Too Much

When was the last time you ate too much, drank too much, exercised too much, watched too much bad tv, or worked too much on something that ended going nowhere?

We have all these clever aphorisms like:

Too much is never enough!

Too much is impossible!

Too much is wonderful!

Too much is just right! 

And these little sayings are admittedly all clever, and all sound good in the right context, but are also mutually inconsistent, which is, of course, warning signal. Clever isn't always a sign of true, although it's often mistaken as such in our world. 

How about too much paperwork? Too much information? Too much food in your mouth, or way too much stuff for your carryon to hold?

I just had an epiphany in the bathroom of the Airbus A319 I was flying on Wednesday morning from Jacksonville, Florida to Charlotte, North Carolina. The seatbelt sign was illuminated, and I’m not usually an in-air rule breaker, but too much white and red wine, capped with too much Jack Daniels the night before at a party had led to too much black coffee that morning, which resulted in too much of a need for the Airbus facilities, mid-flight, and all of that resulted in my standing up for too much time in violation of the captain’s sign. But as soon as I had slipped out of my comfortable window seat 2A and ducked into the little lav, then, zap, I had my morning revelation.

Here’s the insight. Too much leads to too much.

Too much libation and getting up much too early requires too much java which leads to too much time in the restroom during a bumpy flight. Too much weight in the gym leads to too much back pain, which leads to too much Advil, and too much recovery time in the bed. Too much is trouble.

And maybe that’s why the ancients said “Nothing in excess.” In fact, the famous Oracle at Delphi had two things carved in marble. "Know yourself" and "Nothing in excess." I've reflected before in a blog on the relationship between these two pieces of advice. Each one helps you with the other.

Of course, you can't have too much self knowledge. Whatever you can get will be useful, and it helps you know what counts as too much, in anything else.

Spot in advance what's too much for you, and then find a way to stop before you cross the line. That's the path of virtue which, in Greek and Latin, meant strength. It should today as well.

And there's no such thing as too much strength. So, therefore:

Know yourself. Do at least almost nothing in excess. Be strong.

The Rut

You're in a rut. I almost know you are. At least a little. Because most of us are like that. You have lots of habits, ways you do things, and things you do, daily, or weekly. Most of our habits benefit us in some way or we wouldn't have them. But they can also tie us up and hold us down. And so I have some advice.

Get out of your rut. For just a little bit, in a small way, stick your head above the habits that define your normal stuff and catch a glimpse of what's out there. I often do this by reading a different kind of book, something I wouldn't ordinarily try. In the past week, I've read one by a famous movie producer, The Curious Mind, and a fascinating young adult novel that was surprisingly full of philosophy, The Fault Is In Our Stars. They get me out of my rut and spark all sorts of new ideas. 

A few days ago I helped instal a fence. Now that's way outside my rut. And I really enjoyed it. I haven't otherwise done any fencing since 1982, which is a long time ago. I got outside my rut, and I had a new experience that was deeply satisfying.

Watch a TV show you wouldn't normally view, or go see a film that's outside your normal parameters of moviegoing. It's still good to avoid junk. But try something new. Talk to someone you've never talked to, or about something different. I meet people on airplanes all the time, and have conversations that I sometimes remember years later. It's all about the little act of stretching beyond what you normally do. You never know how a little rut-desertion, if even just for a few minutes, might spice up your day, and give you just that nudge of energy or creativity you need.

Integrity

Integrity. It's one of those words we all think we understand, and yet, when asked what it means, we might find ourselves stumbling out partial answers. It's about character and being ethical. It's about doing the right thing, or aligning yourself with the side of good. It involves telling the truth, and keeping promises, and being dependable. Right? 

Well. These are all implications of integrity. But what, actually, is it?

The word comes from the same etymological root as integer, meaning a whole number. And there's a big clue. Integrity is somehow about wholeness. It's about not compartmentalizing your decisions and actions, walling off some from the rest of who you are. It's about acting with the wholeness or entirety of your beliefs and values, in every choice. 

But wait. A thoroughly bad guy, an immensely corrupt character, a murderous terrorist could act in every choice with and from the wholeness or entirety of his insane beliefs and perverse values, but we wouldn't call him an individual with integrity, would we? No. Of course not. Because integrity isn't just about consistency. It's a moral concept. And there's our second clue.

