Liberal Arts, the Need?

My sister and I used to debate higher education. Her position is/was that all education should prepare the student for a vocation, a job, an employment with career dimensions. My point was that all education should help an individual understand the world around them and help them adapt to changing conditions. Such a student will know when and how to recognize changes to adapt to, and which to avoid because they are counterproductive or will become a waste of time and effort.  

Liberal Arts are really a study of man’s journey on this planet. The sciences, both hard and soft, history, logic, philosophy, arts…whatever describes what mankind is, how mankind has adapted to his environment, and how mankind has related to one another and different ‘tribes’ through the ages. What does that teach us? What does that impel us to do or react? How has mankind traveled through time and altered the planet, for good or ill? 

Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage…” and I agree. What life has to offer us is a broad array of experience and opportunity to interact with it. Some of this is for fun. Some for profit. Some for the benefit of others. Some for entertainment. Whatever comes from the experiences and opportunities, there is always something to interact with. That’s another way of saying working with, creating with, seeing or understanding something better with.  

Thomas Friedman in his The World is Flat, had a section of the book centered on Tubas and Test Tubes. He explained how some colleges are educating future scientists and engineers by insisting that some form of art education or experience be experienced in parallel with their technical education. The result is not just an appreciation of artistic ephemera, but developing a broader person with feelings, emotions, depth of curiosity and expression. Those are the elements which help a person understand their personal context. They also inform the student of the constantly changing contexts of other people who will eventually be their clients, friends, society or employers.

How can we live in this world with major segments of life experience completely shut down? Music develops internal pathways of logic. Tempo structures our time and emphasis on matters creatively. Harmony forms working relationships. Structure of musical forms helps us organize thematic materials, whether tonal or vocabulary, into logical concepts. Art is an expressive milieu. It is a means of communication. Of mind to mind, or mind to life, or body to time, or … you fill in the expansive dictionary of possibility.

Art humanizes us. Hard, factual and scientific learning is terrific; but it must be contextualized to the human condition and made real and down to earth. Art helps a human being do that. So test tubes and tubas is a clever way of expressing it. But it makes eminent sense. 

Vocational education instructs a person on how to perform certain acts or functions. How to be an accountant, or analyst of data. How to be a mechanic, or engineer. Or even a scientist. High brow or low, vocational training leads us on a path to employment security as long as we update our skill sets as changes affect our profession or industry.  

This type of education, however, focuses attention more narrowly. It funnels energy and thinking and skill development on a narrower and narrower field of specialty. But it doesn’t necessarily make for a better rounded individual. And it doesn’t help the individual understand when their profession or industry is threatened with obsolescence.  

Liberal Arts provides more tools to the student for living life. Appreciating diversity of all kinds makes for adaptability. Understanding several disciplines of study encourages cross pollination of concepts which lead to new understanding, new industries, products and services.  

“All the world’s a stage and ..” we are the actors. What role will I take? How long will I play it. How much will all of that experience prepare me for different roles and function? Will I rise to the challenges? Will I stay informed of life changing around me. Will I tire of this incessant questioning and searching? Or will this become the descriptor of my path in life?

I think the latter. And it has been fun and interesting. Never a dull moment; or at least, if things began to get dull, new vistas were viewed and changes made. Life’s challenges became new food to be tasted and adopted.

Somewhere there is a Tuba thrumping its tune, its tempo. Somewhere there is a song being sung with earnestness and soul. Somewhere a ballad is offered to a lonely heart. Elsewhere mind is reminded of its greater usefulness and purpose. Will that lead us to a broad new horizon? Or a narrow one of specialty?

April 7, 2012

Remaining Employable

Going back to Thomas Friedman’s book, The World is Flat, the future will offer continued employment to people who hold critical skills or talents. For example, people who can collaborate with others will make dissimilar concepts work together and create whole new concepts including new products and services. Another example, people who can orchestrate broad and dissimilar functions, skill sets and resources into a well-functioning whole. Yet another example: great explainers.

Let’s get a better look at the last item.  Great Explainer. What’s that?

Well, it could be many things, but mostly it is a person who grasps the essence of complicated material and can explain it well to others, make it come alive. An explainer helps others understand concepts and complex functioning in a manner that enables them to perform or adapt well to the circumstances that can use the concept successfully. This is especially valuable in manufacturing processes, product assembly and interfacing duties among several people or teams. It is also useful in analytic tasks where divergent fields come together and morph into something unintended. How does a firm deal with these oddities? Someone has to determine how to work with these opportunities. Explainers find out how the concepts work and how to better use them.

