Greed

What would the world be like without greed - Greed for power, money, status, fame, stuff, experience, or love? A reader recently posed this question. So let's reflect on it. Greed is a potent source of action. It powers ambition and achievement. It moves people to take a risk and persist. It can even elicit creativity. It gets people up in the morning, and keeps them working hard through the day, and even into the night. In the hit movie Wall Street, the star character Gordon Gekko famously proclaimed, "Greed is good." 

But is he right? A philosopher like me would say that greed is not only unnecessary, it's unhealthy and toxic. It's not good at all.

Desire is a good thing, when attached to good purposes. Greed is an excess of desire. Aristotle had an interesting analysis of virtue as the mid point between two vices, or extremes. Courage, for example, is the mid point between the extreme of too little, called cowardice or timidity, and the excess of too much, known as rashness, or temerity. Likewise, perhaps, a healthy form or degree of desire is a mid point between the too-little of apathy, and the too-much of greed. Desire is necessary for ambition and achievement. Greed isn't. In fact, greed enslaves and corrupts people. And this has been recognized by the wisest thinkers, east and west. It's the maximal extent of what eastern philosophers call "attachment." It's bad for the soul. And it isn't for even a minute good for business.

Greed is about getting what you want, not about making the world a better place. It doesn't actually support the full range of creativity or curiosity you might at first think it would, but just focuses on getting the most it can the quickest way possible. It's willing to do great damage to others to get its own way. And it's sometimes surprised by the consequences.

The greedy tend to go too far, burn bridges, alienate others, and violate all known ethical codes. They become captivated by things they don't need. They get obsessed by things and habits that will distort their lives. They lose all balance and discernment. They bull their way into situations that will ultimately make them unhappy. They corrupt their own souls.

I was asked this question just a few days ago by a reader of this blog: What would the world be without greed? My answer is simple. It would be a much better place. And, Yo, thanks for asking.

And readers: Feel free to make other suggestions. I desire them, but promise you I'm not greedy. I'll share.

A Little Bit of Paradox

Each of us is ordinary. Each nonetheless is more. Each of us has limits. Each is infinite, as well. Each of us is flesh. Yet each of us is spirit. Each is of the earth. Each is of the stars. Each started small. Each can be great. Each has a real past. Each is mostly future.

We all live now. We all can grow. Almost anything can kill us. Almost nothing can stop us. Others can build us up. Others can bring us down. Belief can drain us. Belief can fulfill us. Good action is for others. Good action is for us. 

Wisdom is hard. It's also quite easy. Action is the means. It is also the end. 

Our Kardashian Kulture

The news just broke. Culture phenomenon Kim Kardashian hit a new milestone on Twitter: 27 million followers. And of course she decided to commemorate this astonishing accomplishment by sharing with the world a selfie of her bottom in a thong. It was an appropriate celebration for such a fundamental (from the Latin, fundament, or bottom) achievement. I'm a philosopher, unlike Kim. And I have about 5,000 followers on Twitter, give or take. I'm convinced that if Socrates were alive and Tweeting, he'd have maybe 12.

Oh, and that first public philosopher was poisoned by public demand. He wasn't the most popular guy in his time. But, by contrast, the Kardashians just signed a new 100 million dollar, four year renewal deal with the E! Network for their television shows. What's the lesson lurking for us here?

People pay (in money and attention) for what they want and what they need - right? No. Not at all. People pay for what they want and for what they feel like they need. Everyone needs wisdom in their lives. But relatively few really feel this to the extent of devoting time and energy and even, occasionally, money to its pursuit.

In the seventeenth century, the great scientist and mathematician Blaise Pascal watched a version of this going on in his time. His diagnosis was simple. He said:

Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.

Most people, he believed, don't know really who they are, why they're here, or where they're going in this world of mystery that presents us with the only sure thing as the looming abyss of death, into which all of us, sooner or later, will fall. Yeah. Ok. He wasn't always the life of the party, either. But, then, he says:

We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it.

Kim Kardashian's most fundamental asset helps to block our view of the abyss. Pascal called this diversion. We prefer diversion, or distraction, over a pursuit of truth, understanding, and real meaning. We want to be entertained. We feel a desperate need to be entertained. And we're willing to pay a lot for it. It didn't surprise me at all that a book came out about this, years ago, entitled Amusing Ourselves to Death.

Is there anything wrong with amusement or entertainment? No, of course not. A nice diversion now and then, a happy distraction, can play a healthy role in our lives. But not if it's the major portion of our lives. It can't become an obsession and be healthy at all. We need more. We need to get in touch with the deepest cosmic realities now and then. We need self knowledge, a sense of our place in the world, and values that will lead us along a path of real fulfillment and happiness, rather than taking us down the dead end road of their modern counterfeits. 