A rascal, criminal, or deranged psycho can be consistent in his actions, throughout the range of his conduct. That is to say, his actions can be consistent with each other, and with the false beliefs and skewed values he holds. But to have integrity, you have to display wholeness in another sense. You need the wholeness of health. Integrity is about moral health. And that's about more than just mere consistency among your actions. Your choices and action have to also be consistent with objective standards of health that are independent of your own thoughts and feelings - that are, in a metaphysical sense "out there" in the world.

What are those standards? I suggested years ago in the book If Aristotle Ran General Motors that they're Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity, understood properly. If your life, thought, and actions are all consistent, or at one, with Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity, then you are a person of integrity. You have integrity. Or better, it has you. Because there's an important sense in which you don't really possess it until it owns you. You can be good in fits and starts - a mostly good character, a decent soul, overall, even a kind person most of the time, but if there is not a higher calling that you've said yes to, in a deep and abiding way, perhaps because you really don't see any reasonable alternative, then you aren't yet a person of integrity.

That's a high standard. But that's because it's what integrity is all about. Most people admire it from afar. Some actually live with it. Many are apparently blind to it, and just don't get what the big deal is about it. But I'm convinced that it's tied in deeply with not only what I call "true success," but also true happiness, contentment and fulfillment. It's also a part of what it takes to make your best possible mark on the world.

Are you living with it? many of us try to embody it in at least most aspects of our lives, at least most of the time. But it calls us to live it wholeheartedly, fully, and consistently across everything we do. It's a high calling, and a hard calling, but it's the one true path to the best life we can live. As such, it's well worth working hard to attain.

Patience

For most of my life, patience has been a monumentally aggravating virtue. I like to make things happen. I like to dream it, do it, and then move on to the next thing. I work hard at projects, and pursue them with determination, persistence, and as much creativity as I can muster. And then I like to see my efforts come together and work, producing the fruit of achievement. I bask in the warm glow of a job well done and go looking for the next one.

When I get excited about an idea or a project, I become a curator of great energy. It seems to come to me from all directions, get inside me, and demand to be used. I surf on it, run with it, and even fly because of it. Then, occasionally, things don't go as expected. Not right away, at least. And sometimes, not even considerably after the "right away" phase has long gone. What's this? The world is not responding to my bright idea and hard work? I'm being made to WAIT?

Patience has a very different energy signature from striving and working hard. For most of my life, I had no real conception of how to make them go together. I was always pushing, running down hallways, making call after call, with almost a frantic pace that finds youth to be such fertile soil. But as I've gotten older, I've come to a bit more of an understanding of patience.

The world is an infinitely complex buzzing web of intersecting interests, energies, and events. It's hard to fit a new idea, or invention, or discovery, into the speeding traffic of what's already on the highway. You sometimes have to sit on the on ramp and patiently wait until the time is right. Then you can safely merge into the stream of ongoing things that are whizzing by.

Impatience doesn't want to wait - ever. But waiting can be just as important an activity as doing. A great baseball player doesn't step up to the plate and let impatience goad him into swinging hard before the pitcher even throws the ball. That would be crazy. And if he even swings a moment too soon, he can miss the opportunity and the ball. Patience is all about acting when the time is right. It's about waiting until the proper moment arrives. It involves the ability to be at peace and give the world time to get ready for your great new idea or project. It's most of all an attitude. And it's powerful.

Impatience is all about ego and that spoiled child inside that wants its way now. Its companions are frustration, irritation, and anger. Patience is a form of inner peace. It's about wisdom. Its companions are serenity and assurance, a confidence that doesn't require immediacy. It isn't in a hurry. It understands that great things take time.

I always wanted to have a better understanding of patience. But I had to wait a long time to get it. It was worth the wait. And most things of value are.

The Benefits of Age

I'm really glad I'm not twenty years younger. I bet you are, too. Unless maybe you're 100 and wish you could have a do-over for everything since your eightieth birthday. 

There are advantages to age if you live with your eyes wide open. Experience can be a great teacher if we let it work for us this way. Of course, I'm sure there are some people who are just as foolish at forty as they were at twenty. I feel really sorry for them. I was in many ways an idiot in my twenties. I was a high functioning, intellectual idiot, but an idiot all the same. I had to grow into a measure of wisdom. And I learned it in my head long before it fully made the difference it should have made in my heart. Making enough mistakes helps. It can humble you, and open you to new avenues of growth and inner transformation. Learning what doesn't work can be great preparation for an eagerness to know what does.

