds. But then we need to plant the seeds. It's not merely having a cow, but taking action and milking it. It's not just the companionship of chickens, the camaraderie of the coop, but gathering the eggs that makes a big difference for impoverished people.

And here's something universal. We all need to feel a sense of control over our destinies. Desperately poor people given a cow develop that sense and experience hope. They're given a path, something they can do to feel some measure of control over their destinies. We all need that.

It seems to me that we all have a spiritual need for a sense of usefulness, and control, and action. We need to feel that we can begin to close the gap between what is and what could be. For me, the cow, or goat, might be my personal library, or my computer, or my website. I can read and discover. I can write. For you, it might be the same thing. Or something about your job could be it. Or a friend may provide you, through your relationship with him or her, that metaphorical goat, or those chickens you need. But remember that you need to take action.

When we see opportunity, we feel a glimmer of hope, and that combined with real actions, however small, can create a path forward.

What's your cow? What's your goat? Where are your chickens? When we clearly identify our opportunities and act on them daily, we begin to close the gap and move into our proper future with the feeling of hope that will help to get us there.

Tom Brokaw on Luck

Parade Magazine recently ran a nice little article on the role luck has played in the life of newsman Tom Brokaw. He says some things of which we all need to be reminded.

I've long said that a rational person can be an optimist by being an activist. Unlike with slot machines or roulette wheels, the odds in life are something we can often change by taking action. Brokaw says this:

I believe you make your own luck. My motto is ‘It’s always a mistake not to go.’ So I jump on the airplane, try new things—sometimes I get in way over my head, but then I think, I'll work my way out of this somehow. A big part of making your own luck is just charging out of the gate every morning. The thing I love about living in New York is that I never fail to get up in the morning and think, Something adventurous is going to happen today. The energy is operating at full throttle all the time. And if you want to be lucky you’ve got to go out and take advantage of it.

This is what I call the activist approach to life and luck. The more I do, the luckier I get. There's a new adventure awaiting. But it won't wait forever. So go for it.

Brokaw has a new book out on all this. It's called A Lucky Life Interrupted: A Memoir of Hope. Check it out. It may spark something adventurous.

Some Journal Entries on Wisdom

I just finished editing the last of eight novels that I've been writing over the past four years. No, don't go Amazon them, or Google them yet. I haven't yet shopped them around to publishers. They're still our little secret. So, Shhh.

But, today, I wanted to share a few journal entries from one of the characters, some realizations he's had about wisdom. The character is only 14 years old, but he's been mentored by some amazing people, and has had many insights that are typically far beyond his years. Here are just a few short entries you may enjoy, as you contemplate the past year and envision the new year that's already been born.

Wisdom may come to us in words, but it lives with us in actions.

Knowledge is in the mind. Wisdom is in the heart.

We’re meant to possess knowledge. Wisdom is meant to possess us.

A life without wisdom is barren, regardless of the fireworks it contains.

Wisdom and love go together. You can't truly have one without the other.

Being. Doing. Becoming.

Ok. If you can forgive me one enigmatic, aphoristic, epigrammatic, semi-oracular indulgence, I'll wax existential for a few moments in a nearly tweetological form, in hopes of sparking some new realizations. This is for leaders. This is for achievers. This is for everyone. So, here goes. Where the metaphysical meets the moral, we find a moving structure.

To be, to do, and to become: in that order, and then it all recurs.

To be is about the present. It’s a dynamic and contemporaneous state.

To do moves into the future, bringing the past and present to bear.

To be is given to us, at one level, and dependent on us, at another, which is the use we make of the gift.

To do is to become. Action is accretion. Even non-action is the doing of refraining, and this also molds the clay.

Becoming is what being and doing are for.

Doing and becoming await our initiative. Being precedes it and is poured into the process that then either enriches or diminishes it.

Becoming can be obvious, or mysteriously subtle.

Becoming is sometimes hidden until it bursts forth in its form.

Being. Doing. Becoming. The cycle continues whether we're awake or asleep, attentive or distracted, wise or foolish, concerned or careless, willing or rebellious, desirous or not.

We need to understand this process. And then, use it well.

Hammer Out That Bad Habit!

"A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit." Erasmus.

Have you ever tried to break a bad habit and been really shocked by its aggravating resiliency? Habit is like a second nature. We breathe by nature. We do many other things by second nature, or habit. 

Without habit, we couldn’t live. Life would be far too complicated if we had to always go around figuring out what sock and shoe to put on first in the morning. We have habits to make life possible. But the wrong ones quickly make life miserable.

How do you break the power of a bad habit? First, by the power of the imagination. You use your imagination to picture vividly where the bad behavior is taking you, envisioning the disasterous results as luridly as possible, and then picture just as clearly some alternative behavior and its contrary, great future. Then you act to establish a suitably contrary habit. No one finds it easy to just stop some form of self-destructive ineffective behavior that has become habitual. Bad habits are displaced by better habits. 

Let me say that again. Bad habits are displaced by better habits.

If you need to make a change in your life, use the wisdom of the great Rennaissance thinker Erasmus. Take a new nail to drive out the old one. Work at forming a new habit that will displace the old and still serve whatever positive purpose the old one did, but better, and without the negative consequences. Use your imagination. And get moving. 

Today.

Action! Action! Action!

He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence. William Blake

The great Greek orator Demosthenes once was asked to specify the three most fundamental elements of his art. He replied “Action! Action! Action!” If I had to pick the single most important quality of highly successful people today, I might say the same thing.

Planning is important in human life, but action is even more vital. I know high achievers who consider it the essence of their straetegy to be always moving forward, taking the intitiative, taking some chances, making things happen. Aristotle believed that we all learn by doing. Are you dreaming of the future you want, or are you doing something about it? Follow Demosthenes’ advice and take action on something you’ve been thinking about. And learn.

Today.