We need to engage in a little Socratic questioning of our cultural values right now, and of our personal commitments. The founding philosophers in ancient times loved fun and parties and entertainment. And so do I. But they didn't use these things to keep them from ever going deeper. And we should take a hint from them. In a balanced culture, even Socrates might have blown up Twitter, and without anything remotely like a Kardashian know-thy-selfie.

We Know So Little

We don't know one tenth of one percent of anything. Who first said that? I think it was Thomas Edison who, at least in that remark, knew one hundred percent of what he was talking about.

It's easy to think that our best science already basically understands the world and those of us in it, until you talk to real scientists, or at least the ones who are the pioneers at the cutting edge of their specialities. Human history is a series of misguided certainties. People have always thought that they basically knew what was going on in the world around them. And people have been so very wrong so many times that it should give us pause and instill in us a little humility, along with the measure of confidence that we also rightly need.

Modern medicine is at the brink of discoveries and changes that will so deeply revolutionize everything that it's hard for us now to imagine what health and healthcare will be like in a hundred years. And it may come much sooner than that.

Robotics will drastically alter manufacturing. Bigger, better, and much faster computers - even different sorts of computing - will reinvent business in many ways, only a few of which are already evident.

I suspect that psychology will even make discoveries that will transform our self understanding. And philosophy may make inroads that have been hitherto unanticipated. We're moving into the unknown at a faster pace than we can even guess on our wildest days. The cosmic and epistemic wind is strong at our backs, but we don't always feel it.

There are times on board a plane when it can seem like you're just sitting still in a nice leather armchair. But you're moving at hundreds of miles an hour. I see this as a nice metaphor for the human condition. It can sometimes feel like we're sitting still, when we're all moving forward much faster than we can sense.

When I was in middle school, and even high school, I'd ride for an hour in the family car to visit my grandparents, my father's parents, on their farm. They didn't have indoor plumbing or an electric stove. To wash my hands for lunch, I'd first go out behind the house to a dark metal pump. I'd put a basin beneath the spigot and grab the old rusty handle and pump a couple of times, before the cold, clear water began to flow. With the basin full, I'd take it back into the house and wash up in it, using soap someone had made, and then I'd go eat whatever had been cooked on the wood stove. Later in the day, we'd find leftovers stored in the unrefrigerated white wooden "pie safe" and have a snack. The "bathroom" had no walls, roof, or floor, and was out back behind some bushes. Things have changed, to put it mildly, at least for most of us. But the changes we've seen are nothing compared to what's around the corner.

So, when you're tempted to think you've got it all figured out, remember our kinetically kaleidoscopic context. We all could use a little Socratic self-realization about how little we truly know concerning the most fundamental mysteries of existence, and even the mundanities of everyday life. We need to open our minds a little more than ever before, with genuine curiosity to learn. The pace of change won't slow or stop, apart from a technology ending global catastrophe. The only way to dance with change well is with a humble spirit, an open mind, and insatiable curiosity.

I'm a philosopher who believes that we know many deep truths about life already. But I also think we have much more to learn yet ahead. And this sense impels me to explore, and seek more avidly than ever before. I hope you feel the same.

The Spooky Sense

Can we know in ways that go beyond our understanding? Can we be guided by some mysterious sense of what's about to happen?

My father was carrying heavy bands of ammunition strapped all over his body. He was already a big target, at six feet three or four, taller than most of the men with him that day on Okinawa. Or was it Saipan? It had rained the day before, and as he walked toward enemy territory, he noticed a deep tire mark up ahead that a jeep or truck had made in the mud during the rainstorm, and that the rut had dried. As he approached it, and was going to pass just slightly to the right of the hole, he suddenly shifted his movement and put his left foot into it, a few inches down, as he took his next step forward, but for no conscious reason. The split second that he did this and his body, as a result, tilted to the left, a bullet whizzed by his right ear. Had he not stepped into the rut, the bullet would have gotten him in the head and he would have died on the spot, and - to make matters even worse, at least, from my point of view as a boy first hearing this account - I would never have been conceived or born. He told me this story several times. He always asked, "Why did I step into that hole?"

Let me now quote three short paragraphs from the book American Sniper. Chris Kyle reports:

One time we were in a building and we were hosed down by the insurgents outside. I was out in the hallway, and as the shooting died down, I went into one of the rooms to check on some of my guys. As I came in, I jerked straight back, falling backward as a shot came in through the window at my head.

The bullet just flew over me as I fell.

Why I went down like that, how I saw that bullet coming at me — I have no idea. It was almost as if someone slowed time down and pushed me straight back.

What is this? How does it work? We have senses like sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. We also have one called proprioception - the sense that tells you the position of your body, the orientation of its parts in space, without your having to look, or run your hands over, say, an arm or leg to find out where it is. Every sense can be developed. Artists see in a distinctive way. Gourmet chefs taste with remarkable discernment. Great musicians can hear things that most of us miss. Top athletes and dancers and martial artists seem to have a vastly enhanced sense of proprioception. They are aware of the position and movement of their bodies in space in ways that escape the rest of us. 