Today, April 13th, is my birthday. I was born on Easter Sunday, 1952. That makes me 63 years old, or young, as my friends like to console me by saying. And I'm fine with it. I think I'm finally starting to really understand some things, some important things. I have an expansive awareness about life and the world that I lacked even a few years ago. So if you feel like you're mystified most of the time, and are making mistakes left and right, hang in there. The wisdom you need may be just around the next corner. If you let experience be your teacher, and allow other wise people to give you guidance, you can age into new vistas of understanding and delight that you could not even have imagined twenty years ago.

So stay open, stay eager to learn, stay tuned in to what life has to teach you. Let today and tomorrow provide you with some of those genuine benefits of age. And, Happy WiseDay to you.

Emergency Wisdom

A car in front of me on a major street today caught my attention. It was a white Ford Explorer tricked out with orange stripes like an emergency vehicle. And it also had round reflectors built into the tail gate. Or were they flashing lights? Above the license plate, there was a very official looking sign, where EMT or POLICE might otherwise be. It said CHAPLAIN.

I couldn't help but be jealous. If I could just have one like that but with the sign instead saying PHILOSOPHER. Can you imagine? I sure could. I'd be driving down the road and the radio would squawk. "Logic Emergency on Front Street. All Philosophers Respond." I'd hit the lights, and of course the siren, and the gas. Out of the way, everybody. Sage coming through. I'd screech up to the address and dash out of the car. City police would be holding the door open for me. I'd run up the stairs two at a time, and there it would be: a guy splayed out across his desk, with his computer flashing some sort of error message. A detective would be standing there, and he'd look up at me and say, "It's a conceptual catastrophe."

I'd say, "What have we got?"

The gumshoe would reply. "I think we need some Aristotle."

I'd look more closely and say, "No! It's too late for that! Only Kierkegaard will do!" And, with a Leap of Faith, I'd use just the right aphorism and summon the guy back to life, and conceptual clarity. A gasp would go through the room, and I'd suddenly notice all the other people huddled over at the side. They'd start cheering and clapping. Someone would run up to me and gush appreciation and words of praise for what I had just accomplished.

"No Ma'am. No need to thank me. Just another day for a hard working philosopher."

As I came out of my stoplight reverie, I realized why things don't work like this. Oddly, most people go in search of wisdom only when they confront a catastrophe, or disaster that has arisen from unwise decisions. Wanting to avoid the flames of irrational self immolation, they desperately look for insight. And they might find a piece of wisdom here or there that can save them. But philosophy is much better as a powerful preventative medicine than as last minute emergency treatment. It's better applied in small doses throughout our days and decisions. Then, we can most likely avoid cataclysmic personal disasters, at least of the existential sort.

So: Don't wait for trouble. Seek wisdom now. Remember, I don't really have the flashing lights and siren. It was just in my imagination. Then again, the chaplain in town apparently does.

A Plan With Urgency.

Leonard Bernstein once said:

To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.

That's really good. I like it. What you need is not (1) a plan, and (2) all the time in the world. What you need is a plan and not quite enough time. Why?

You need a sense of urgency about your plan and your ability to execute it. Plenty of time makes a sense of urgency hard to create. Not quite enough time gets you going and keeps you at it, while you glance at the calendar and check your watch.

That's the secret insight of procrastinators. They put things off until they have the magic of not quite enough time. Then they bear down with focus and intensity. Some wait until actual desperation sets is. They do whatever it takes to get the fire blazing high.

I'm not recommending procrastination - not yet, at least.

I'm agreeing with the famous director that a great plan and a time squeeze can be a magical combination. I sometimes give myself an artificial deadline for a project, and get all worked up about how in the world I'll get it done in that amount of time. I don't let myself think of the fact that I've just made up the deadline. I convince myself it's real and important. And it is important if it gets me going full force. And because I'm pretty good at convincing myself of things, I hit the accelerator and take off! I get stuff done.

And I'd love to say more, but: There's not quite enough time.

Tempus fugit!

Harmony: Part Two

Go buy all the individual parts of a Ferrari, thousands of them, down to the nuts and bolts, and the cans of paint needed for that glossy finish (which are you, red, black, or yellow - or maybe dark blue?), and then pile all those parts in your driveway. You won't as a result have a great car that you can take for a spin around the block. You'll just have a big pile of stuff. The parts have to be connected and then have to work together well for you to have a functioning classic high end sports car. They have to perform in harmony.

