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For the first time since I can remember, I am not surrounded by the trappings of Christmas: a beautifully decorated tree, cards from friends, crazy quantities of food to feed family and friends, and so on. You see, in late February my position was eliminated due to the economic downturn. Shortly thereafter my wife filed for divorce, as she wanted to ensure that our kids could get what they needed (from the state of Michigan) in case work was hard to find. We had been separated by 4 states for 8 months at that point, and we both knew that “we” were over and that it was the best thing to do for our kids. The divorce was final in mid-November, 4 days after I got evicted from our former family home due to foreclosure. I did not become the first in my family to graduate from college or go on to get a doctorate degree for all of these things to happen. But happen they did.
So, I could sit here, living with a friend, and be angry at the world and all of the people running the country and the banks and the companies that haven’t hired me, but I am not. I cannot sit here and be filled with anger. I have too much to be thankful for…
I have 5 children who understand enough of what is going on to know that I have not seen them since June because money is that tight. Their mom has kept some of the details from them, but they know that I am not staying away through my own choice. They know that I love them! And I am grateful for that…
I have had two sets of friends who have taken me in until my job hunt comes to resolution. I have not had to live in my car, or a tent, or a cardboard box. And I am grateful for that…
I have been able to send the majority of my unemployment funds to my family to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table and gas in the family car, and still keep enough for food and gas for my van. I do not eat like I used to, but that is a matter of choice. And I am grateful for that….
I have had the time to sort out my life as a spouse and father, and have come to understand my role in the train wreck that was my family life. I now know why I was myself at the office and turned into Mr. Hyde on the way home. I am not proud of what I have done. I should have known better. I now do. And I have forgiven myself. And I am grateful for that…
I have been blessed to find a website that has helped me to become more healthy physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, and it is www.transformation.com (screen name NCDrJCN). I feel like myself again, even in the midst of all of the chaos that has descended upon me. I am taking care of myself, eating sensibly, exercising regularly, thinking outside of the box, looking for new comfort zones, and am optimistic that I will find a way to make a contribution on our world. And I am grateful for that…
I have applied for countless jobs, and have had some interviews which have not led to jobs. I continue to look for opportunities to use my skills in a constructive manner. And I know the right opportunity is out there, because it has been out there before. And I currently have an opportunity that would move me about 100 miles from my kids. And I am grateful for that…
Finally, I live in a country where people continue to strive to pick themselves up out of the ashes and make a difference. Our country was built on hope: the hope that we could build a better life than we had in the past; the hope that our children, and their children, would have things easier than we did; the hope that we could find a way to bring peace and harmony to all of the world; the hope that each one of us can find a way to give a piece of ourselves to the common good. I continue to have hope, for my country, for my children, and for myself. And I am grateful for that…
As you go through the motions this holiday season, keep in mind that no matter how many gifts are under the tree this year and no matter how much traveling you are able to do, there are people who have fallen pretty far from where they used to be: people have lost jobs, and homes, and families, and loved ones. And even though they have lost all of that, they still have hope…they are clinging to the hope that they will have a meaningful life very soon…and that they can make a difference in the lives of those they love and those they care about. And I am grateful for that…
Happy Holidays to all!!!
Julius
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Book Review, Part II: “ReBoot: My Five Life-Changing Mistakes…and How I Moved On”
To properly set the stage for this post I suggest that you scroll down to the previous post and give it a read. Thanks, JCN
“I became suspended in a strange, numbing nothingness. I didn’t feel anything…I realized my numbness was masking anger. I could explode with little or no provocation…I was angry at everything I was and all that I would ever be…I saw myself as a different version of my mother…I was trapped.”
Many people believe that all anger is a response to a situation that is fermenting in our minds, lingering with no solution that we can implement. And many of us saw anger in our childhoods, not necessarily directed at us, but outwardly visible in some form. One of my most vivid childhood memories is my mother repeatedly smashing the phone receiver into the metal hook of our wall mounted phone because my father was still at a bar and not where he should have been. I remember walking up to the phone when she was done and seeing the metal bent so much that the phone could no longer hang on it.
All too often, when life deals us a bad hand, our subconscious mind takes over and pulls out the lessons of our childhood. Many of those lessons are the ones we are ashamed of, and desperately wish that we could erase from our memory. But selective brainwashing is not an option. The work of reprogramming our subconscious mind is difficult. It requires a lot of focus by the conscious mind, knowing that there is a better state for us to be in. For me the path away from anger involves mentally moving to a place where my mind is not stressed out and can operate out of love and not react out of that subconscious memory. Often easier said than done.
“So, I start writing about my real mistakes. Not my business mistakes, but my LIFE mistakes. I allowed others to define me. I built my image of myself on two main supporting pillars (smart and married). I stopped believing in myself. I stopped taking care of myself. Allowing my head to rule my heart.”
Selfish. An often misunderstood word. But I now understand it very well. Michael Losier teaches its meaning as “self care,” doing the things necessary for me so that I can do everything else I have committed to do. When I read the five mistakes Julie has outlined above, I hear someone who was trying to appease others, who held other people’s opinion of what she needed to do in higher regard than her own opinion, who in trying to be everything to everyone forgot to be who she really was. Unfortunately, Julie Wainwright is not the only person to fall into this trap.
We are hardly out of the womb when we begin to hear the opinions of those we encounter, some welcomed, some not. And as children the opinions of adults mean everything to us because we do not know any better. And many of us wind up with a pretty well installed version of “People Pleasing,” where we do things to make others happy, to make others proud, to make others give us nice presents, etc. We learn to please everyone we encounter. Except us. We never learn where to draw the line. We never learn how to recognize that we are giving up some of the precious stuff that makes us, well, us. We move so far in becoming one with our jobs or one with our significant other that we lose sight of who we are. And it often takes life changing events, like job loss, divorce, becoming widowed, etc. for us to learn the bitter truth: we MUST find ways to love ourselves more; to get in touch with our own hearts and minds and become whole. To be selfish.
“I had failures and successes in the past. If I really looked at things truthfully, I had more successes than failures. I had acted honorably toward the Pets.com employees and the shareholders, but I hadn’t treated myself with the same kindness.”
Julie realized that we need to be kind to ourselves, as well as those we serve. It isn’t simply a matter of doing the right thing. It is sort of like the old oil filter commercial: “You can pay me now or you can pay me later!” If we treat ourselves with proper kindness on a regular basis, then we can keep every ball in our court in play. If we allow no time for “selfishness” then we are listening to all those around us tell us which ball to play next. Chaos reigns, and the subconscious mind kicks in. And our old friend anger is right around the corner, frequently directed at those we love. Or inward…
“I had a choice: go along with someone else’s perception of the world or get on with creating my own world. I really wanted to heal my own wounds and start living again, so I made a conscious decision to separate my wounds from everyone else’s…when I started to pay close attention to that tenet and I did so from a place of love, not fear, all that negativity lost its power. As far as I can tell, negativity needs energy, a reaction, to feed it.”
This is such a powerful concept! “Negativity needs energy to feed it!” Julie eloquently relates fear to negativity, so we can say that fear also needs energy to feed it. And she teaches that love is the one thing that takes power away from both fear and negativity. This is so simple!!! But again, when we are focused outwardly, we never give our own hearts enough time with love’s healing energy.
“I held tightly onto those two adjectives, smart and married, as a measurement of personal worth that left no room for me to just be a person who accepted my own humanness. And when I couldn’t use those adjectives to describe myself I became, in my mind, worthless. I never held anyone else to these standards, since I knew they were external measurements, but I didn’t have the same compassion for myself.”
I cannot add anything more of substance to these statements. If you have read this far, you can either apply this to yourself or someone you hold very dear to your heart. Maybe when we begin to feel like we are letting ourselves down we need to examine our standards for ourselves and check them against our current reality. Most of us will see that we are doing just fine!!!
“I realized that all those who truly loved me didn’t care if I was uber successful, and they certainly did not want to see me in an unsatisfying marriage. Their love wasn’t conditional…I began to feel truly secure simply by being myself and really enjoying life.”
Again, there is so much power in these words! Unconditional love is powerful stuff! It can heal any wound. This is the reason that Marianne Williamson tours the world preaching love’s great benefit for the world! Remember to feel some love the next time you look into a mirror!!!
“The most prominent goals were focused on me being successful in every part of my life: physical, emotional and spiritual…I showed myself climbing the proverbial ladder and once again reaching for the stars.”
There is a very important concept here that many self-help programs do not pay respect to. Particularly as we approach middle age, personal fulfillment consists of finding ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually. Any one itself may be good, and any two may benefit the individual, but it is only when we work on all three aspects of life that we maximize our contribution to the world and to future generations. When we “find” ourselves physically, emotionally AND spiritually we set the stage of reaching for the stars and manifesting all of the goodness that God gives to each of us the day that we are born. As an example, Bill Phillips’ Transformation site (www.transformation.com) asks the individual to work all three areas of being so that they can “be the change!” Check it out! My screen name is NCDrJCN.
“Doing things that filled my heart with love and learning to trust myself enough to follow my heart…those were the key…I had to learn to let go of fear. It meant learning to trust myself, my spirit and something greater than me, which connects us all.”
I believe that it can be difficult to allow our hearts to guide us because few of us get that type of guidance as we grow up. We are taught that education and pure knowledge are the keys to success, and our fast paced, entertainment driven society certainly seems to reward knowledge. It is only when life slows down a little that we allow ourselves to listen to our gut, that “feeling” we have that one thing or the other is the right way to go. Previous generations had the benefit of fewer entertainment options and a slower pace to life. There was a lot of wisdom passed down on the front porch, watching people pass by as grandparents told the stories of their youth and discussed current events with their experienced opinions. How does that generational wisdom, or love, get passed down today? We are moving too fast to care!