But can proprioception go beyond the body? Can we sense the position of other objects in space around us, even then they're not connected to us in any obvious way?

I was eight or ten. My dad was throwing horse shoes in the back yard of our house. They were regulation iron or steel shoes. He had just thrown some down toward the stake in the ground farthest from the house, and I think he had gotten ringers. He then walked briskly down to fetch them and throw them back. He was about half way to the far stake, which was forty feet from the one where I was standing, when I reached down, picked up a shoe, and pitched it hard toward the other stake. Dad was off to the right about 4 or 5 feet off the course of the throw, as he was walking, so it was safe for me to pitch the shoe. But suddenly he crossed over to the left, not looking back to see that I had just thrown. It was going straight for his head. In that moment of my horrified realization about what was happening, he turned his head toward me, while simultaneously raising his left arm and hand ... and he caught the horse shoe mid air. No harm done. I was completely shocked. First, you don't catch flying iron horse shoes. But at that moment?

How does this spooky stuff work? There are some findings in the spookier areas of physics that seem to suggest that objects at a distance in our world are, however far apart, somehow also connected. Is there another dimensional grounding for everything, however different and distant things may seem in this realm of existence? Can we then put ourselves into a position where we are able to utilize this connection, perhaps through extended proprioception? And in other ways? Was that what my dad was doing? And Chris Kyle? But it's not always going on. Not even for the top champions, or for my father.

Scotty Pippin, or someone on the Chicago Bulls basketball team during their glory days with Michael Jordan, once was quoted as saying that during some rare games, time seemed to stand still and the ball would just go where it should be. No one was having to think to themselves, "Ok, Michael is about to get open, I should throw in about a second" or any such thing. There was this magical dance of perfect movement and timing and a flow experience of joyous participation which was almost indistinguishable from that of a spectator, but where looking and doing seemed to merge. It was all happening, as if by independent forces, and the players were caught up in a movement that just had its own flow. They knew without conscious awareness. They acted without deliberate effort.

What is this spooky sense that sometimes guides us, and positions us? And how can we gain more control over it? Is it possible to use it at will? Can this work in business? In life generally?

What do you think? Have you ever felt it, or seen it in action?

Philosophical Tools

What is a tool? At the simplest level, it's some sort of object or item that helps us to extend our natural powers and accomplish something that we otherwise could not do, or at least could not achieve with the same ease, or speed, or safety that the tool, well used, can provide. A hammer. A screwdriver. A saw. A knife. A wrench. These are, of course, obvious examples. Other suggestions could be: A laptop. A smart phone. A bicycle. A car. A business. An organization of any sort. But there are other tools that are, perhaps, the most important of all for getting things done.

I'm apparently a rare type of philosopher, at least, these days. My job is to discover and create intellectual tools that people can use to improve their businesses and their lives. My specialty is that I'm a provider of philosophical tools for excellence. When you're working on a project around the house, you need the right tools to get the job done well. The same is true more generally of work and your personal life. You need the right tools for whatever job you face. A philosophical tool is just an idea or set of ideas that will help you to think, feel, and act in more productive and healthy ways, in whatever you're doing. 

When I speak on success, I provide a toolkit drawn from the great practical philosophers of the past, a framework of ideas that I call "The 7 Cs of Success." When I talk about great teamwork, strong organizations, and customer loyalty, I bring people an additional toolkit that I call "The Four Foundations of Excellence." If I'm asked to help a company, or the members of an industry association, deal with difficult change, I bring them another toolkit - "The 3 Arts of Change." In every case, I'm putting into people's hands, or minds, tools that they can use to extend their natural powers and accomplish something they might not otherwise be able to do, or at least could not achieve with the same ease, or speed, or safety. And that's what makes my work so satisfying. I'm in the business of helping people to obtain and use the tools of excellence.

What philosophical tools do you use at work and in life? They should be well designed, finely calibrated, and durable. I hope you have some good ones that you use on a regular basis. If not, keep reading these blogs. I'll be describing great new tools, and some useful ancient ones, now and then.

If you're in a leadership position, consider this: What tools are your team members, or the people in your company, overall, using? Are they of high quality? Does everyone have the same access to the toolbox? Those factors are vital for maximal results.

For more on the tools I have mentioned, consult the Talks page on www.TomVMorris.com, or the Books page, where you can click to gain access to any of these ideas you haven't already come across. And check back. I'm always on the hunt for a new tool that will work for me, and for you!

A General Observation on Self Knowledge

I was talking to a United States Army general the other night, very late. Two stars. He was an impressive individual. And the fact that our conversation was taking place within the environment of a dream didn't detract in the least from its impact. I've met several generals in waking life, and they've always been interesting people. This gentleman was no different.

I remember vividly that he said to me, "I don't go in for a lot of self-examination. There's no time."