I wrote about harmony already this week, but felt that another post could be beneficial. Two Part Harmony seems apt, after all. In the previous post, I pointed out that a whole of any kind (a face, team, or as here, a car) can be greater or lesser than the sum of its parts, and that the secret sauce determining whether the parts are augmented or diminished in their assemblage is harmony.

Harmony is something we hope for, in our lives, our businesses, and our families. At work, we try to gather the best people we can, and then hope that they'll act harmoniously toward shared goals. But of course harmony should be sought from the start, and not just desired in the end.

Don't just hire for individual talent, or even greatness. Hire for diverse, dynamic fit. Hire for harmony. Some companies do it already. They have job candidates interviewed by the people they'd be working with. Everyone has an eye on the issue of harmony. How will we work together? Will we mesh?

Harmony is often used as a synonym for consistency. But it may go even deeper. Imagine two guitarists playing all the same notes in perfect rhythm. They're consistently matching each other, note-for-note. Now imagine them playing in harmony. When I was in grad school at Yale, I used to go down the road to a great guitar store every afternoon for an hour or two and play with an outstanding studio guitarist named Tommy. He had taught me Chet Atkins style finger picking. I'd play a song, bass and melody, and he'd play in harmony with what I was doing. The sound that resulted was amazing. What he was doing was far more than merely playing in a way that was consistent with what I was doing. It was enhancing the sounds immensely.

Think of the spices in a great dish. You want more than consistency. You want them to work together and mutually enhance each other harmoniously. That's what we want in life and in our work. Think about what that means right now in what you're doing. How can you introduce more real harmony into it? How can you play it to make it sing?

The Size of Your Life

I live in many ways a small, snug life. And I'm happy in it. But one of the hardest things in the modern world is to be content with the size of your life.

People contact me all the time to tell me about their grand plans, their world-historical ambitions and dreams that will likely play out on a stage so big that the earth itself will seem too small to support it all. And even our own galaxy, in contrast, may appear to be a bit modest and out of the way for the immense grandeur that is to transpire, if their goals are realized. 

This has been going on for decades. Really. My wife says I'm some sort of a magnet for grandiose dreamers. I don't know why. I do enjoy hearing of their ambitions. I deeply appreciate unfettered enthusiasm. I love thinking big. But as I listen to the various magnificent plans, I always wonder: "How?" And sometimes: "Why?"

Most days, I work at home. And most of my day involves working on very little things. I realized long ago that if I was going to personally change the world for the better, it would have to be very slowly. And so now, on the brink of my 63rd birthday, you've got to give me credit for sticking to my own plan and sense of timing. I've been slow, indeed. The world is not yet, it seems, quite changed in the way I've intended. Maybe I've planted a few seeds over the years that will germinate. And it could be that the results of those seeds will go far beyond anything I can currently imagine. But then again, if not, that's fine, too.

I've come to suspect that there is a way in which the smallest lives can be among the biggest, and what play out as the biggest may often be missing out on the real adventure. You see, surface appearances don't tend to be reliable guides to deeper realities. There may be a spiritual transvaluation of values that's always going on. Focus on the right things, and your life, however humble it seems, is in reality infinitely expansive. Chase the wrong things, however grand, and you've shrunk it down to a pinpoint of value. And then, in the realm of the right things, any little action can have ripples that don't stop. My hyperbolic dreamers, by contrast, often aspire to the role of demi-gods, and want to make huge waves that could end up with the effect of a tsunami.

So, my thought for the day, if I actually have one here, is to enjoy, relish, and value the small things in your life. Maybe you are changing the world, whether you're advertising it in huge letters of skywriting for us all to read or not. Maybe your small is really big.

Small is good.

Harmony

Many years ago, when the movie "10" starring Bo Derek aimed to portray a woman who was so beautiful she was a "perfect 10" in all ways, a national news team decided to try an experiment. They searched fashion photos, movie star pictures, and many other sources to find "the perfect lips" and "the perfect nose" and "the perfect eyebrows," and so on, for chin, hair, ears, and cheeks. They said they would photo shop them together and present the truly perfect woman. The result was not at all what they had intended.

In sports you can do the same thing. Bring together the best basketball center, the best guards, the best forwards, and you won't necessarily have the best team. Thinking otherwise commits a classic philosophical error called "The Fallacy of Composition." Or in another phrase, the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. Or lesser. 

Why? Harmony.