“ ‘When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.’ “
If there is a single lesson in this book that should be passed on to future generations, it is the one above. Look with you in mind! Look for a way to share joy, and goodness, and love. You may find yourself looking in some new places, or just from a different point of view!
The next time you are faced with a critical decision, consider consulting your heart as well as your mind. It is the merger of the two where the better answer can be found. And usually one that allows you to consider yourself in the solution.
Until Next Time,
Julius
“I became suspended in a strange, numbing nothingness. I didn’t feel anything…I realized my numbness was masking anger. I could explode with little or no provocation…I was angry at everything I was and all that I would ever be…I saw myself as a different version of my mother…I was trapped.”
Many people believe that all anger is a response to a situation that is fermenting in our minds, lingering with no solution that we can implement. And many of us saw anger in our childhoods, not necessarily directed at us, but outwardly visible in some form. One of my most vivid childhood memories is my mother repeatedly smashing the phone receiver into the metal hook of our wall mounted phone because my father was still at a bar and not where he should have been. I remember walking up to the phone when she was done and seeing the metal bent so much that the phone could no longer hang on it.
All too often, when life deals us a bad hand, our subconscious mind takes over and pulls out the lessons of our childhood. Many of those lessons are the ones we are ashamed of, and desperately wish that we could erase from our memory. But selective brainwashing is not an option. The work of reprogramming our subconscious mind is difficult. It requires a lot of focus by the conscious mind, knowing that there is a better state for us to be in. For me the path away from anger involves mentally moving to a place where my mind is not stressed out and can operate out of love and not react out of that subconscious memory. Often easier said than done.
“So, I start writing about my real mistakes. Not my business mistakes, but my LIFE mistakes. I allowed others to define me. I built my image of myself on two main supporting pillars (smart and married). I stopped believing in myself. I stopped taking care of myself. Allowing my head to rule my heart.”
Selfish. An often misunderstood word. But I now understand it very well. Michael Losier teaches its meaning as “self care,” doing the things necessary for me so that I can do everything else I have committed to do. When I read the five mistakes Julie has outlined above, I hear someone who was trying to appease others, who held other people’s opinion of what she needed to do in higher regard than her own opinion, who in trying to be everything to everyone forgot to be who she really was. Unfortunately, Julie Wainwright is not the only person to fall into this trap.
We are hardly out of the womb when we begin to hear the opinions of those we encounter, some welcomed, some not. And as children the opinions of adults mean everything to us because we do not know any better. And many of us wind up with a pretty well installed version of “People Pleasing,” where we do things to make others happy, to make others proud, to make others give us nice presents, etc. We learn to please everyone we encounter. Except us. We never learn where to draw the line. We never learn how to recognize that we are giving up some of the precious stuff that makes us, well, us. We move so far in becoming one with our jobs or one with our significant other that we lose sight of who we are. And it often takes life changing events, like job loss, divorce, becoming widowed, etc. for us to learn the bitter truth: we MUST find ways to love ourselves more; to get in touch with our own hearts and minds and become whole. To be selfish.
“I had failures and successes in the past. If I really looked at things truthfully, I had more successes than failures. I had acted honorably toward the Pets.com employees and the shareholders, but I hadn’t treated myself with the same kindness.”
Julie realized that we need to be kind to ourselves, as well as those we serve. It isn’t simply a matter of doing the right thing. It is sort of like the old oil filter commercial: “You can pay me now or you can pay me later!” If we treat ourselves with proper kindness on a regular basis, then we can keep every ball in our court in play. If we allow no time for “selfishness” then we are listening to all those around us tell us which ball to play next. Chaos reigns, and the subconscious mind kicks in. And our old friend anger is right around the corner, frequently directed at those we love. Or inward…
“I had a choice: go along with someone else’s perception of the world or get on with creating my own world. I really wanted to heal my own wounds and start living again, so I made a conscious decision to separate my wounds from everyone else’s…when I started to pay close attention to that tenet and I did so from a place of love, not fear, all that negativity lost its power. As far as I can tell, negativity needs energy, a reaction, to feed it.”
This is such a powerful concept! “Negativity needs energy to feed it!” Julie eloquently relates fear to negativity, so we can say that fear also needs energy to feed it. And she teaches that love is the one thing that takes power away from both fear and negativity. This is so simple!!! But again, when we are focused outwardly, we never give our own hearts enough time with love’s healing energy.
“I held tightly onto those two adjectives, smart and married, as a measurement of personal worth that left no room for me to just be a person who accepted my own humanness. And when I couldn’t use those adjectives to describe myself I became, in my mind, worthless. I never held anyone else to these standards, since I knew they were external measurements, but I didn’t have the same compassion for myself.”
I cannot add anything more of substance to these statements. If you have read this far, you can either apply this to yourself or someone you hold very dear to your heart. Maybe when we begin to feel like we are letting ourselves down we need to examine our standards for ourselves and check them against our current reality. Most of us will see that we are doing just fine!!!
“I realized that all those who truly loved me didn’t care if I was uber successful, and they certainly did not want to see me in an unsatisfying marriage. Their love wasn’t conditional…I began to feel truly secure simply by being myself and really enjoying life.”
Again, there is so much power in these words! Unconditional love is powerful stuff! It can heal any wound. This is the reason that Marianne Williamson tours the world preaching love’s great benefit for the world! Remember to feel some love the next time you look into a mirror!!!
“The most prominent goals were focused on me being successful in every part of my life: physical, emotional and spiritual…I showed myself climbing the proverbial ladder and once again reaching for the stars.”
There is a very important concept here that many self-help programs do not pay respect to. Particularly as we approach middle age, personal fulfillment consists of finding ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually. Any one itself may be good, and any two may benefit the individual, but it is only when we work on all three aspects of life that we maximize our contribution to the world and to future generations. When we “find” ourselves physically, emotionally AND spiritually we set the stage of reaching for the stars and manifesting all of the goodness that God gives to each of us the day that we are born. As an example, Bill Phillips’ Transformation site (www.transformation.com) asks the individual to work all three areas of being so that they can “be the change!” Check it out! My screen name is NCDrJCN.
“Doing things that filled my heart with love and learning to trust myself enough to follow my heart…those were the key…I had to learn to let go of fear. It meant learning to trust myself, my spirit and something greater than me, which connects us all.”
I believe that it can be difficult to allow our hearts to guide us because few of us get that type of guidance as we grow up. We are taught that education and pure knowledge are the keys to success, and our fast paced, entertainment driven society certainly seems to reward knowledge. It is only when life slows down a little that we allow ourselves to listen to our gut, that “feeling” we have that one thing or the other is the right way to go. Previous generations had the benefit of fewer entertainment options and a slower pace to life. There was a lot of wisdom passed down on the front porch, watching people pass by as grandparents told the stories of their youth and discussed current events with their experienced opinions. How does that generational wisdom, or love, get passed down today? We are moving too fast to care!
“ ‘When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.’ “
If there is a single lesson in this book that should be passed on to future generations, it is the one above. Look with you in mind! Look for a way to share joy, and goodness, and love. You may find yourself looking in some new places, or just from a different point of view!
The next time you are faced with a critical decision, consider consulting your heart as well as your mind. It is the merger of the two where the better answer can be found. And usually one that allows you to consider yourself in the solution.
Until Next Time,
Julius
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Book Review, Part I: “ReBoot: My Five Life-Changing Mistakes…and How I Moved On”
AUTHORS of Book Reviewed: Julie Wainwright with Angela Mohan
Julie Wainwright had a spectacular public fall. She was the CEO of the Internet start up Pets.com. You may remember the sock puppet that they used in their advertising. Well, remembering the brand may be good, but Pets.com was in business for about a year, Julie was at the helm, and got publicly trashed for some of the moves she made. Mostly for closing down the company while they still had capital. Why would she do that? So she could live with herself! She knew that the business had NO chance to succeed because so many other internet pet companies went online in the same timeframe, and she saw that Pets.com was actually losing money on every transaction. My guess is that many of us would do the same thing and give our investors some of their investment back. But we all have recently seen the logic of Wall Street and the financial markets. Enough said!!!
At virtually the same time as the company was folding, her marriage ended when her husband not only announced that he wanted a divorce, but promptly left their home with all of his possessions. The double whammy was devastating to Julie, and she took some time to think about how her life had gotten to this point. Which gets us to the blog article that inspired this book.
As a part of the healing process, Julie wrote a blog post with the title of this book on her website . In less than a year’s time, nearly 100,000 people had read “The Five Mistakes” blog in over 156 different countries. Truly not what she expected. Many of the readers asked for the material in book form so that they could share it with friends and family. After seeing that the requests were never going to stop, Julie decided to write the book.
It is a revealing work, with Julie reliving much of what she went through and how she got to the places that allowed all of this to happen around her. The key to me is that she knew that she had to move on, pick up the pieces and reinvent herself in order to live with herself. She found that her priorities had been shaped by the needs of those around her, and that she allowed herself to lose touch with…Julie. Life events like the ones she experienced are often quite eye-opening, and having them occur in parallel caused Julie to open not only her eyes, but her brain and heart as well.
In the post to follow this one I will take quotes from Julie’s book and add my spin on her learning. I find that her experiences have great teaching value to me, and I suspect that many others can learn from her insights. I do this split because I know it would get quite long, and I do not want to post the “mother of all posts.” But as a teaser, here are the first couple:
“I had no idea, no real idea that is, that my marriage is over…Still, I don’t really believe it.”