Great explainers help other people see the usefulness of an idea or product or service in their lives. Great explainers are often very effective teachers. Or advertising concept people. Or marketers.

Explainers make sense of our complex lives in highly useful, day to day contexts.

Are you the sort of person whose eyes glaze over when confronted with pages and pages of financial data? Or process manuals that tell you exactly how to use your computer more effectively? Or a repair manual that tells you how to disassemble a piece of equipment, replace a part, and reassemble the item for continued use? Do these situations put you to sleep or excite you to action? If the latter, you are probably a great explainer.

I once had a reader of our local paper remark on my broad background of understanding civic issues in our town. I told her the material didn’t make sense to me until I researched it and accumulated a working knowledge of the material. Over time many issues converge with others and the complexity may increase, but so does the understanding of how they fit together. Explaining that becomes a simple matter of logical reporting of connections. Guess I am an explainer.

When my kids were younger they constantly asked “Why?” And I simply told them: “it’s basic physics, kids.” Today we laugh about that. But seriously; it is basic physics.

The properties which surround us, the context of our lives, usually work quite logically. Gravity has universal effects on us. So does electricity. Barometric pressure. Vectors of wind or motion of physical bodies. These elements interact with one another. They have an effect on each other, and cause other motions or actions to take place. That’s the why and the how all wrapped up in one unified happening! It is basic logic. And although the sciences involved may be biology, chemistry, mathematics, hydrology or something else, physics helps us understand how the physical world works. Some of it is quite basic. Some is esoteric. But physics none the same.

We can laugh at complexity. Or glaze over. Or ignore it. Or we can rise to the challenge and understand it so it works for us, not against us. Explainers can help with that task. And they usually have jobs readily available.

Walk into any store selling technology equipment. You go where the staff can help you determine which hardware or software will work in your circumstances best. Often that is an actual store you can walk into, like Best Buy. Amazon.com works well for those who already know their stuff about a product and can make an informed decision over the Internet. But for the vast majority of us, we need to walk into a store and talk to someone who can help us understand their product line in relation to our contextual needs.  That’s a good role for an explainer.

Teacher, counselor, sales associate, analyst…whatever; an explainer is needed. A great explainer is in demand and highly employable.

Might you be one?

April 6, 2012

Remembering Y2K

Thirteen years ago we were warned of a quirky threat: the Year 2000 could bring a computer catastrophe to America.  The issue was data fields for calendar dates: mo/day/year, but these were mostly 2-digit fields; the question was would the 2-digit year field confuse computers, i.e. 1900 and 2000 appeared the same – ‘00.’ This led to deeper concerns with data fields, aging of records, mathematical algorithms, and so on.

I over simplify perhaps. But you get the idea.

This warning – fear really! – spread like wildfire throughout all industries. I have worked in the financial services industry for many decades and I witnessed first hand the near paranoia of the 1998 to 2001 period. Firms were frantically trying to either fix the feared “problem” or create a back-up plan that would carry the day should the catastrophe occur. All during this time many voices claimed there was not a problem. What was a person to do?

Well, most managers of organizations played it safe and initially acquired patched software to ward off the problem; then they pursued streamlined software that eliminated the problem entirely. And while they were at it computer system architecture was revamped and wholly new technology platforms emerged.

What followed was a major boom in Information Technology as an industry. By 2000 American IT standards were revised in sophistication but along the way the IT perceptual framework morphed into something which we can now see was an entirely new paradigm. The horizon line had shifted.  It was something to behold.

By 2003 the IT industry business performance had slumped as the newly installed  technology was digested. The boom was followed by a natural slowdown; some even think this may have contributed to the recession which had its beginnings in 2007 and 2008.

At any rate IT is now front and center in our lives. It is the backbone of our firms and institutions. It tracks all of our data and analyzes it to be sure we understand what it is telling us. It is not just numbers. It is ‘intelligence’ which informs us, helps us evolve in new and exciting ways. IT helps us relate to the large and small, even tiny or nano-tiny. It revolutionizes thinking patterns. Relational patterns. We conceive differently because we have the freedom to think differently now. It is a gift of the IT Age!

And the spur of this major shift was caused over the fear of two digits in the year 2000!