That gave me a chance to present my own view that in the opinion of most philosophers I know, or have studied, self examination is not some leisurely activity carried out over long stretches of time within the echo chamber of your mind, as you sit silently and ask yourself about yourself, analyzing the answers and probing deeper. It's mostly about awareness as you decide and act.

No one gets to know himself or herself well just by sitting alone in a room and pondering. That's not a snapshot that typically captures well who you are. It's life in the field that's the proper classroom for self examination and self knowledge. What mattered so much to Socrates is that we not let ourselves get by with prejudices, sloppy thinking, or vague assumptions as we dash through life. If you find yourself thinking you have no time to question yourself, then contemplate how much time you have to make big mistakes - sometimes huge ones - due to any unexamined tendencies, beliefs, or feelings that you might think you prefer not to know about.

You don't need to take a retreat from the fray in order to engage in the philosophical procedure of self examination. You just have to experience moments, or bursts, of self reflective awareness punctuating your active life. There's even a level of such awareness that can accompany most activities, at least much of the time. And such an alertness to our own conduct can yield great results. We can take note of our tendencies, remembering our strengths and weaknesses, as well as any limitation we discover that may or may not be a weakness. Self examination when done properly positions us to be better team members, and much better leaders.

A leader without self knowledge sits in command of a rudderless boat.

Everyone has the time for self examination and self knowledge. That's my general observation for the day. At ease.

Transformation

One of the most enduring themes in world literature is transformation. The great commonality among the otherwise very different religions across the globe is the possibility of transformation. And in business, there's nothing more important than the promise of this very thing.

Transformation is all about where we are now, where we ideally need to be, and how best to get from this present to that future.

In the world of work, transformation is about turning potentiality into actuality, a need into a business, raw materials into products, people into performers, potential customers into loyal fans and investments into profits.

In life, our weaknesses can be transformed into strengths, our limitations can be morphed into the outlines of our distinctive excellence, and our mistakes can be redeemed into new wisdom.

The nearly magical spark of all positive transformations is a vision that can turn regular men and women into heroes, despite all the challenges and setbacks they might face. The right vision creates the right energy in the right people to produce the right results.

The greatest wonder in our world is the ongoing possibility for transformation that it allows.

When we understand deeply where we are, envision clearly where we could be, and create boldly a path forward that will spark the best in those around us, as well as in our own hearts, we provide the leadership necessary for great transformations.

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.

Anybody For a Signed Ebook? A What?

When I was a kid, a famous circus came to town. My mother arranged for me to meet The Human Cannonball. He was pretty impressive. And I happened to have in my hand a toy Arabic sword, the old-fashioned kind with a wide, curved blade, four inches across and made of smooth flat white plastic. The equally flat handle was a snazzy red. The Cannonball shook hands with me and then offered to sign my sword. Wait. What? I could actually get his autograph? Cool! To a small town boy like me, he was like a god among men. This was going to be my first celebrity autograph, ever! I handed him my weapon and he pulled out a pen with some sort of wide black ink flow and scrawled his name big across the pristine blade and gave it back to me. Wow. I was thrilled.

Until I got home and realized that the sword would look better with the autograph on the handle, not the blade. So, I went back into my room, got out a variety of erasers and soap and some washcloths, and went to work on the signature, completely removing it from the blade. I then meticulously redid what he had written, but now, in a much smaller size, onto the handle, tracing carefully the sort of flamboyant cursive script he had used. I was so excited when I ran into the kitchen to show my mom how I had moved the man's autograph to a better position!

I clearly didn't grasp fully enough the concept of an autograph. And, now I realize that, maybe, I still don't. My mother explained that the only autograph was when the man's own hand held the pen that put the ink onto the surface being signed. When I erased that ink, I had destroyed the autograph. It was gone. I then had just written his name on the handle, exactly as I could have done had I never met him at all. Oh. My shock at this realization was visceral. So, to be a real autograph, the guy (or lady) has to hold the pen (or pencil, or paint brush - I got the extension of the pen idea, just fine - I thought) and actually use it to touch the object being signed. That's what makes for an autograph!

Or, perhaps not.

Have you ever heard of a signed ebook? It's being done. When ebooks first came out, I wondered what would happen to the time honored custom of author autographs. Of course, we all had dancing in our heads visions of iPads and Kindles and Nooks whose backs would be absolutely covered with tiny little author signings, presumably in permanent, indelible ink, as the closest possibility. Nope. Wrong again.

One of the most innovative companies now publishing and selling ebooks, ZolaBooks.com, is currently making signed ebooks available, and I can tell you that it's no mass produced, fake signature thing. They recently sent me an iPad loaded with new tech and apps designed especially for this, so that I could help them test personalized author signatures for ebooks.

Zola is an innovative publisher, seller, and community of readers that's pioneering some new dimensions for the experience of literature in our new tech world. They approached me a while back and asked me to join an amazing group of, otherwise, highly respected authors to offer them exclusive ebook rights on a few of my own titles. So I gave them the rights to True Success, If Aristotle Ran General Motors, and the most incredible long term project I've ever done, a look through the ages at what the deepest thinkers have said about life success, a book called The 7 Cs of Success, which is available only in ebook, at this stage, and only at Zola.