I can relate, as I am currently living the last stages of my marriage being over, the stage involving court personnel. Somehow, you know its over but you just don’t understand its over. I never wanted it to be this way. I never wanted it to end this way. I want to start over. But none of that is going to happen, mostly because the other party has given the marriage many chances before they resort to this ending. We often get out of touch with the “us” because we are so busy doing other things: managing work projects with fierce internal intensity, dodging the bosses latest requests in our minds 24/7, worrying how we are going to have the funds to put the kids through college, worrying how we are going to have the funds to retire, etc. And all of these things can look like selfishness to our significant other, and maybe they are. But for me, they were the response to years of doing for others and going against the grain of what I thought were the right things to do in order to not rock the marital boat. I was cultivating a “joint” approach to problem solving. In my own mind. And it often ran 100% upstream from where my heart told me I should be going. If you EVER feel yourself going against the grain to the point of discomfort, I implore you to resolve the situation, either by sitting down with your significant other and hashing things out, or by getting out of the relationship. Like most other personal issues, letting it fester will only make things worse in the long run.
“I didn’t realize that when you’re older, life is different. You see the patterns in your past actions and they can actually trap you in the past because you assume that this is just how your life will always be. Sometimes, you create patterns when they aren’t there, because you’re miserable; you think you must have done something wrong, because you are in so much pain and time is running out and you can see very clearly that there won’t be that many more do-overs in your future. If any.”
Believe it! Life changes as the years pile up. How? As Julie states, the habits we pick up along the way corrupt our minds into thinking that things will ALWAYS be a certain way. You put your head into solitary confinement. You begin to imagine walls that don’t exist in the real world, but they may as well be three feet of concrete. There is no way out, and you see that you alone are responsible for this sentence. The pain in unbearable, but you are too old to get back to “GO” and get your playing piece and starting salary because that salary cannot support the life you have created and someone else has the sporty car or the guy on the horse.
The reality: the resources you need are out there. In fact, the resources you need are IN there, and have been all along! Your mind and heart are two of the most underutilized resources that many of us have. While we don’t consciously think that we have quit on ourselves, we subconsciously have given up. We resign ourselves to the little corner of the world that we currently reside in and the daily schedule that drives many of us insane. Who, exactly, imposed these limits on our lives? We did! We all have advanced degrees in wall building and confinement, of our hearts and minds. We either get comfortable with what we have or consumed by what we want, often because to aspire for more is “too hard” or because what we see our neighbors have or what is marketed on TV is way cooler than what we have. Or because the vacation we can’t afford is deserved. And so on.
Often changes like the ones that Julie went through act as a wake up call. We learn that we have infinite power to become a person other than the one we have been playing in the drama known as life. The car we have is fine. The TV we have is fine. Who are these people I share my life with? There are people who have it worse than I do? I can help them? And I really can have a different job, a different career?
Cars can be repaired. TV’s are used too often. The people you share your life with are your family and friends! They nourish you! You nourish them! You can help those who have less than you have!!! It’s called giving!! Or sharing the love!! Embrace it!! It will make you feel better!!! The knowledge to job change is out there on the Internet, and with personal coaches and with career consultants. In no way do you need to settle for what you have!
You can live a more fulfilling life!!! And it shouldn’t take your life falling completely apart for you to see that!!! You can learn from the experience of others!!!! We can take their wisdom and find a life that satisfies us to our core! It can be heartwarming to help others, and to really know our family members, and to have friends who really care about us!!!! All of these things exist when our hearts and minds are OPEN and ready to share in the abundance we all have inside of us!!!
Until Next Time and Part Two!
Julius
Julie Wainwright had a spectacular public fall. She was the CEO of the Internet start up Pets.com. You may remember the sock puppet that they used in their advertising. Well, remembering the brand may be good, but Pets.com was in business for about a year, Julie was at the helm, and got publicly trashed for some of the moves she made. Mostly for closing down the company while they still had capital. Why would she do that? So she could live with herself! She knew that the business had NO chance to succeed because so many other internet pet companies went online in the same timeframe, and she saw that Pets.com was actually losing money on every transaction. My guess is that many of us would do the same thing and give our investors some of their investment back. But we all have recently seen the logic of Wall Street and the financial markets. Enough said!!!
At virtually the same time as the company was folding, her marriage ended when her husband not only announced that he wanted a divorce, but promptly left their home with all of his possessions. The double whammy was devastating to Julie, and she took some time to think about how her life had gotten to this point. Which gets us to the blog article that inspired this book.
As a part of the healing process, Julie wrote a blog post with the title of this book on her website . In less than a year’s time, nearly 100,000 people had read “The Five Mistakes” blog in over 156 different countries. Truly not what she expected. Many of the readers asked for the material in book form so that they could share it with friends and family. After seeing that the requests were never going to stop, Julie decided to write the book.
It is a revealing work, with Julie reliving much of what she went through and how she got to the places that allowed all of this to happen around her. The key to me is that she knew that she had to move on, pick up the pieces and reinvent herself in order to live with herself. She found that her priorities had been shaped by the needs of those around her, and that she allowed herself to lose touch with…Julie. Life events like the ones she experienced are often quite eye-opening, and having them occur in parallel caused Julie to open not only her eyes, but her brain and heart as well.
In the post to follow this one I will take quotes from Julie’s book and add my spin on her learning. I find that her experiences have great teaching value to me, and I suspect that many others can learn from her insights. I do this split because I know it would get quite long, and I do not want to post the “mother of all posts.” But as a teaser, here are the first couple:
“I had no idea, no real idea that is, that my marriage is over…Still, I don’t really believe it.”
I can relate, as I am currently living the last stages of my marriage being over, the stage involving court personnel. Somehow, you know its over but you just don’t understand its over. I never wanted it to be this way. I never wanted it to end this way. I want to start over. But none of that is going to happen, mostly because the other party has given the marriage many chances before they resort to this ending. We often get out of touch with the “us” because we are so busy doing other things: managing work projects with fierce internal intensity, dodging the bosses latest requests in our minds 24/7, worrying how we are going to have the funds to put the kids through college, worrying how we are going to have the funds to retire, etc. And all of these things can look like selfishness to our significant other, and maybe they are. But for me, they were the response to years of doing for others and going against the grain of what I thought were the right things to do in order to not rock the marital boat. I was cultivating a “joint” approach to problem solving. In my own mind. And it often ran 100% upstream from where my heart told me I should be going. If you EVER feel yourself going against the grain to the point of discomfort, I implore you to resolve the situation, either by sitting down with your significant other and hashing things out, or by getting out of the relationship. Like most other personal issues, letting it fester will only make things worse in the long run.
“I didn’t realize that when you’re older, life is different. You see the patterns in your past actions and they can actually trap you in the past because you assume that this is just how your life will always be. Sometimes, you create patterns when they aren’t there, because you’re miserable; you think you must have done something wrong, because you are in so much pain and time is running out and you can see very clearly that there won’t be that many more do-overs in your future. If any.”
Believe it! Life changes as the years pile up. How? As Julie states, the habits we pick up along the way corrupt our minds into thinking that things will ALWAYS be a certain way. You put your head into solitary confinement. You begin to imagine walls that don’t exist in the real world, but they may as well be three feet of concrete. There is no way out, and you see that you alone are responsible for this sentence. The pain in unbearable, but you are too old to get back to “GO” and get your playing piece and starting salary because that salary cannot support the life you have created and someone else has the sporty car or the guy on the horse.
The reality: the resources you need are out there. In fact, the resources you need are IN there, and have been all along! Your mind and heart are two of the most underutilized resources that many of us have. While we don’t consciously think that we have quit on ourselves, we subconsciously have given up. We resign ourselves to the little corner of the world that we currently reside in and the daily schedule that drives many of us insane. Who, exactly, imposed these limits on our lives? We did! We all have advanced degrees in wall building and confinement, of our hearts and minds. We either get comfortable with what we have or consumed by what we want, often because to aspire for more is “too hard” or because what we see our neighbors have or what is marketed on TV is way cooler than what we have. Or because the vacation we can’t afford is deserved. And so on.
Often changes like the ones that Julie went through act as a wake up call. We learn that we have infinite power to become a person other than the one we have been playing in the drama known as life. The car we have is fine. The TV we have is fine. Who are these people I share my life with? There are people who have it worse than I do? I can help them? And I really can have a different job, a different career?
Cars can be repaired. TV’s are used too often. The people you share your life with are your family and friends! They nourish you! You nourish them! You can help those who have less than you have!!! It’s called giving!! Or sharing the love!! Embrace it!! It will make you feel better!!! The knowledge to job change is out there on the Internet, and with personal coaches and with career consultants. In no way do you need to settle for what you have!
You can live a more fulfilling life!!! And it shouldn’t take your life falling completely apart for you to see that!!! You can learn from the experience of others!!!! We can take their wisdom and find a life that satisfies us to our core! It can be heartwarming to help others, and to really know our family members, and to have friends who really care about us!!!! All of these things exist when our hearts and minds are OPEN and ready to share in the abundance we all have inside of us!!!
Until Next Time and Part Two!
Julius
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Surprised? No. Disappointed? YES!
I was born in raised in Cleveland, Ohio. Yes, the mistake by the lake. Where the river burned. Where the mayor lit his hair on fire. Where the local utility conned us by saying they lit the best location in the nation. So I am not surprised.