Look where it has brought us. We now have new technology equipment, software, processes and mindsets. When something new in hardware comes along, it is designed to fit in with existing technology platforms which themselves are in constant change. The fluidity of change is the key element here. It allows the new to mix with the old easily and make its change work. As old edges toward the scrap heap, the IT wholeness evolves yet again, sometimes by inches, sometimes in leaps, but always moving forward toward something much more different. It is a synergy in and of itself. It has life and dynamism.

Y2K spurred a sea change and pushed the national and the global communities to adopt change on a massive scale. It was disruptive at the time. Even comical. But it was a necessary shift. We reap the rewards each day!

Before Y2K IT platforms didn’t communicate well among themselves. Industries, even branches of the same firm, could not share data and intelligence very well if at all. That has all changed. The systems were ponderous and unwieldy. Promised efficiencies and cost effectiveness were slow to be realized, and often not until massive new investments were made. Now those cost benefits are being realized.

But Y2K changed that because new standards and interchangeability came to the fore. Systems could talk with each other and business transactions soared throughout  international markets and among and between wholly different industries. Mergers and acquisitions hit new highs. The ‘blood system’ of data had been transformed to a universal plasma that allowed a new freedom to create and innovate. And we continue to benefit from this transformation today. 

Where would we have been without the stimulus of Y2K? 

April 5, 2012

What Moments Altered Your Thinking?

Think back a ways, maybe several years. What were the moments that caused you to rethink something? Or gave you a totally new view of the world, or nation, or life….or you fill in the blank!

For me I can think of several moments. With more thought I no doubt could come up with a longer list. But let’s just look at these for now.

1. Sputnik successfully orbits Earth; Russia beats America to space
2. Birth of my daughter; and son
3. Berlin Wall erected; sobering Cold War symbol
4. Boston Symphony concerts at Tanglewood during the late 1950’s
5. Summer Stock theater in the Berkshires, also in the late 1950’s
6. Grand Canyon; several times visiting over several decades
7. Sitting in the alone quiet of the Mojave Desert, late 1940’s
8. Removal of Berlin Wall

At first glance this may be an odd list. For instance what is missing? The usual guideposts of life: graduation from several levels of education; marriage; divorce; sexuality issues and moments of discovery; career achievements; enrolling at the seminary; so many things that can be on the list, but these, as important as they are in my life, are not the immediate items that came to mind. Interesting.

Perhaps the list would change if I had written it yesterday, or tomorrow? Situational stimuli do make a difference, surely. But let’s work with the eight items on the list.