A few days ago, I wrote about the recent climb of El Capitain, and how Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson acted in accordance with seven universal conditions for success in pursuing their astonishing achievement. I listed this framework of ideas that I refer to as The 7 Cs of Success. And lots of people have asked me where they can read more about them.

I first discussed The 7 Cs at depth in the book True Success, and then took a different look at them in the follow-up study, The Art of Achievement. But the most comprehensive examination of them ever is in the exclusive ebook The 7 Cs of Success. In it, I start with Lao Tsu, in the Tao Te Ching, and Confucius, in the Analects, and work my way forward through the history of deep and practical philosophy on how we can best make our lives matter and attain our greatest dreams. There is no real science of success that works like chemistry or botany, despite what many people say, but there is a powerful art of achievement. And it's this art that many of the great practical philosophers have outlined throughout human history.

In The 7 Cs of Success, I explore the deepest and most useful thoughts of the two great Chinese sages; plus the insights of the classic statesman of Rome, Cicero; a Muslim Mystic, Hadrat Ali; a Spanish Jesuit, Balthasar Gracian; the quintessential American philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson; and a contemporary Japanese billionaire - go find out who he is. What's wild is how much such different thinkers have in common. And yet, their distinctive nuances can help us to realize exactly what we need to be doing right now to craft the comprehensive success and the satisfying future we want.

I'm writing about them today because Zola has given me an opportunity to be one of the first authors in the country who can personally sign ebooks, one at a time, in the new tech version of the old fashioned mode. They've developed a way to do this, and are having me prototype it for them and try it out. So if any of you guys want to explore The 7 Cs of Success in the book by the same name, or in True Success, or if you want to see the different but complementary framework of ideas in If Aristotle Ran General Motors, Zola is offering signed versions of those books right now, in order to make it possible for me to use an iPad and my index finger (unless you request, for example, a thumb) and do a personal signature on the book, or books, for you.

Any of you who have been reading my blog posts for a while will know that I don't really do the self-promotional "Buy my book" stuff you so often see online. But this is a crazy opportunity for me to learn how to sign books using cutting edge technology and for you to get a signed book available nowhere else. So if you'd like to try this, go to www.Zolabooks.com/tom-morris and click whatever you prefer. The drop down right above the price will get you a signed copy.

So, go experience this now, if you'd like, by using the links above or clicking

Sign Me an Ebook!

And let me know what you think! But please don't figure out how to move the signature you get to another place in your ebook book. I still can't guarantee that would count as an autograph. Best Wishes. Tom

Luck and You and Me

Are you lucky or unlucky? It just might be that this doesn't really matter - unless, of course, you're in Vegas, like I am today. Believe it or not, philosophy often happens here. Maybe even more often than good luck.

Let me quote Diane Ackerman, from her great book Deep Play, where she is exploring how even our hardest work can be undertaken as a form of play. While pondering the role of something like luck in the game of life, she refers to an ancient text and writes: 

"In the Sanskrit Mahabharata, for example, we find men, who represent the seasons, deciding the world's weather and crop yield by rolling gold and silver dice. But, aside from luck or the favor of the gods, the player succeeds by his or her own talents." 

What does she mean by 'luck' here? Maybe anything beyond human choice, the force or cluster of forces that brings things into our lives apart from our own contrivance. You could equally speak of fate, or destiny, or divine providence. But for the sake of understanding Ackerman's remark, let's stick with luck. Then, we can articulate what I take to be her insight. We can say it a number of ways.

Luck sets the course. We decide how to play it.

Luck arranges the obstacles. We figure out how to move around and through them.

Again, perhaps: 

Luck paves the road. We choose how to travel it.

We all have challenges. Everyone has opportunities. Sometimes, one situation is both. And, viewed properly, the world presents much more of this duality than you might imagine. An opportunity turns out to be, also, and perhaps unexpectedly, a problem. A problem is revealed, in the end, to contain an opportunity. This happens all the time. I like to think of this phenomenon as a turnaround. Things that come into our lives can be, ultimately, quite different from what they at first seem. It's up to us how to react, respond, and rearrange our expectations.

Of course, luck is also often referred to as chance. And there's an ancient perspective on this. Chance favors the prepared mind, the skilled hand, the creative spirit, and the person with lots of great relationships.

We need to remember, the world isn't here to give us what we want, but to help make us into what we can be. And I, for one, could use a little help.

What luck!

Philosophy as Necessary

What can help provide the stepping stones to the future we most want and deserve?

You can likely guess my answer: philosophy.