I watched Brian Sipe throw that interception on Red Right 88 instead of the touchdown pass or the short run that would have put the Browns into their first Super Bowl. I watched, way too many times now, John Elway take the Broncos 98 yards to snatch away the Browns first Super Bowl. I watched the next year in disbelief as Earnest Byner fumbled as he was entering the end zone and taking the Browns to their first Super Bowl. I had my heart ripped out by Art Modell as the Browns were moved to replace the Colts in the hearts of Baltimore sports fans. And I have watched in agony as the Browns have re-established themselves in the NFL. Tim Couch as their first draft pick. Kellen Winslow's expert motorcycle exploits. Just missing the playoffs. Then trading Winslow barely a month after getting a Winslow jersey last Christmas. So I am not surprised.
I watched the Indians grow strong in the early 1990's after being the inspiration for only the movie “Major League” for decades. The only thing the Indians of my youth were good for was supplying other clubs with All-Stars, Chris Chambliss and Craig Nettles come immediately to mind. Then the best Indians team of my life loses the chance to make the World Series to the only post-season in Major League Baseball history wiped out by a labor dispute. And then there is that World Series where they imploded at the end of game 7. And then modern economics dictated supplying a few more All-Stars to other teams. So I am not surprised.
I watched the Cavaliers begin their history with 15 consecutive losses. They had a few good players, but most of those Cav teams were forgettable. There was the Miracle of Richfield, the distant outpost where they played their games. But that stopped short of the NBA Finals. And then they got Brad Daugherty and Mark Price and Larry Nance. And then there was that shot by some guy named Jordan. Yes, you too have seen it hundreds of times. But wait, we got the King! And LeBron got us to the Finals when we had no business being there. And the Spurs kicked their butts. OK. LeBron will have other chances. Like this year, with the best record in basketball. Two four-and-outs in the first two rounds. Kobe, see you in the Finals!!! Wait, Dwight Howard, you have a team with you? So I am not surprised.
LeBron James left the arena last night in a huff. He was mad. He was disappointed. He did not want to talk to the media. Now I am surprised. And I am very disappointed. He will try to make things right with his friends. He will try to make things right with the media. He will make it right for us fans by being spectacular again next year and raising our hopes. But his actions last night are a foreshadowing. See, LeBron's contract is complete after one more season in Cleveland. He has brought us more joy than we expected, and brought it far sooner than we thought we would enjoy it. He is a once in a generation athlete. And he is all ours. For now. LeBron will go to another team where he will be a multiple championship winner and win a bunch of MVP trophies. The Cavaliers will not be good for a long time. And I will not be surprised. And I will be disappointed.
And I will still have been born and raised in Cleveland. And still waiting for the championship that I can help celebrate. See, I was 4 years old the last time Cleveland hosted a championship team. And I would like to see it again before I pass from this Earth. But I will not be surprised. And I will still be disappointed.
Until Next Time,
Julius
I watched Brian Sipe throw that interception on Red Right 88 instead of the touchdown pass or the short run that would have put the Browns into their first Super Bowl. I watched, way too many times now, John Elway take the Broncos 98 yards to snatch away the Browns first Super Bowl. I watched the next year in disbelief as Earnest Byner fumbled as he was entering the end zone and taking the Browns to their first Super Bowl. I had my heart ripped out by Art Modell as the Browns were moved to replace the Colts in the hearts of Baltimore sports fans. And I have watched in agony as the Browns have re-established themselves in the NFL. Tim Couch as their first draft pick. Kellen Winslow's expert motorcycle exploits. Just missing the playoffs. Then trading Winslow barely a month after getting a Winslow jersey last Christmas. So I am not surprised.
I watched the Indians grow strong in the early 1990's after being the inspiration for only the movie “Major League” for decades. The only thing the Indians of my youth were good for was supplying other clubs with All-Stars, Chris Chambliss and Craig Nettles come immediately to mind. Then the best Indians team of my life loses the chance to make the World Series to the only post-season in Major League Baseball history wiped out by a labor dispute. And then there is that World Series where they imploded at the end of game 7. And then modern economics dictated supplying a few more All-Stars to other teams. So I am not surprised.
I watched the Cavaliers begin their history with 15 consecutive losses. They had a few good players, but most of those Cav teams were forgettable. There was the Miracle of Richfield, the distant outpost where they played their games. But that stopped short of the NBA Finals. And then they got Brad Daugherty and Mark Price and Larry Nance. And then there was that shot by some guy named Jordan. Yes, you too have seen it hundreds of times. But wait, we got the King! And LeBron got us to the Finals when we had no business being there. And the Spurs kicked their butts. OK. LeBron will have other chances. Like this year, with the best record in basketball. Two four-and-outs in the first two rounds. Kobe, see you in the Finals!!! Wait, Dwight Howard, you have a team with you? So I am not surprised.
LeBron James left the arena last night in a huff. He was mad. He was disappointed. He did not want to talk to the media. Now I am surprised. And I am very disappointed. He will try to make things right with his friends. He will try to make things right with the media. He will make it right for us fans by being spectacular again next year and raising our hopes. But his actions last night are a foreshadowing. See, LeBron's contract is complete after one more season in Cleveland. He has brought us more joy than we expected, and brought it far sooner than we thought we would enjoy it. He is a once in a generation athlete. And he is all ours. For now. LeBron will go to another team where he will be a multiple championship winner and win a bunch of MVP trophies. The Cavaliers will not be good for a long time. And I will not be surprised. And I will be disappointed.
And I will still have been born and raised in Cleveland. And still waiting for the championship that I can help celebrate. See, I was 4 years old the last time Cleveland hosted a championship team. And I would like to see it again before I pass from this Earth. But I will not be surprised. And I will still be disappointed.
Until Next Time,
Julius
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
There IS crying…FOR baseball!!!
In deference to the famous line from “A League of Their Own” I am crying for baseball, and I want to find a way to stop my crying and restore some of the respect due America’s game. I believe there is a way to stop major leaguers from taking performance enhancing substances (PES’s), and it needs to be seriously considered before absolutely no one cares about this sport and its rich history.
I loved baseball as a child, even though I grew up in Cleveland, home of Beer Night and inspiration for the film Major League, training ground for countless All-Stars for other teams, and host for the only All-Star game used to restart a season. I could go on, but I shall spare you. I could also list the agony of growing up a Browns fan, but let’s not go there either. I would rather digress to the bigger picture.
Baseball has had its share of labor unrest. Strikes or another form of work stoppage in 1972, 1973, 1976, 1980, 1981, 1985, 1990, and 1994. Yes, those awesome 1994 Indians never had a chance to become world champions because there was no post-season.
Baseball has suffered its share of other, shall we call them, embarrassments. Pete Rose. The home run record races in 1998 (McGuire and Sosa) and 2001 (Bonds) being tainted by PES allegations. The Congressional hearings in March, 2005. Ken Caminitti. Jose Conseco, multiple times. The Mitchell Report. Balco.
While it could be argued that the labor situation needed heroes like Curt Flood, Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally to help establish free agency, it cannot be argued that we needed PES’s to tarnish the game. One can make a case that both of these situations arose from a single human flaw, common to even our current economic disaster: GREED.
Had the owners had a shred of compassion and a sense of fairness for the players, all of the strikes could have been avoided. The players union was formed for the very same reason as all unions were formed: to provide a mechanism to give workers a voice in gaining a fair wage and acceptable working conditions. Had business been a little less greedy, these disputes could have been solved without work stoppages. But many believe that “Greed is good!” Perhaps for the drive it provides in a capitalistic world, but not when it becomes THE single driver of decision making.
Bud Selig. Does anyone else’s name engender such a broad range of negative emotions? This man is being paid over $15 million per year to run Major League Baseball. Why? What is he leaving for the next generation? And we thought that George W. Bush was struggling for a legacy?!?!?! Mr. Selig is not leaving a legacy. He is leaving a tragedy! We all suspected, if not knew, that something was not right when 60 homers were being hit before Labor Day 10 or so years ago. There was proof that the ball was not hot. There was proof that the bats were not hot. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out! But let’s do nothing. Why? The turnstiles were humming!!! Fans were showing up in record numbers!!! Merchandise was moving!!! TV was paying big bucks for Bud’s game!!!
Then it started. The Congressional hearing. Palmeiro. McGuire. Conseco. Sosa forgetting how to speak English. Clemens. And on and on. Now the A-Rod revelations. And most recently Manny. Manny Ramirez. Not our Manny, the disciplined hitting student? Cleveland’s Manny? LA’s Manny? Yes! That Manny!!! Why?
I no longer care why!!! My hopes have been dashed for the last time. My heart has been broken too many times. I pray that the game will be clean someday. Not for me, but for the kids. The generations to come who need to know the intricate dance that is baseball. The strategy. The dance between pitcher and hitter. The reams of records. Which can no longer be compared to today’s statistics. Ooops! Still, there is no other game like it. But what can we do???
I’ll tell you what we can do!!! Remember GREED? That motivator of all men when it comes to financial matters? We need to cure greed! Greed is what makes these guys look for the edge. I have better numbers in my contract year and I get PAID!!! Well, let’s imagine that when you get caught with a positive test for PES’s your salary gets cut by 50%! That’s right, in half! And let’s imagine that in your future contracts, you can make no more than you are making after that 50% cut. Yes, the $2 million man becomes a $1 million man, but not for that year, but for the rest of his career! Will that make these guys think twice about filling the syringe and injecting themselves with this crap? Will that guy hanging on for the minimum salary risk losing half that salary? Seems to me that this has a chance at working. What do you think, Mr. Selig???
It certainly gives us something to think about. All of us who are sitting out here wondering where the next mortgage payment is going to come from because our job was downsized out of existence are thinking: “I wonder if I will ever plunk down my good money to reward a game that has so disappointed me and millions of others. Maybe I’ll get my fix at the local Little League field. What? They play soccer there now?” I wonder why???