1. Sputnik gave me and America a wake up call. We were not alone in the world. There was also the vast space beckoning for exploration. This was an awakening to intellectual thinking and technological skill. If a rival nation could beat us at this, then what were we doing wrong? Where was our talent? Where was our sense of excellence? What unknown frontiers were we ignoring? What was missing? Yes, Sputnik was an important happening in our history. It meant a lot to our national sense of self; but it also alerted us to the inner self where we dreamed, learned, understood, and grew. What was my challenge? What would I become? What was I willing to work at or give up in order to become a more fulfilled person? I thought that way back then as a teenager. For me it was a serious time. I came to view the world broadly, expansively, intellectually, personally.
2. Birth of both of my kids. Very personal time. Shared of course with my wife Ann, but still a very personal moment. Bringing new life into being. Having a different person dependent on your efforts to support a life and its development. Nurturing. Developing. Caring for. Making room for in my life. Adding to my universe. The rewards, challenges; the good and bad; the ups and downs. The successes built on years of doing. Brilliant really. Precious in many personal moments.
3. Berlin Wall represented a sobering reality; we had national enemies. Stark and cold. Seemingly impenetrable and unfeeling. Childish behavior; world peace rests on such small minded moments? This was the time of my freshman year in college. I was studying the world formally. I was trying to find my place in it. For the long term. And yet at the beginning of this phase, the Berlin Wall. Stultifying. Stupid. Crass. It cautioned my thinking. This was a reality we needed to contend with.
4. Teenage years in western Massachusetts. Tanglewood – summer home of the Boston Symphony – practically in our backyard. My folks and I attended concerts throughout the summer. And small ensemble concerts as well. The unfolding of large, complex music. Music in the mind and soul. Personhood developing. Emotions swelling, with the music, in juxtaposition to it; the inner life; intellectual awakenings. Surging. Presenting themselves to me in an ever rolling manner; for years. Still goes on. Stunning beautiful addition to my being. Music. Serious and complex. Simple threads of melody emerging; tempos echoing their pulse. Special experiences.
5. Western Massachusetts contains the Berkshire Mountains. Pittsfield is the county seat. It is home to so much history of the nation, but also the seat of much culture. Jacob Pillow Dance Theater, Tanglewood, South Mountain Music Festival, summer stock theater throughout the region. College and university campuses seemingly everywhere. Historic markers from the 1600’s and 1700’s. Depth of roots. Depth of soul. Music, theater, art. The inner person struggling to speak, to feel, to be. Summer stock theater saw visiting stars and lesser known players presenting drama in intimate spaces. The characters vying on stage as parallel to personal drama on the inner stage of the mind. It awakened feelings, emotions, deep and broad. The agenda building of a life. Trying to understand it; making it work for me; as model?
6. Vastness of space on Earth – The Grand Canyon. I visited it as a small youth; again many times at different times of my life. Adolescent, teenager, young adult, middle adult, late adult. Each time seminal. Each time reminding me of the vastness of life and the intricacies of being a person on the planet. It is simple, yet very complex. The silence of the Grand Canyon. The huge space; long vistas; depth of the canyon’s one mile chasm. The enormity of it all. The smallness of me. Yet the relativity. Profound moments of seeing and feeling and thinking. Pondering.  Good stuff!
7. Related to the Grand Canyon – living on the Mojave Desert as a very young child. Still I remember outings with the family. They would hike off to various viewpoints. We’d drive off road to very lonely spots. Some were vast vistas of flat open land. Starkly plain. Others were huge rock outcroppings; with deep chasms. I remember sitting in one of the latter areas; family members were off a short distance. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear their occasional voicings. For me: silence; stillness. Let me state that again: STILLNESS, profound, enormous. Blue sky above. An occasional bird but very few. Some twiggy low plants wavering in the breeze. The sough of the wind-breeze; constant, a caress of dry warm air on bare legs and arms. Warmth. No snakes, but I watched for them! No water. Alone. Solitude. A basic sense of nothingness but ‘everythingness.’ And the beginning of a sense of self in this aloneness. Secure yet insecure. Interesting dichotomy. 
8. Tearing down the Berlin Wall stated the world was ready for working together, collaborating on life into the future. An international maturity marker had been made. For all to see. We could move on now. With caution, but we could contemplate a future that contained more of everyone. Inclusive. Expansive.

You see what I mean. Moments in our lives that gift us with special insight? Change our life? Make us uniquely us, each and every one.

What moments are yours?

April 4, 2012

Thinking for Yourself

Someone recently engaged me in an email debate. Not a good thing, because I generally don’t debate anything. But he got my goat and pressed his unbalanced view of the world. He insulted my logic, grasp of facts and thought he had smashed my conclusions. As untenable. 

Actually, no. I don’t debate because such exchanges are designed to manipulate outcomes. It’s a game. No one really wins because the conclusions don’t add to understanding for either party or society in general. 

I much rather spend time working out keener understandings of issues, with a steady eye on improving on them, solving problems, whatever; accomplishing something positive all concerned. 

This is not an ideological thing with me. But it is with many others. For some reason they have given up their own independent ability of logic and adopted someone else’s. They have taken as fact opinion from others. I know this is attractive at times, but it really is a lazy way out of mastering the facts and issues themselves. No one can do this work for me. Or you.  

I have to do it by myself if I’m going to own my conclusions. This means I have to do some work, reading, research, thinking. I do a lot of that. I feel it is necessary and honest. And if I cannot readily understand the issue, then I can realize why others can’t either; or at least have trouble with it. 

I guess it comes down to this: I feel a deep commitment to be a great explainer. That’s not exactly the same as an educator; but it may be close. If I can explain an issue to myself – its cause, effect and result – then I feel able to explain it to other people.  But having confidence in this requires me to research details so I’m sure I have a good grasp of the material. 

If I don’t, I’ll admit it.  Usually do. It’s the only way I know to ask questions based on what is missing; so the void can be filled. This keeps me honest. It also demonstrates openness to more information. Hopefully this also builds confidence in others that I know what I’m talking about. 

I’m as dependent on external information as anyone else. I don’t create the facts. They are out there in the world. I have to find them and piece them together with other consonant pieces and make sense of it all. Someone has to do this; might as well be me as well as other people. Together we will make sense of it all. But it takes more than one. 

My email debater ended the ‘debate’ with the conclusions that we both suffered from presuppositionalism, that is, well established viewpoints that don’t allow other viewpoints to enter. A prejudice, perhaps. A bias for certain?  