In a fascinating essay in Sunday's New York Times Book Review, where he ruminates on the nature of our culture right now, which can look very non philosophical, Leon Wieseltier nevertheless wrote:

Wherever mortal beings are thoughtful about their mortality, and finite beings ponder their finitude, at whatever level of intellectual articulation, there is philosophy. Philosophy is ubiquitous and inalienable; even the discourse about the end of philosophy is philosophy.

And while Wieseltier is correct in what he says, as far as he goes, it's not just when we're contemplating our mortality or finitude that we're engaging in philosophy. As he hints later in his essay, whenever we're trying to figure out real matters of worth, we're doing philosophy.

In our work lives, we're always thinking about the setting and attaining of goals. We do that in our personal lives, too, if we have any measure of ambition concerning personal growth and change. But whenever we think of goals and the means to them, the question will always arise, at least implicitly, as to what goals are worth our pursuit and what means or methods are worth our time and energy. And those questions can't fully be answered without a sense of what sort of life is worth living. And that's the core of philosophy, in it's most practical and existential mode.

What's worthy of us? What's a waste? Who do I want to be? What am I becoming, as a result of what I'm doing? Does a certain activity lift me up, or lower me down? These are serious questions, but asking them and guiding our lives by them doesn't require that we be serious in the sense of somber. We can have fun in all the best ways. We can play and frolic, mentally and physically. We can enjoy immensely what the world has to offer, while still guiding our steps with wisdom and what the ancients called virtue, their own concept for personal strength, or power. 

Philosophy may be one of the most under-appreciated necessities in life. But that doesn't keep it from being necessary. The more we come to appreciate it, the better we can do it, and the more our lives benefit, as a result. Let it help provide you with the stepping stones to the future you most want and deserve.

The Most Important Thing I've Learned

Perhaps the single most important thing I've learned as a philosopher is, that life is supposed to be a series of adventures, lived with love, confidence, and a real concern for others, as well as for ourselves. The adventure we're on right now, whatever it might be, and however great or challenging it seems, is preparing us for the next one, and often in ways we can't even imagine.

The uncertainty of the future is just the open field of possibility for adventure and creativity that we all need, moving forward, even though it can feel uncomfortable and even, at times, scary.

The key to successful living is to be open to new ideas and new paths along the way. The world is an endless kaleidoscope of opportunities, many of which may be so hidden as to require your investigative discovery, as well as openness.

Your ongoing job that's connected with this is what I call 3-D Living:

Discover your talents,

Develop those talents, and

Deploy them into the world for the good of others, as well as yourself.

3-D Living is a process that, ideally, never ends.

The most important moment in your life is the Right Now that allows for the Soon Next. And even though that sounds a little bit like a prolix fortune cookie, it's true, whether Confucius said it or not. Life is a dynamic process. We're to carry with us a dynamic orientation, leaning forward with the adventure we're now on, embracing the present, and preparing for the future.

Self Knowledge and Goal Setting

I was giving a presentation recently on success, and we were talking about the importance of basing our goal setting in self knowledge. I explained that one philosopher had parsed self knowledge in an interesting way. He said, "Know your strengths. Know your weaknesses. Know your opportunities." And that's interesting, isn't it? Strengths and weaknesses are inner things. Opportunities are outer things. So how can knowing them, as external circumstances, be a part of self knowledge?

A situation that creates a great opportunity for one person will not provide the exact same thing for a different individual. Knowing what external situations are opportunities for you is a matter of self knowledge. But, how so?

Maybe we need to dig a little deeper. Maybe the imperative "Know Yourself" has a few more elements:

Know your strengths. Know your weaknesses. Know your limits.

Know your passions. Know your ideals.

Weaknesses are certainly limits, at least for now. But not all limits are weaknesses. Some limits are a result of our prior choices and commitments, and some are actually among our strengths. A robust and proper structure of commitments is a great thing to have. It empowers and it limits. And such limits will be very relevant to the goals we decide to set or adopt.

Knowing your passions is equally important. Some are strengths. Others are weaknesses. Some may be neither, in themselves, but developed can go either way. Passion is a source of drive and motivation. Setting goals outside of any concern for our passions is never a recipe for greatness.

And perhaps most important of all is knowing our ideals. We all have fantasies, desires, or passions that would not be right to pursue in a certain way or at a certain time. Our ideals are those values that should guide us in choosing. And they will help to determine what external situations do indeed provide opportunities for new goals and new successes.

All goal setting should be an ongoing exercise in self knowledge. And all these factors matter.

Friendship is a Garden

Friendship is a garden that needs cultivation and care. There are many forces in the world that will strengthen it, and more that will weaken it. The good gardener understands this and doesn't allow neglect to spoil the beauty of what's been planted and grown.

Friendship is an investment whose returns can rise or fall. If your time and attention were money, whose stock would justify the price? Good investments, of course, benefit both sides. Bad investments ultimately fail everyone involved. Great investments are those that yield dividends for life.

Friendship is an adventure, a shared voyage into the unknown. It's both a journey and the best means that we have to journey well. It's a light that shines in the darkness, a map and compass for the trip. It's a partnership of exploration where guidance and help flows both ways.