Until Next Time!
Julius
I loved baseball as a child, even though I grew up in Cleveland, home of Beer Night and inspiration for the film Major League, training ground for countless All-Stars for other teams, and host for the only All-Star game used to restart a season. I could go on, but I shall spare you. I could also list the agony of growing up a Browns fan, but let’s not go there either. I would rather digress to the bigger picture.
Baseball has had its share of labor unrest. Strikes or another form of work stoppage in 1972, 1973, 1976, 1980, 1981, 1985, 1990, and 1994. Yes, those awesome 1994 Indians never had a chance to become world champions because there was no post-season.
Baseball has suffered its share of other, shall we call them, embarrassments. Pete Rose. The home run record races in 1998 (McGuire and Sosa) and 2001 (Bonds) being tainted by PES allegations. The Congressional hearings in March, 2005. Ken Caminitti. Jose Conseco, multiple times. The Mitchell Report. Balco.
While it could be argued that the labor situation needed heroes like Curt Flood, Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally to help establish free agency, it cannot be argued that we needed PES’s to tarnish the game. One can make a case that both of these situations arose from a single human flaw, common to even our current economic disaster: GREED.
Had the owners had a shred of compassion and a sense of fairness for the players, all of the strikes could have been avoided. The players union was formed for the very same reason as all unions were formed: to provide a mechanism to give workers a voice in gaining a fair wage and acceptable working conditions. Had business been a little less greedy, these disputes could have been solved without work stoppages. But many believe that “Greed is good!” Perhaps for the drive it provides in a capitalistic world, but not when it becomes THE single driver of decision making.
Bud Selig. Does anyone else’s name engender such a broad range of negative emotions? This man is being paid over $15 million per year to run Major League Baseball. Why? What is he leaving for the next generation? And we thought that George W. Bush was struggling for a legacy?!?!?! Mr. Selig is not leaving a legacy. He is leaving a tragedy! We all suspected, if not knew, that something was not right when 60 homers were being hit before Labor Day 10 or so years ago. There was proof that the ball was not hot. There was proof that the bats were not hot. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out! But let’s do nothing. Why? The turnstiles were humming!!! Fans were showing up in record numbers!!! Merchandise was moving!!! TV was paying big bucks for Bud’s game!!!
Then it started. The Congressional hearing. Palmeiro. McGuire. Conseco. Sosa forgetting how to speak English. Clemens. And on and on. Now the A-Rod revelations. And most recently Manny. Manny Ramirez. Not our Manny, the disciplined hitting student? Cleveland’s Manny? LA’s Manny? Yes! That Manny!!! Why?
I no longer care why!!! My hopes have been dashed for the last time. My heart has been broken too many times. I pray that the game will be clean someday. Not for me, but for the kids. The generations to come who need to know the intricate dance that is baseball. The strategy. The dance between pitcher and hitter. The reams of records. Which can no longer be compared to today’s statistics. Ooops! Still, there is no other game like it. But what can we do???
I’ll tell you what we can do!!! Remember GREED? That motivator of all men when it comes to financial matters? We need to cure greed! Greed is what makes these guys look for the edge. I have better numbers in my contract year and I get PAID!!! Well, let’s imagine that when you get caught with a positive test for PES’s your salary gets cut by 50%! That’s right, in half! And let’s imagine that in your future contracts, you can make no more than you are making after that 50% cut. Yes, the $2 million man becomes a $1 million man, but not for that year, but for the rest of his career! Will that make these guys think twice about filling the syringe and injecting themselves with this crap? Will that guy hanging on for the minimum salary risk losing half that salary? Seems to me that this has a chance at working. What do you think, Mr. Selig???
It certainly gives us something to think about. All of us who are sitting out here wondering where the next mortgage payment is going to come from because our job was downsized out of existence are thinking: “I wonder if I will ever plunk down my good money to reward a game that has so disappointed me and millions of others. Maybe I’ll get my fix at the local Little League field. What? They play soccer there now?” I wonder why???
Until Next Time!
Julius
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Love is All That Matters
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…And God created man in his own image…And God blessed them...And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”
Genesis 1: 26-31; American Standard Version (http://www.biblegateway.com)
Shouldn’t that be enough for us to be satisfied? Isn’t that a high enough standard for all of us, that God created us, and that we are very good? Where do so many of us get the idea that we are less than very good? What is the motivation to be less than very good? Near as I can tell this notion that we are less than very good is more destructive than it is motivational.
Somewhere between our birth as totally innocent beings and the moment when we finally believe that we are “very good” we are taught the notion that we are more than some people and less than others. We are more or less intelligent. We are more or less financially secure. We are more or less able to accomplish athletic tasks. We are more or less worthy of the love and respect of others.
Perhaps it is a humanization of Mother Nature’s pecking order. It is well established that among many animal species that live as groups there are identifiable animals that are the leaders, or the “alphas,” and that there are sometimes battles to establish the alpha. Being as we are descendants of the animal kingdom this should not be too surprising. This stratification appears to begin when we are very young, where some children demonstrate abilities that are superior to those of others. Reading ability. Cognitive abilities. Athletic abilities. Leadership abilities. After all, we are each a combination of different slices of genetic code, and there are an infinite number of such combinations. That we all don’t do everything equally well is not surprising.
The striking thing is that beings that were created by a loving God use this natural separation of abilities as the basis for social differentiation. We learn as children to praise and belittle others based on these natural abilities. We are taught to look up to certain people as role models. We are taught to look down upon others as bad examples. We begin to call others names, and then the names get more awful as we hear what adults call each other. So we not only inherit our genetically-granted abilities from our families, but also their standards and biases and prejudices, and their labels. Fat. Stupid. Idiot. Democrat. Republican. And all of the others that my conscious does not allow me to type.
Where is the love? The love that is best taught by the Golden Rule, and other biblical variations upon it:
"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."
John 13:34; American Standard Version (http://www.biblegateway.com)
"The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'…To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
Mark 12:31, 33; American Standard Version (http://www.biblegateway.com)
"No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."
1 John 4:12; American Standard Version (http://www.biblegateway.com)
What do we say about ourselves when we categorize those around us, those we elect to lead us, those who live in foreign lands, those who truly do not know better, with the slurs we learn from adults and the others we hold as leaders? I believe that we are telling ourselves that we do not love ourselves very much; that there are fundamental parts of our being that have not been put into place. And there are plenty of clues that this is the case. Addictive and compulsive behaviors.
At 48 years of age I have finally read and learned enough to know that the compulsions that have manifested themselves inside of me have been driven by low self-esteem, a feeling that I am not good enough, that I need to be more. They are fueled by my inability to solve my need to please other people at my own expense, to compromise to the point of compromising my values and what I know to be right. I have this overwhelming urge to please others as a means to get them to accept me. To love me. Because somewhere along the way I never learned to love myself enough to say “no:” to food, to pleasure, to relaxation, to spending money I didn’t have, to skipping exercise. And based on the obesity epidemic and the scores of those who harbor addictions, I believe that I am not the only one who has been looking for love in all the wrong places.
And where are the right places? In the 21st Century, they are everywhere! There are Internet communities that provide the support needed to help us begin to see that we are not alone, that provide the information to help us make better choices, that provide the fuel to allow us to find the courage to keep seeking answers to our individual questions, and that encourage us to continue to ask ourselves the questions that will teach us what we need to know about ourselves.
And where do you go when you need something real, something not generated by electrons shooting at a computer screen? You go watch the sun rise on a Spring morning. You watch the rejuvenation provided by a Spring rain. You seek the laughter of a child as their parent pushes them on a swing. You seek the crack of a bat at a Little League game, or the celebration after someone scores the winning goal. And you keep seeking these things when you remember those who are less fortunate than us, because it is only us, by finding and sharing the love that God provided in such abundance who can raise them up and let them know that we remember that we are all children of the same world. And all deserving of love from all available sources.
Everything that God creates is very good. His standard is the most important one in our lives. If we can remember that we are very good, and to love ourselves as such, and to share that love as often as we can, then we will begin to right our individual ships, and someday all will be well in the world.
Until Next Time,
Julius
Genesis 1: 26-31; American Standard Version (http://www.biblegateway.com)
Shouldn’t that be enough for us to be satisfied? Isn’t that a high enough standard for all of us, that God created us, and that we are very good? Where do so many of us get the idea that we are less than very good? What is the motivation to be less than very good? Near as I can tell this notion that we are less than very good is more destructive than it is motivational.
Somewhere between our birth as totally innocent beings and the moment when we finally believe that we are “very good” we are taught the notion that we are more than some people and less than others. We are more or less intelligent. We are more or less financially secure. We are more or less able to accomplish athletic tasks. We are more or less worthy of the love and respect of others.
Perhaps it is a humanization of Mother Nature’s pecking order. It is well established that among many animal species that live as groups there are identifiable animals that are the leaders, or the “alphas,” and that there are sometimes battles to establish the alpha. Being as we are descendants of the animal kingdom this should not be too surprising. This stratification appears to begin when we are very young, where some children demonstrate abilities that are superior to those of others. Reading ability. Cognitive abilities. Athletic abilities. Leadership abilities. After all, we are each a combination of different slices of genetic code, and there are an infinite number of such combinations. That we all don’t do everything equally well is not surprising.
The striking thing is that beings that were created by a loving God use this natural separation of abilities as the basis for social differentiation. We learn as children to praise and belittle others based on these natural abilities. We are taught to look up to certain people as role models. We are taught to look down upon others as bad examples. We begin to call others names, and then the names get more awful as we hear what adults call each other. So we not only inherit our genetically-granted abilities from our families, but also their standards and biases and prejudices, and their labels. Fat. Stupid. Idiot. Democrat. Republican. And all of the others that my conscious does not allow me to type.