I think that was convenient for him to duck out of the discussion, and to restore some peace for his own mind. You see, he is a staunch conservative, quite far to the right. From his position he views everyone else as terribly liberal or worse. And he makes that judgmental statement with all honesty and candor; as though he has the right to label others. No matter my protest and clearly providing my own label, he wouldn’t accept it as truth. Only he could see that truth. And thus there was no discussion. Only a ‘preach.’ One sided. Delivered with sarcasm and cynicism. 

When I get past the annoyance of such an exchange, I finally get the clear view that the person is protecting his sense of self and worth based on the past. I’m the first to value the past as a root of our understandings, and the hard won principles we stand for. But they are the past. We live in the present and we must manage with the future and whatever it brings. 

I don’t intend to predict the future. It doesn’t need my predictions. It will happen on its own. But we have two key things to do regarding the future: prepare for it as much as possible; and adapt to it where necessary. 

Preparing for it covers two elements: first, we want to be able to make the most of opportunities that occur in the future; second, we need to build defenses against threats or perils that may be embedded in the unfolding future. Both of these elements require work on our part.  It is why we undergo education and training. It is also why we buy insurance, build walls, jails, etc. And have standing armies. We prepare for future eventualities. So we can live as well as possible under given circumstances, and to safeguard our survival for the long-term future. 

This is rational and responsible behavior. It is why we plan. It is why we save and build reserve resources. 

Managing today and preparing for tomorrow is what fills our days in the present. Defending the past and living in it are fruitless endeavors.  Remembering the past for its record of values and worth we have learned to guide us in the present and future, is the primary lesson of the past. And it is very good.  

Perhaps I’m exposing a bias here: is conservative the same as past? Does it mean focusing on the past exclusively? I doubt that is true. But in today’s political discussions one would think so. 

More on this in later posts. But for now, think kindly on today and respect what is to come. Don’t let the past entrap you, or our nation. 

April 3, 2012

Feeling Good, or Not?

A friend told me the other day that he isn’t as positive-minded as I am; he believes human nature is more negative than I take it to be. This is helpful perhaps in the sense that we are not disappointed when things don’t work out as well as we had hoped; and the reason is laid at the feet of people holding back, acting in their own self interest, whatever. They dampened what could have been better, or could have been good.

I understand. I, too, have had those feelings. In fact I felt that way for many, many years. Probably my negative bent was even heavier than my friend’s. But I changed a lot in the last few years. Why?

Because I finally figured out I can’t do anything about their feelings. I can only be in charge of my own.

That and I also concluded, being negative didn’t accomplish anything. Oh sure, I felt better for a while building a case against the other dopes who ‘caused’ the problems or who stood in the way of fixing things; it comforted me to realize that I wasn’t at fault! I felt good about myself. Me. Yup. Me! 

But that didn’t do me any good at all, really.  

Nope. I had a change of heart when I realized there were solutions to problems we all share. I began to think about solutions to our problems. I could see glimmers of possibility. And that from someone like me who doesn’t have all the information or technology, or education to best deal with the problems. But I knew there were people like that who could. The question became: why weren’t they doing these things?

I thought a bit more. Thought about not just the problems, but what would it be like in the future without the problems? Those periods of dreaming provided some interesting ideas. Primarily ideas that defined the problems away!  For example:

• If oil has a finite supply, then we have to find alternative fuels
• What alternative fuels could those be? Hydrogen energy cells; geothermal energy; wind and solar energies
• Physics research is also getting us closer to space-related energy forms which do not burn fuel at all
• Engineering and technology is gaining energy efficiencies which make alternative energy more realistic; it also prolongs use of diminishing energy sources

Another set of ideas formed: If the ideas above were to have a chance to be pursued, what needs to happen?

• We need to continue energy research in physics
• We need to pursue engineering advances in  hydrogen energy cells, geothermal energy, wind and solar energies; this takes research AND investment in new industries
• We need to invest in college and university education programs which produce graduates who will be able to support these new directions
• We need to invest in vocational education to produce technical workers who will support these new directions, industries
• We need to move our national attention and policy toward non-petroleum energy; this reduces or removes subsidies; levels the playing field between competing energies; redefines economic power centers
• Governing bodies/legislative bodies have to get synchronized with these new directions; the old needs to be de-politicized.
• The electorate needs to understand these relationships among the competing ideas and power centers; they need to vote accordingly

Thinking far enough into the future helps us understand our current problems more clearly. It also keeps us from making the mistake of taking baby steps while we are creating solutions to the old problems. Great leaps are needed. 