Friendship is an enterprise, the building of something new. It's a dynamic structure of work and play with a purpose that, at its best, benefits more than just the friends themselves.

Friendship is a celebration of what's good in life, and a support through all that's hard. It's a sharing of interest, activity, exuberance, and fun. It can also be a sharing of trouble and grief. Friends multiply the good, while dividing the bad.

And so, without friends, Aristotle asked us, who would want to live?

Work in your garden today. Invest. Adventure. Build. Celebrate. And give the sort of support that you most would want to receive.

Paradoxes and Turnarounds

Paradox can be a key to much that's important in life.

In the seventeenth century, the French scientist and creative mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote of the greatness and wretchedness of man, of our bigness and smallness in the universe. He pointed out that we are so fragile, and yet so strong. Our minds are profoundly powerful, and yet so limited. He eloquently claimed that there is indeed a God, who is hidden. There is truth, and it's often buried beneath layers of falsehood. He often pointed us to paradoxes that were where he thought the deepest wisdom in life could be found.

Paradox often prevails in life, at least in surface appearances, and sometimes deeper down. For example: You can’t often get what you need unless you first give what you can. There’s rarely a success that doesn’t in some way come from failure, and many a failure results from success. By thinking you’re better than others, you can make yourself worse. Nobility and humility need each other, in balance. Little things can make a big difference. Big things can often make only a small difference. In strength, there can be weakness. In weakness, there can be strength. Playing it safe is rarely safe at all. 

What hurts us can help us. And helping a person can sometimes hurt him. To give what you get can make a bad situation worse. Play may be what you need most at work. The worst that happens can bring about the best that happens. We sometimes need to yield in order to prevail. We often have to relinquish in order to receive. Selfishness is self-defeating. Self-giving is self-fulfilling. A wise man admits his foolishness, while a fool prides himself on his wisdom. A bright light can illumine or blind. Revelations can be concealments. Concealments often reveal. And the list goes on. You can probably add your own examples, aplenty.

There are many wonderful paradoxes and turnarounds in life - deep surprises and unexpected connections. The more you understand them, the better you can be guided by them, and the more you can benefit from their magic.

A Christmas Message on Bouncing High

We benefit from people sharing their success stories with us. We want to know: How did it happen? What did they do? Could they predict the process in advance, or were there surprises?

We benefit from people sharing their failure stories with us. We want to know: How did it happen? What did they do? Could they predict the process in advance, or were there surprises?

I've been a student of success for a very long time. And along the way, I've come to grasp the vital importance of understanding failure as a crucial part of any worthwhile adventure. In this world, success is often hard to attain, and failure's easy to stumble into. But what's easy can teach us about what's hard. Rather than being embarrassed about failure, we need to acknowledge it, embrace it, and learn from it. It's the world's most common course for the growth and excellence we all aspire to achieve.

Christmas is, in principle, a holiday in which we Christians celebrate a great experiment, an adventure, really, that seemed to end, thirty-some years after the original Christmas day, in tragic failure. But in that apparent failure, were the seeds of ultimate success. We're told that God, the Source of All, transformed the terrible into the wonderful. And that's how it can go for us, as well.

Wise people have given us some advice about this. They've said: Fail often, fail well, fail forward. Avoid only those failures that would take you out of the game altogether. And, while this, in principle, is great advice, we often overestimate the damage that a certain failure would create, and we shy away from trying. We forget our inner resilience that sometimes only failure reveals.

So, today's advice is simple. Be the little ball that bounces high whenever it hits bottom hard.

Don't fear failure. Fear only a refusal to learn from it and transform it to the success whose seeds it contains.

Merry Christmas.

Socrates and The Two Big Strengths

Socrates had two famous students: Plato, of course, but also Xenophon (pronounced as if started with a 'Z'). Plato was more theoretical and literary. Xenophon was more practical, and was actually a pretty amazing leader. In fact, the great management guru Peter Drucker once said that one of Xenophon's books, The Education of Cyrus, was the greatest book on leadership ever written. And having read it now three times, I think he was probably right. But I have a different concern today. And so, let me get to it.

Xenophon explained that what made Socrates such an impressive person was, first, his amazing degree of self-control. Xenophon actually thought of that quality as the basis for all the other many virtues, or strengths, that Socrates displayed. Then, he said, the second most important quality his teacher exhibited was consistency - that he was always thoroughly himself, genuinely and authentically.

Self-Control. Think about it for a second. It's the action or habit of resisting any pressures not to be or do what we know to be right. It's the quality we need to exercise in order to stay consistent with our beliefs, values, and sense of self. It's the ability to stand up to the pull of pleasure or the push of pain when either of these factors threatens to diminish our lives.