Where is the love? The love that is best taught by the Golden Rule, and other biblical variations upon it:
"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."
John 13:34; American Standard Version (http://www.biblegateway.com)
"The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'…To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
Mark 12:31, 33; American Standard Version (http://www.biblegateway.com)
"No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."
1 John 4:12; American Standard Version (http://www.biblegateway.com)
What do we say about ourselves when we categorize those around us, those we elect to lead us, those who live in foreign lands, those who truly do not know better, with the slurs we learn from adults and the others we hold as leaders? I believe that we are telling ourselves that we do not love ourselves very much; that there are fundamental parts of our being that have not been put into place. And there are plenty of clues that this is the case. Addictive and compulsive behaviors.
At 48 years of age I have finally read and learned enough to know that the compulsions that have manifested themselves inside of me have been driven by low self-esteem, a feeling that I am not good enough, that I need to be more. They are fueled by my inability to solve my need to please other people at my own expense, to compromise to the point of compromising my values and what I know to be right. I have this overwhelming urge to please others as a means to get them to accept me. To love me. Because somewhere along the way I never learned to love myself enough to say “no:” to food, to pleasure, to relaxation, to spending money I didn’t have, to skipping exercise. And based on the obesity epidemic and the scores of those who harbor addictions, I believe that I am not the only one who has been looking for love in all the wrong places.
And where are the right places? In the 21st Century, they are everywhere! There are Internet communities that provide the support needed to help us begin to see that we are not alone, that provide the information to help us make better choices, that provide the fuel to allow us to find the courage to keep seeking answers to our individual questions, and that encourage us to continue to ask ourselves the questions that will teach us what we need to know about ourselves.
And where do you go when you need something real, something not generated by electrons shooting at a computer screen? You go watch the sun rise on a Spring morning. You watch the rejuvenation provided by a Spring rain. You seek the laughter of a child as their parent pushes them on a swing. You seek the crack of a bat at a Little League game, or the celebration after someone scores the winning goal. And you keep seeking these things when you remember those who are less fortunate than us, because it is only us, by finding and sharing the love that God provided in such abundance who can raise them up and let them know that we remember that we are all children of the same world. And all deserving of love from all available sources.
Everything that God creates is very good. His standard is the most important one in our lives. If we can remember that we are very good, and to love ourselves as such, and to share that love as often as we can, then we will begin to right our individual ships, and someday all will be well in the world.
Until Next Time,
Julius
Friday, May 22, 2009
What is Marriage Supposed To Be?
The upcoming formal end of my marriage has had me going through the classic stages of loss and grieving, and doing a lot of thinking about what went wrong. Then today I come across a post on a personal improvement website that I frequent about a member who was chucking it all because his wife didn’t like the time he spent there. Prior to dispensing any words of wisdom, I found a subsequent post that he and his wife were back, and it brought back some old memories from my marriage.
Not having been in any serious relationships prior to meeting my wife probably left me naïve as to the interpersonal skills needed to negotiate such a committed relationship. I learned much more about myself over the last 17 years than I did about my wife, and it is going to change the way I behave as I move forward in the world. The way I behave as a single person, and the way I behave if I ever have another significant other, which right now is the last thing I want! It’s not that it was so bad, or has to be bad, it’s that I have a lot of work to do to get me where I need to be for the 5 children that I now have to father from a distance, and where I need to get to in order to be the me I want the world to get to know.
Let me start here: I believe that marriage is not so much a dedication to each other, but a commitment to the shared person that marriage creates, a celebration of the yin and the yang, the creation of a complete being who is more than the simple sum of the two people being joined. There does need to be a realization by both parties that each participant is a person, with characteristics and flaws that make them the individual they are, the person who attracted the other. And each person has thoughts, and feelings, and history, and friends, and likes, and dislikes, and so on, that are uniquely theirs. And the complete being formed through marriage must respect, if not embrace, these traits as just as important as those of the shared person. If either party’s characteristics become more important than the other, many negative feelings will be generated, and the union will suffer.
How do I know? I lived it. Not that I was the perfect partner. Not that I will ever be the perfect partner. That being said, I do have a concept of what unconditional love is, and it is what I tried to practice over the past 17 years of my life, and always will. A part of me still loves my wife and always will. I accept her flaws and her history and her misgivings about what she did before I met her just as I accepted all of her positives. And there are many times that I do not know how I will live without her. There are also the times I resent her for asking me to give up friends she didn’t like, female associates that she was suspicious of, interests that didn’t mesh well with hers, telling me what was wrong with my family and my upbringing, and my point of view, and my questions. And I get angry at myself for doing all of those things, and more, that were inconsistent with who I was, who I am, what I wanted my shared life to be about, where I wanted to go with her by my side. Places I will have to go alone, or with someone else. And I will probably think of her, at least once in a while.
I have a sense that many a divorced person could have written the previous words. Why do so many people expect their significant others to give up their lives so completely in order to have a shared life in their personal vision? Why are so many so willing to give up everything they have become through their own trials and tribulations? Are we all so scared to be alone? Are we really that conflict averse? Are we afraid of what a true sharing of ideals and values and thoughts can give us? Or the benefits of a little arguing? Do so few of us see this model in our parents that we do not know how to gain it for ourselves? And what does this kind of relationship teach our children? What hope can we have for them to have more fulfilling relationships when all they see is one or the other partner sacrifice so much to keep the other partner “happy?” How does one break this cycle and allow their children to have better relationships than they have had?
I am a chemist by training, so the following excursion into genetics will be with some trepidation, but here goes: I think that the whole idea of hybrids in genetics is to take the desirable properties of one seed line and merge it with the desired characteristics of another to produce better fruit than either of the original seed lines. Many of these experiments don’t work out, but many do. Is there a way of teaching our children that marriage is much like the desirable hybrid, where the two sets of characteristics are merged to produce a superior relationship? We as people should never compromise everything that makes us unique, but we do need to be prepared to give up that part of ourselves that would compromise the union we so desperately crave. There is a humility, an openness, a vulnerability that two people share to become an example to their children. The intimacy that is created when everything is right is the sacred union that is the quest of each of us. It is nirvana, heaven on earth.
Then why do so many of us choose to impose our individual personal hells on one another in the name of marriage? How do we learn to play nice and not just pick up our ball and run away? That, I believe, is one of the secrets of life that not many of us ever get to experience. For when we do have it, maybe we won’t know what else to seek. Living in nirvana is a problem I would love to have.
Until Next Time,
Julius
Not having been in any serious relationships prior to meeting my wife probably left me naïve as to the interpersonal skills needed to negotiate such a committed relationship. I learned much more about myself over the last 17 years than I did about my wife, and it is going to change the way I behave as I move forward in the world. The way I behave as a single person, and the way I behave if I ever have another significant other, which right now is the last thing I want! It’s not that it was so bad, or has to be bad, it’s that I have a lot of work to do to get me where I need to be for the 5 children that I now have to father from a distance, and where I need to get to in order to be the me I want the world to get to know.
Let me start here: I believe that marriage is not so much a dedication to each other, but a commitment to the shared person that marriage creates, a celebration of the yin and the yang, the creation of a complete being who is more than the simple sum of the two people being joined. There does need to be a realization by both parties that each participant is a person, with characteristics and flaws that make them the individual they are, the person who attracted the other. And each person has thoughts, and feelings, and history, and friends, and likes, and dislikes, and so on, that are uniquely theirs. And the complete being formed through marriage must respect, if not embrace, these traits as just as important as those of the shared person. If either party’s characteristics become more important than the other, many negative feelings will be generated, and the union will suffer.
How do I know? I lived it. Not that I was the perfect partner. Not that I will ever be the perfect partner. That being said, I do have a concept of what unconditional love is, and it is what I tried to practice over the past 17 years of my life, and always will. A part of me still loves my wife and always will. I accept her flaws and her history and her misgivings about what she did before I met her just as I accepted all of her positives. And there are many times that I do not know how I will live without her. There are also the times I resent her for asking me to give up friends she didn’t like, female associates that she was suspicious of, interests that didn’t mesh well with hers, telling me what was wrong with my family and my upbringing, and my point of view, and my questions. And I get angry at myself for doing all of those things, and more, that were inconsistent with who I was, who I am, what I wanted my shared life to be about, where I wanted to go with her by my side. Places I will have to go alone, or with someone else. And I will probably think of her, at least once in a while.
I have a sense that many a divorced person could have written the previous words. Why do so many people expect their significant others to give up their lives so completely in order to have a shared life in their personal vision? Why are so many so willing to give up everything they have become through their own trials and tribulations? Are we all so scared to be alone? Are we really that conflict averse? Are we afraid of what a true sharing of ideals and values and thoughts can give us? Or the benefits of a little arguing? Do so few of us see this model in our parents that we do not know how to gain it for ourselves? And what does this kind of relationship teach our children? What hope can we have for them to have more fulfilling relationships when all they see is one or the other partner sacrifice so much to keep the other partner “happy?” How does one break this cycle and allow their children to have better relationships than they have had?
I am a chemist by training, so the following excursion into genetics will be with some trepidation, but here goes: I think that the whole idea of hybrids in genetics is to take the desirable properties of one seed line and merge it with the desired characteristics of another to produce better fruit than either of the original seed lines. Many of these experiments don’t work out, but many do. Is there a way of teaching our children that marriage is much like the desirable hybrid, where the two sets of characteristics are merged to produce a superior relationship? We as people should never compromise everything that makes us unique, but we do need to be prepared to give up that part of ourselves that would compromise the union we so desperately crave. There is a humility, an openness, a vulnerability that two people share to become an example to their children. The intimacy that is created when everything is right is the sacred union that is the quest of each of us. It is nirvana, heaven on earth.