Harmony is an important ingredient in greatness of all kinds. Do you have it in your life? In your work? Among your actions? In your family? On your team? It's a key to beauty and excellence.

Passionate Pursuit

As I look back over the trajectory of my life, from the high perch of being on the verge of 63, I see that the times when I've had the most fun and gotten the most done were the times when I was the most passionate in pursuit of an idea, or project. My enthusiasm propelled me forward. It woke me up in the morning, and got me going. It gave me energy. It sustained me through the day. It opened the doors of possibility all around me that would otherwise have remained closed, and sometimes locked.

When I was a professor, and writing articles and books like a maniac who required no sleep, people would often ask me "Do you just work all the time?" My reply would most often be: "No, no. Not at all. My life is long periods of indolence punctuated by intense bursts of activity. I get so excited about what I'm working on that I can't help but get things done. Then I go take a nap."

But passion waxes and wanes through a life. You're not always surfing a high wave of energy. If you find yourself right now astride your board in calm water, just waiting for the next wave, and nothing's on the horizon, you can do something about it. You can yourself stir up the waters. It all starts within. Make your own waves. In life, unlike in the ocean, it's possible. It works. It's always better to feel the breeze in your face as you ride a big wave, as you go new places and do new things. It will kill the lull if you can feel the love. You can renew your inner passion.

We're here to make things happen. Pursue passionately what's right for you!

Today.

Animals: Our Mystical Colleagues

In this week’s American Scholar, in a column on books that have influenced people's lives, a weekly piece called “Reading Lessons,” Sy Montgomery, the author of 20 books on animals and nature, discusses a book he once read that was formative for his career. And he quotes and comments:

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals,” Henry Beston wrote in his 1928 classic, The Outermost House. “For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”

This week’s writeup is on a book subtitled “A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod.” Montgomery goes on to say:

Beston brought to his observations of the natural world all of his talents—not just his intellect, but his emotion and intuition as well. His book is, to me, a blueprint for how to open your soul to creation, how to see animals in a new, humbling, and revelatory way. 

A lady has helped us manage our home for nearly twenty years. Our dogs know when she leaves her own house across town to come to ours. Our cat has trained us in various ways to do what he wants us to do, and when he wants us to do it. How much do animals understand? What’s their thought and feeling world like? When I ponder this intensely enough, it makes me want to be a vegetarian. We’ve even had a group of wild deer years ago show that they knew when the kids would come home from school each day, and gather behind our house to wait for their daily afternoon treat of dried corn. Who was their timekeeper? Who called the meeting? One day, when we were late, the boldest of the deer, a young one, came across to our back deck, and walked up the steps to peer into the door, presumably to find out what was delaying things.

I’m sure you have your own stories. What is our place in nature, really? How much could we benefit and learn by opening ourselves to new insights? What do we need to learn from our mystical colleagues, the animals?

Maybe you should ask your dog or cat.

A Celebration of Transformation

Easter is a distinctive holiday. It's a celebration of transformation - from death to life, mortal to immortal, defeat to victory, illusion to truth. It's about the most powerful force in or beyond the universe displaying an undying concern for the worth of each person. It's about redemption, second chances, and the triumph of love in the end.

It's also, of course, a holiday and a message surrounded by controversies of all sorts - what are the historical arguments for resurrection, or the philosophical possibilities of such a unique and fundamentally revelatory event? And what about all the organizational, political, ethical, and social issues that swirl around the diverse community of people who are celebrating this day?

As a philosopher, I like to avoid distractions when a big issue is at stake. So I'd recommend a few minutes today of meditating on the core issues of transformation and the potential power of love in our lives, in everything we do. A holiday such as this can easily be lost in its trappings. Or it can act as an aperture to allow us to view things differently. And this one, in particular, gives us all an opportunity to think deeply and arise with new insight, boldness, and compassion for our fellow creatures.

We're ultimately not here to be overcome, but to overcome with creative love.

Happy Easter.

I'm an Optimist!

I’m an unusual philosopher in several respects. First, I have no beard, toga or tweed jacket. Second, I don't work at a college or university, where most of us are safely confined. But my focus today is on the fact that, even stranger, I’m an optimist.

Survey the history of philosophy and you won’t find many of us smiley faces in the mix.  Thomas Hobbes was no barrel of laughs with a rosy view of things. Schopenhauer was perhaps King of the Pessimists. Kierkegaard was often referred to as "the gloomy Dane." Sartre is famous for his characteristic statement that “Hell is other people.” Ouch. And, you know: Check the news. The world is full of problems - overflowing with difficulties. So, how do I manage to be an optimist, swimming against so strong a tide? Why, for that matter, should anyone with a mind at all be an optimist?