Pain and pleasure play big roles in our lives. Most people fight serious battles, accordingly, with fear and desire. Self-control is what it takes to win those battles. Some pains are properly to be feared and avoided. Some pleasures are rightly to be desired and sought. Self-control keeps us safely on our path, helping us to face what we should and reject what would be inconsistent to embrace. It prevents the damage that could happen if we were to act in improper and self-defeating ways, outside the borders of what's right for us, as the individuals we are.

I'm not sure that there is any such thing as perfect self-control in an imperfect world. But I've learned that the more of it we have, the better and stronger we are as we face the challenges and opportunities of life, and as we continue to create ourselves through our choices.

Plato's student Aristotle, who spent a lot of time analyzing human strengths, seemed to think that the chief virtue or strength we have is courage, without which none of the other virtues will ever be exercised in difficult circumstances. And how does courage function? It aids us in self-control, in doing what we know to be right, regardless of the difficulties and dangers that might face us. And that, in turn, yields consistency. But then, when you're a generally consistent person in your habits and history, that aids you greatly in exercising self-control. Again, perfection isn't the goal. But practice is the key.

So, according to Xenophon, the two chief qualities of Socrates, the basis building blocks of his greatness, were self-control and consistency. Properly understood, they can be such building blocks for us, as well.

Anticipating the Future

The future is hidden by mist and fog.

Psychologists have recently been telling us that we're really bad at predicting how certain future outcomes of our actions will affect us and feel to us at the time they bear fruit. We ask ourselves, "If I do A, will that make me happy?" Or "If I do B, and C results, will that give me what I really want?" We try to imagine what a different or new or remote set of circumstances will feel like, and apparently, we almost always get it wrong.

There are two reasons we get it wrong. First, the future is uncertain. No one can really anticipate it, in all its details. Futurists have a history of howling failures. That's part of why they keep pointing us to the future - in the past, they haven't looked too good! Some things are predictable. Many are not, and they often interrupt our best planning and anticipating.

The second major cause of failure in anticipating the future consequences of our actions is that we're always extrapolating from the situation and mindset we're in, and that inevitably colors and distorts what we project the future to be. We view the future through present lenses. The problem is that hope and fear, desire and worry, along with ignorance and selective attention, can individually, or together, tint those lenses much more than we're aware.

This presents a problem. It seems to be the core of wisdom to think through the future consequences of our actions. But if our thinking, in so far as it projects future states, which imagining consequences always does, is inevitably flawed, then what are we supposed to do?

Fortunately, for understanding various possible futures, we're not forced to rely only on our own imaginations and projective abilities. We have the testimony of a great many people who have already lived through the consequences of every generally described action, or set of actions, imaginable. Although the details of life, society, and our options change continually, because of technology and politics, and for many other reasons, human nature has always been basically the same. That's why it's important to listen to people who have already experienced what we're thinking about doing. They can tell us how it actually felt to experience creating a small business, declaring bankruptcy, taking out a huge loan, getting married to someone very different from them, or very alike, having children, or separating from a friend or associate or family member who has changed in unfortunate ways.

Whatever situation you now contemplate, it's a specific instance of a general type that people have experienced before. That's why it's important to talk to wise people, and read the advice of wise people who have gone down this road before us. They can help tutor our otherwise unreliable imaginations, and guide us into the level of caution or action appropriate to our situation.

Wisdom is available. Use it well. That will help you in making all your most important decisions and will give you new lenses to help you see through the mist and fog up ahead.

Never Rush to Judgment

Think back to Thanksgiving for a moment. It's easy to imagine. You've done all your shopping for a great Thanksgiving dinner. You've had lists with you at the grocery store, and you've checked them off, just to be sure you got everything. You've even started prep cooking a day or two in advance. You've made sure that it will all go smoothly. Then, you wake up on Thanksgiving Day and realize you're missing one ingredient you thought you had - pumpkin spice. You can't believe you have to get dressed to go out first thing and take the time on such a busy day to drive all the way to the store for this one little item. How will you get everything done in time? Many of us would feel disappointed in ourselves, for our oversight, and maybe even frustrated or irritated at the extra trip. "I can't believe what an idiot I am! What a waste of time!"

Lisa Quam, a wife and mother in Washington state, had this happen to her this year. I don't know what she was feeling as she made her way to the store, but once there, she decided to also buy a newspaper, and a lottery ticket, something she only does on "special occasions." And if you don't already know the rest of the story, you can probably guess at least the outlines of it by now. Two weeks later, she discovered that she had won 90 million dollars.

When I came across this story the other day, it reminded me of how much time and energy we waste on thoughts and feelings that are unnecessary. We feel disappointed, or irritated, or even angry at a situation that ends up being very different from what we initially supposed, or that has positive consequences we never could have expected. That's why the most practical philosophers have urged us, in every age, never to rush to judgment about what can seem on the surface to be negative situations. A wise person maintains a spirit of calm acceptance in most circumstances, and even a mild curiosity about the unexpected and the initially unwanted.

Who knows when a small inconvenience could be your ticket to something great?