Then why do so many of us choose to impose our individual personal hells on one another in the name of marriage? How do we learn to play nice and not just pick up our ball and run away? That, I believe, is one of the secrets of life that not many of us ever get to experience. For when we do have it, maybe we won’t know what else to seek. Living in nirvana is a problem I would love to have.
Until Next Time,
Julius
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Passing the Burden Along
Several years ago there was a trend in American business where companies were bought out, hacked up, and resold. The Leveraged Buy Out (LBO) affected thousands of companies, and I dare say in a less than positive fashion. Additionally, I worked for a company that bought and sold itself several times by first going public, then returning to private status, and doing the cycle more than once. The net effect of these maneuvers was to run up incredible debt in these companies without having anything tangible to show for it. Debt that is making them do things that they would rather not do, like have cascading waves of downsizings to get through the “recession” while sacrificing their efforts on future products.
Why bring this up? Because I am getting tired of reading posts online that are simply crucifying the new administration in Washington for the economic policies they are putting in place. They have been in office just over 100 days! They really didn’t do much to create the mess they are trying to fix! The last two months of the Bush administration were spent watching the economic flames get bigger and bigger while they tried to figure out how to avoid the world finding out about “our” torture policies. And there were warning signs that many ignored.
The current mess was not created in a day, but sure needs to be fixed quickly. There are many who feel that we should just let the banks and automakers go under and move on. That is a strategy, I suppose, but where will the unemployment end? I believe that if unemployment soars to 25% we will be rooted to this spot in our economic history for at least a decade, and an entire generation will be lost. Think this is crazy? Check out what happened in Great Britain a generation ago! They have an entire generation of folks who couldn’t find work and it did not help that country prosper. It was painful.
Unlike many of the programs our federal government has undertaken, getting the economy back on its feet quickly is one of the primary services the federal government SHOULD undertake. Its function is to provide the infrastructure and economic base for business to flourish. Many of our entitlements probably should have never been implemented in the first place, but, in my opinion, had to be because greed got in the way. The greed of the American populace to have more and more. The greed of business to sell more and more. The greed of those same businesses to be more and more profitable, yet give less and less to those who did the work to generate the profits. This greed is why unions were needed in the first place, to stem the tide of the mass exploitation of the American worker.
And the mortgage/credit crisis of 2008 was inevitable. Home prices had to go up quickly to support the risks being taken by the gang on Wall Street. The house of cards had to fall because incomes were not going up as quickly, unless, of course, you were an executive or actually worked on Wall Street! Those incomes were soaring!!! Did they think that the rest of us were enjoying the same spoils of American prosperity? In fact, they knew that we weren’t because they were cooking the books and signing the checks!
In reality, what these clowns have done is a huge LBO of the entire country! They have extracted huge sums of money from the collective bank account and placed it into theirs. And just like the companies that ran up massive debt through the acquisition of absolutely nothing, the country has run up a massive debt through the acquisition of absolutely nothing. AND, just like these companies, the people of the United States are going to have to gradually pay down the debt over MANY years of hard work and focused spending control. The hard work will be done because it’s what Americans have done since we launched our country. Spending control? I do not have high hopes; think about who controls spending in Washington. The saving grace may be that we are going to be so far in debt that other countries will not loan us anymore. We can only hope! Ironic, but this is what happens when you or I get too far in debt and cannot pay our bills. What will happen when the Chinese decide to foreclose on America???
In getting back to my original distain for those railing against the new administration, I have a question: What are we supposed to do now? Where are their solutions? If the economy is in a tailspin with unemployment at 10-12%, can you imagine how much tax revenue we could generate at 25%? And how many goods would be flying off of the shelves at Wal-Mart? And how many retirement accounts would support retirement then? And how many more homes would be in foreclosure? And how many of those homes would be in the neighborhoods of those who instigated this mess? Far too few!!! But they are still raking in the bucks. They do not need to shop at Wal-Mart. They are keeping Tiffany’s and Bloomingdale’s in business! And their kids will have all of their bonus money to support their lifestyle and their families. I thought that the American dream was that we all could have this. I didn’t realize that I had to sell my soul to get this benefit.
And finally, I am seriously praying for the next two generations, and I recommend that you do too. We are saddling them with a tremendous burden, and they are going to need “real” help to get through the pile of bills we are leaving for them. One burden that our generation needs to consider taking on is improving the education system. Why? Because a wise man named Einstein once waxed that you cannot solve tomorrow’s problems using the same thinking that created them. And it looks like the wizards of Wall Street have given us the ultimate proof of his hypothesis!
Until Next Time!
Julius
Why bring this up? Because I am getting tired of reading posts online that are simply crucifying the new administration in Washington for the economic policies they are putting in place. They have been in office just over 100 days! They really didn’t do much to create the mess they are trying to fix! The last two months of the Bush administration were spent watching the economic flames get bigger and bigger while they tried to figure out how to avoid the world finding out about “our” torture policies. And there were warning signs that many ignored.
The current mess was not created in a day, but sure needs to be fixed quickly. There are many who feel that we should just let the banks and automakers go under and move on. That is a strategy, I suppose, but where will the unemployment end? I believe that if unemployment soars to 25% we will be rooted to this spot in our economic history for at least a decade, and an entire generation will be lost. Think this is crazy? Check out what happened in Great Britain a generation ago! They have an entire generation of folks who couldn’t find work and it did not help that country prosper. It was painful.
Unlike many of the programs our federal government has undertaken, getting the economy back on its feet quickly is one of the primary services the federal government SHOULD undertake. Its function is to provide the infrastructure and economic base for business to flourish. Many of our entitlements probably should have never been implemented in the first place, but, in my opinion, had to be because greed got in the way. The greed of the American populace to have more and more. The greed of business to sell more and more. The greed of those same businesses to be more and more profitable, yet give less and less to those who did the work to generate the profits. This greed is why unions were needed in the first place, to stem the tide of the mass exploitation of the American worker.
And the mortgage/credit crisis of 2008 was inevitable. Home prices had to go up quickly to support the risks being taken by the gang on Wall Street. The house of cards had to fall because incomes were not going up as quickly, unless, of course, you were an executive or actually worked on Wall Street! Those incomes were soaring!!! Did they think that the rest of us were enjoying the same spoils of American prosperity? In fact, they knew that we weren’t because they were cooking the books and signing the checks!
In reality, what these clowns have done is a huge LBO of the entire country! They have extracted huge sums of money from the collective bank account and placed it into theirs. And just like the companies that ran up massive debt through the acquisition of absolutely nothing, the country has run up a massive debt through the acquisition of absolutely nothing. AND, just like these companies, the people of the United States are going to have to gradually pay down the debt over MANY years of hard work and focused spending control. The hard work will be done because it’s what Americans have done since we launched our country. Spending control? I do not have high hopes; think about who controls spending in Washington. The saving grace may be that we are going to be so far in debt that other countries will not loan us anymore. We can only hope! Ironic, but this is what happens when you or I get too far in debt and cannot pay our bills. What will happen when the Chinese decide to foreclose on America???
In getting back to my original distain for those railing against the new administration, I have a question: What are we supposed to do now? Where are their solutions? If the economy is in a tailspin with unemployment at 10-12%, can you imagine how much tax revenue we could generate at 25%? And how many goods would be flying off of the shelves at Wal-Mart? And how many retirement accounts would support retirement then? And how many more homes would be in foreclosure? And how many of those homes would be in the neighborhoods of those who instigated this mess? Far too few!!! But they are still raking in the bucks. They do not need to shop at Wal-Mart. They are keeping Tiffany’s and Bloomingdale’s in business! And their kids will have all of their bonus money to support their lifestyle and their families. I thought that the American dream was that we all could have this. I didn’t realize that I had to sell my soul to get this benefit.
And finally, I am seriously praying for the next two generations, and I recommend that you do too. We are saddling them with a tremendous burden, and they are going to need “real” help to get through the pile of bills we are leaving for them. One burden that our generation needs to consider taking on is improving the education system. Why? Because a wise man named Einstein once waxed that you cannot solve tomorrow’s problems using the same thinking that created them. And it looks like the wizards of Wall Street have given us the ultimate proof of his hypothesis!
Until Next Time!
Julius
Thursday, April 30, 2009
A-Rod, Bonds and Truth Squads
At some point in the life of our five children I came up with a wonderful idea: the Truth Squad. When something went wrong around the house, seemingly every day, none of our children would admit to the wrongdoing. Rather than yell and scream and threaten and listen to them blame each other, the truth squad was born. I had them line up and put their arms straight out from their sides and hold them there until one of them came clean with the truth. Simple and quite effective! Other parents have rolled in laughter when I shared the concept with them!!!
This latest round of outrage from the upcoming A-Rod book by Selena Roberts got me to thinking about truth squads and several other things. First off, in my mind A-Rod is now the poster child for the abolition of guaranteed contracts in professional sports. Of course, neither the Yankees nor the commissioner’s office will invoke any type of morals clause and void the contract, nor will they say anything about the situation because legally they cannot. Too bad. His story is just an extension of the Barry Bonds saga from the last few years. And neither one of them will EVER need to worry about making hotel reservations in Cooperstown, New York.