First, I should qualify my confession. I'm often a short term pessimist but always a mid-to-long term optimist. Short term, any crazy thing can happen. Given time, though, things will work out. That's my view. And because the long and mid term encompasses the short term, I'm - all things considered, in the end, and ultimately - an optimist. So I choose the metaphysical smile.

Here's the thing. The same problems exist around the world that always have. But the evil practices and stupid things going on now more widely condemned than ever before. And yet, they still exist. Enlightenment is a rough and curving road, with many back turns and hills, and detours along the way. And of course, as one especially insightful individual once said, “There will always be wars and rumors of war.”

Human aggression seems to be so deeply embedded in our nature that no reasonable person could ever expect it to disappear. Renowned physicist and Expert on Many Things Stephen Hawking recently said that aggression is the greatest threat to our continued existence that there is. As an optimist, do I then think it will just go away? No. But I believe it can be redirected.

Right now, as in all the rest of our history, human aggression is directed primarily toward people. And I don’t think we need to end it. But we need to redirect it toward problems rather than people. If we could get especially the young men around the world and their supporters to go after the problems we all face with the energy and aggression by which they fight and go to war, the world would be a better place pretty quickly.

We don’t need a world with no aggression. We need a world of aggressive problem solvers. And that’s a good thing. In a wise and prescient novel, The Thanatos Syndrome, the late Walker Percy envisioned a place where drugs were put into the water supply to reduce aggression and hostility. The unexpected side effect was that many other things were reduced as well, including creativity. It’s nice to dream of a world where no aggression at all exists. But a more reasonably expected one is where it’s redirected. Will it ever happen? Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, I remain an optimist. The world is full of problems like this, but I'm convinced we're here to be problem solvers.

Intense Living

How intensely do you live? It's well known, and often experienced, that we can eat without attending to the taste and feel of what we're consuming. We're watching TV or talking or reading and just mindlessly chewing our food with no conscious awareness of it whatsoever. We can even drive on automatic pilot, realizing now and then that we haven't payed any conscious attention to what's gone on, along the way. It's amazing the road isn't littered with the wreckage of mindlessness.

But when we stop and attend, our experience changes radically. How much do you do that? How present are you? Where is your focused attention throughout the day? Most of us live without intensely attending, which means we take up time and space without the effects we're here to have, for most of our moments. We're missing The Big Show that's here for us all. 

And when we don't fully notice, we can't fully act in the best and highest ways. In the end, we're here to enjoy the show, but also to perform in it our own best roles.

Don't miss the moment. You have an all access ticket. Don't sleep through The Big Show. Pay attention. Relish it. Feel it. Absorb it. Throw yourself into it. Luxuriate in it. That's what it's for.

Today.

Find What Matters

Have you noticed that advertisements are becoming more philosophical? I've blogged the noble sentiments of a recent Cadillac ad. Now let me post the content of an ad for Spyder.com:

Find what matters and free yourself from the rest. That's invincibility.

Why invincibility? Because when you focus on what matters, you really can't be defeated. All failures either feed you or take you out of the game. You won't stay in it to lose. What matters most, of course, are the matters of creative love, or loving creativity, as I explored in the book If Aristotle Ran General Motors: The New Soul of Business, a book that was published in 1997, but that reflects what only now many leaders in the corporate world are beginning to realize. 

Focus matters. A focus on the right things matters more. Freeing yourself from the rest is the most liberating act, and ongoing habit, that you can develop. And it's a key to your highest potential - the only route to the only invincibility there is.

Dare Greatly

In a Cadillac advertisement on the back page of the new edition of Esquire, we find this:

It is not the critic who counts: The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again; who knows great enthusiasms; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

It's an inspiring, shortened version of a famous statement by Theodore Roosevelt, worth representing in its entirety, because it's worthwhile to read and ponder the words again, and the additional thoughts and images that we all need to keep in view:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote vividly about a boxer who was bruised and bloodied in the ring, knocked down, but not knocked out, as being the only one who could bring to the next contest the deep confidence that never comes until you've had your teeth rattled and had the breath pounded out of you and outlasted the onslaught. The challenges, bumps, and bruises of life are to be used by us to strengthen our souls, and they alone prepare us for becoming and being the best we're capable of being. So, when they come, use them well, and proudly. 