The seeds of solutions to current problems are not here in the today; they are in the future. We then have better objectives to work with in designing solutions. Merely defining what we are not doing does not define a solution. It only tells us what needs to be changed while we are designing and defining solutions. 

Perhaps that last paragraph is the crux of our political gridlock? Too many people looking for simple solutions and not work? Too many people finding fault with others rather than looking for ways we can accomplish great things together? Too many people settling on short term solutions rather than investing in the long-term approach?

The America I believe in invented a way to the Moon. It put man on the Moon.  It found a way to Mars. It has circled the Sun. It has glimpsed galaxies far far away. It returns photos for us to study. My America cares about its people. It researches illnesses and cures. It educates its people, of all abilities and handicaps. It nurtures our minds with art, and music and beauty and…. It enriches our lives because it knows the payback is terrific!

These are the fruits of positive thinking. These are the joys of focusing on what is good in life, in each other, in mankind.  

The opposite of this thinking is death and destruction. It is defense against the unknown. It is power struggle. It is political nonsense. It is warring ideologies.

Which would you rather have working for you? Which would you rather be a part of?

To me it is a simple matter of adopting the future or succumbing to the past. One is very alive and possible. The other is very dead and fruitless.

Indeed, which one will we choose to follow?

April 2, 2012

Aiming High

Today’s quote is from Michelangelo: “The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it but that it is too low and we reach it.” 

It pays to dream. To think on the future and where it will take us. What our hopes are and what we would like to experience eventually. It goes hand in hand with the great questions of all time: Who am I? Why am I here? What will I do with the rest of my life? 

These questions are big picture ones. They are huge. They pull us out of our mindset or ‘boxes.’ Creativity and innovation come from this type of thinking. It is a good thing. But it is also daunting.

When we ask the big questions, the really big ones, we know that much of our future cannot be planned. We cannot personally control it, or the actions and events by others that affect our life paths. We can get prepared for such things, however. And we can take charge and do some active planning to make what we dream about actually come about in our lifetimes. We can do that. We can work towards that. We may be successful at it; on the other hand our best laid plans may crash down around us. 

When we set plans we naturally identify actions we can take or prepare for. Some of those actions are large and complex. We break those tasks into smaller parts so we can digest them better. We take action in short bits and pieces in the short term. As long as we have a good view of where it is we’d like to end up, we can calculate our progress towards the long-term goals. We can see we are getting there slowly. And hopefully surely! 

The trick is to aim high. Setting our sights low may make us feel successful, but low achievement can be catching; we can undershoot what needs to be done and become satisfied with less. Think lowest common denominator. How much of what we deal with day in and day out is the least we can do to get by? How much of this is written into our institutions and businesses? How much of our life is aiming low? Not high? Not challenging? 

We cheat ourselves if we don’t strive for the best. Along the route of striving, we learn a lot about what we can do, what we are weak at, what we need to strengthen. We also learn the same about those people surrounding us. Are they the collaborators we need at this time? Or should we work to find others better suited to our task? Or are the ones in the here and now capable of growing into the collaborators we need?

Not easy discerning the truth here. Attempts, stabs, tries…all are part of the process of trying, making mistakes and learning from those mistakes until we reach our goal. We learn so much on this journey. And so do our compatriots who accompany us on this path.  

In our busy lives we often shirk paying attention to this work. This is very personal. Who will know that we sloughed off a bit? Who will notice that our goals are not being met? Who even knows our personal inner goals? 

Well the obvious answer is: I know; we know. Besides, succeeding in life involves much more than nice homes and cars, good clothing and fancy vacations. It is not about money or symbols of wealth. It is about values and happiness and quality of relationships with others. It is also about positive outlooks and a sense of ‘can do.’

So if we are aiming low, we know about it. And our satisfaction is wounded. It is not fully realized. And that drags us down. That is OK if we realize it and use it as a motivator to sharpen our focus and aim higher. 

Doing this sort of work is basic to personal development. It makes us different people with better strengths. And those are obvious to others, especially our kids, spouses, family members and neighbors. We become models to others whether we realize it or not. But the real value is the role model we build for our own personal self. We know when we are doing OK, when we are excelling. We don’t need someone else to tell us. We know for ourselves that we are on the right path. And that the path doesn’t have a real or concrete end point.

That’s what makes life on this planet so good. The results are never known qualitatively. But we are always in the process of discovering our self-ness. We are in the process of discovering. How exciting!

April 1, 2012