In the end, it's not the critics, but the struggling creators, who prevail.

Plutarch, Me, and You

The ancient philosopher Plutarch was once asked why he hung out with so many leaders and philosophized with them so much. He said, basically, "I could spend my time digging a single well to bring water to one home, or I could help build an aqueduct to bring it to many. When I work with leaders, I'm able, with them, to convey insight to a great many others."

I love being a philosopher. I love philosophizing with anyone. I can enjoy sitting for hours in deep conversation with one person. But there are times when, philosophizing with a group of leaders, I really understand Plutarch's perspective.

Last week, my wife and I were in London for a meeting with Hewlett Packard's Board of Advisors for Europe, the Middle East, and Asia - CIOs and CTOs from major HP customers. These were individuals who as chief information or chief technology officers steer some of the biggest companies in the world toward what will be our amazing technological future. And I get to hang out with them, listen to the sic-fi realities of what's coming in five or ten years, or more, and then talk with them about the wisdom of the past three thousand years, the insights that we need to use to help get us to that future in all the best ways. I learn so much. It's astonishingly fun. And I'm able to share that clear water of ancient wisdom with a room full of leaders whose own aqueducts can bring it to cities and countries of people around the globe. It's a treat, and a great honor.

Sometimes we have to work hard to dig one needed well, a well that will bring cold clear water into our own lives, or into our family's life. And at other times we should focus on an aqueduct that can bring water to many - at work, in church, throughout our neighborhoods or communities, and in many other ways. Each service is important. But when you can magnify the good, spreading it out to many, there is a special Plutarchian joy that's good to feel.

So when you have a chance: Spread wisdom. Spread joy.

The Strangeness of It All

What was the first truly unsettling thing you learned in school? Other than how babies are made and enter the world. For me, it was being told that the sky isn't really blue and the grass isn't really green. Nothing is actually a color. It's all in our minds.

Say what?

That striped dress burning up the internet recently? Gold and white. No, black and blue. No, bronze and white. Actually, nothing. I think that factoid freaked me out more than anything else in my early education. And then along came the philosophers with their distinction between primary qualities that are inherent in things and secondary qualities like color that aren't.

Imagine how blown my mind was when I started reading physics and even some of the most solid primary qualities like extension seemed evanescent. If you don't already know about stuff like entanglement and superposition, and you Google it, you end up going "What?"

We ordinarily think we have a lock on what the world is all about, and how to navigate through it. But with a little meditation on the true strangeness of it all, I open up in new ways. We're surrounded by mystery and uncertainty. And I think that makes two things important. First, humility. Second, boldness. As Socrates insisted long ago, we don't know as much as we think we do. Humility is appropriate to our condition. But equipped with minds and bodies as we are, we must be here to do stuff. And: Since we dance in the great unknown, we might as well be bold.

Create freely. Do well. And why not bring love into the material world like it really matters? In a cosmic existential reality where the physical environment around us looks less solid all along, love just might be the most solid thing around. Amen?

A New World Order

We live in a world order that seems to have come to us out of prehistory. It's in the air we breathe - along with a lot of other stuff that's been produced by it. It's the motivational structure behind what most people do, most of the time. It's a world order that's all about position, power, and possessions. It's been responsible for most of the achievements, discoveries, and inventions throughout human history. But it's a recipe for resentment, aggression, and conflict. It's a zero sum mindset - those who want more have to take from others, who end up with less.

An old friend from college, Ed Brenegar, recently visited for part of a day, on a pilgrimage to see several east coast friends before he moves soon from Asheville, NC to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We sat and talked for hours about philosophy, life, and the spirit. We reflected on this old world order of position, power, and possessions that's beginning to look spiritually threadbare and not merely problematic, but actually self destructive over the long run. And we ruminated on what would be a better alternative - a spiritual vision of creativity, contribution, and service where our aspirations are guided more by love and compassion than by lust and acquisition. We wondered together if we're in a time of transition from one to the other, or whether a better world order of care and concern is just a dream.

What motivates you? Is it just a desire for position, power, or possessions? Or is it something more, something deeper and more lasting? There is something better for us, something calling out to us that will not at all diminish our drive to create and improve, but will put it onto better foundations. There is, of course, nothing wrong with position, power, and possessions. They're all great things, if used well. But they should never be the sole motivating forces in our lives, or the metrics by which we measure value. There is, indeed, something more.