Aside from the personal harm these, and countless other, nitwits have done to their bodies, they have the accomplishment of teaching an entire generation of children that cheating is OK, and if you get caught just put up enough parameters around the incidents that you become a sympathetic figure. Bonds didn’t know what he was using. Right! I worry how much harm 1000 milliigram doses of ibuprofen will do to my kidneys, and I do not have a multimillion dollar career at stake. I’m sure that he had absolutely no knowledge as to the content of the “clear” and the “cream”. Sure! A-Rod only did illegal substances while with the Rangers. Right! A $252-million dollar contract and his follow-up deal in New York put no additional pressure on him to hit 40-plus home runs a year. And the entire book has not been released yet. Next week will be a fun one for A-Rod. Perhaps he can rehab in Siberia or Antarctica! Or with Osama bin Laden, wherever he is!!!
There are some lessons from my kids’ truth squads that also come into play here. First, the truth can save you a lot of trouble. Admitting that you have screwed up usually puts an end to the problem, and healing can begin. Had these morons admitted their substance abuse up front they might some day need reservations in Cooperstown. They may have also put aside some of the legal issues that are mounting daily. But coming clean may have implicated many other players. So what! Every major leaguer has been implicated by association, the juicers and the non-juicers. Do any of us trust any of them? I know that I don’t. And where is the leadership on this issue from the commissioner’s office? Sorry, I dared think of baseball’s commissioner and leadership in the same sentence. My bad. I lived a half hour from Miller Park on that evening when Bud just threw his hands up and declared the All-Star game a tie. I forgot.
The other point that several of our kids still do not understand is that lying just makes things worse. Cover-ups may have worked for the CIA of J. Edgar Hoover, but in the 21st Century everyone has information about someone else that they are dying to share or sell. Are there any secrets anymore? Not if you are pulling down millions of Benjamins a year!!! Knocking the rich and famous down is becoming the favorite American pastime, ironically enough supplanting baseball!!! How do these guys think they are going to get away with all of this? Maybe they don’t, or can’t, read? Or watch TV? Or talk to other people? Inconceivable!!!
Finally, to Mr. Selig: just give up the ghost. Come out and admit that you and your owner friends allowed all of this to happen on your watch, and that you screwed up! You went for the dollars and sold out every clean former and current major leaguer. You sold the record book and the history of the game for personal gain. Let’s just call the last 20 years “The Steroid Era,” a parallel of the “dead” ball era, and move forward. In fact, until we can reliably test for HGH, let’s just admit that we still have players who are injecting themselves with performance enhancing substances, and keep the “steroid” era active. The records from this era will be suspect whether we do this or not. Hall of Fame selection will be based solely on who dominated their eras, and comparisons to historical numbers will be totally meaningless. After all, wouldn’t we all rather remember the summer of McGuire and Sosa for the joy it was rather than as a sad reminder of what baseball’s leadership allowed to happen to “save” their game?
It’s either that, or every major league player can line up for a truth squad. I will run that. I have leadership experience in the truth squads of children.
Until Next Time!
Julius
This latest round of outrage from the upcoming A-Rod book by Selena Roberts got me to thinking about truth squads and several other things. First off, in my mind A-Rod is now the poster child for the abolition of guaranteed contracts in professional sports. Of course, neither the Yankees nor the commissioner’s office will invoke any type of morals clause and void the contract, nor will they say anything about the situation because legally they cannot. Too bad. His story is just an extension of the Barry Bonds saga from the last few years. And neither one of them will EVER need to worry about making hotel reservations in Cooperstown, New York.
Aside from the personal harm these, and countless other, nitwits have done to their bodies, they have the accomplishment of teaching an entire generation of children that cheating is OK, and if you get caught just put up enough parameters around the incidents that you become a sympathetic figure. Bonds didn’t know what he was using. Right! I worry how much harm 1000 milliigram doses of ibuprofen will do to my kidneys, and I do not have a multimillion dollar career at stake. I’m sure that he had absolutely no knowledge as to the content of the “clear” and the “cream”. Sure! A-Rod only did illegal substances while with the Rangers. Right! A $252-million dollar contract and his follow-up deal in New York put no additional pressure on him to hit 40-plus home runs a year. And the entire book has not been released yet. Next week will be a fun one for A-Rod. Perhaps he can rehab in Siberia or Antarctica! Or with Osama bin Laden, wherever he is!!!
There are some lessons from my kids’ truth squads that also come into play here. First, the truth can save you a lot of trouble. Admitting that you have screwed up usually puts an end to the problem, and healing can begin. Had these morons admitted their substance abuse up front they might some day need reservations in Cooperstown. They may have also put aside some of the legal issues that are mounting daily. But coming clean may have implicated many other players. So what! Every major leaguer has been implicated by association, the juicers and the non-juicers. Do any of us trust any of them? I know that I don’t. And where is the leadership on this issue from the commissioner’s office? Sorry, I dared think of baseball’s commissioner and leadership in the same sentence. My bad. I lived a half hour from Miller Park on that evening when Bud just threw his hands up and declared the All-Star game a tie. I forgot.
The other point that several of our kids still do not understand is that lying just makes things worse. Cover-ups may have worked for the CIA of J. Edgar Hoover, but in the 21st Century everyone has information about someone else that they are dying to share or sell. Are there any secrets anymore? Not if you are pulling down millions of Benjamins a year!!! Knocking the rich and famous down is becoming the favorite American pastime, ironically enough supplanting baseball!!! How do these guys think they are going to get away with all of this? Maybe they don’t, or can’t, read? Or watch TV? Or talk to other people? Inconceivable!!!
Finally, to Mr. Selig: just give up the ghost. Come out and admit that you and your owner friends allowed all of this to happen on your watch, and that you screwed up! You went for the dollars and sold out every clean former and current major leaguer. You sold the record book and the history of the game for personal gain. Let’s just call the last 20 years “The Steroid Era,” a parallel of the “dead” ball era, and move forward. In fact, until we can reliably test for HGH, let’s just admit that we still have players who are injecting themselves with performance enhancing substances, and keep the “steroid” era active. The records from this era will be suspect whether we do this or not. Hall of Fame selection will be based solely on who dominated their eras, and comparisons to historical numbers will be totally meaningless. After all, wouldn’t we all rather remember the summer of McGuire and Sosa for the joy it was rather than as a sad reminder of what baseball’s leadership allowed to happen to “save” their game?
It’s either that, or every major league player can line up for a truth squad. I will run that. I have leadership experience in the truth squads of children.
Until Next Time!
Julius
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
The Mess of Prosecuting Those Who Tortured
There is much current debate over the possible prosecution of US military and government personnel who have tortured those captured in the name of 9/11. There are many layers to this discussion, and some lessons to be learned from history.
Never having been a soldier myself, nor trained in any kind of military or clandestine operation, my understanding of the chain of command is strictly a civilian one. I would imagine that when someone is trained in such a field, they are trained to carry out orders, and to question those orders would lead to consequences that would be rather harsh. Walking the plank? No, but a few months of solitary confinement in a military jail is not my idea of fun either. How do we train our fighting force? Are they allowed to question direct orders? Are they given a moral code that they are supposed to stay in compliance with? Are they allowed to object to an order on ethical rationale? Somehow, I doubt that they have such freedom.
On the next level, I am sure that those administering torture over the past 5 years were not the first line fighting force. They were probably of very high rank or highly ranked civilians, and were probably well trained in the techniques they administered, as perverted as that sounds. My point is that they should have known while they were being educated that such techniques were against every international code of law currently in existence. Seems that they could have objected before the prisoners were brought into the “chamber” for a session. But again, what would have been their “punishment” for not following through on direct commands?
There is a drama being played out in my birthplace of Cleveland, Ohio that is somewhat relevant to this discussion. John Demjanjuk is believed to have been a Nazi Death Camp guard during World War II. Mr. Demjanjuk has been pursued since I was a child, and has stood trial in Israel for his crimes, found guilty, and then had the verdict overturned. He is currently the subject of another round of litigation to have him deported and stand trial in Germany. He has lived in the United States for over 60 years, has paid taxes and been a law-abiding citizen. No one accuses him of any wrongdoing after the end of the war. If Mr. Demjanjuk did commit war crimes, was he not choosing to follow orders rather than suffer his own death? Would his death at the hands of his superiors have saved even one life in the death camps? Doubtful.
Ultimately, the people who authorized and allowed these atrocious acts to happen are the ones to be prosecuted. Yes, the ones at the highest levels of our government. There is plenty of evidence that torture does not return reliable information. Who among us would not say just about anything necessary to make the torture stop? And indeed, we have known this for many years. But we let our zeal to crush the terrorists override the standards and values of the United States of America. Much like the people of Germany allowed a madman to override their standards and to kill millions of Jews in their zeal to find someone to blame for their woes.
Like in many other parts of life, leadership is accountable for what happens on their watch. It leads one to wonder if anyone was watching when all of this was allowed to happen.
Until Next Time!
Julius
Never having been a soldier myself, nor trained in any kind of military or clandestine operation, my understanding of the chain of command is strictly a civilian one. I would imagine that when someone is trained in such a field, they are trained to carry out orders, and to question those orders would lead to consequences that would be rather harsh. Walking the plank? No, but a few months of solitary confinement in a military jail is not my idea of fun either. How do we train our fighting force? Are they allowed to question direct orders? Are they given a moral code that they are supposed to stay in compliance with? Are they allowed to object to an order on ethical rationale? Somehow, I doubt that they have such freedom.
On the next level, I am sure that those administering torture over the past 5 years were not the first line fighting force. They were probably of very high rank or highly ranked civilians, and were probably well trained in the techniques they administered, as perverted as that sounds. My point is that they should have known while they were being educated that such techniques were against every international code of law currently in existence. Seems that they could have objected before the prisoners were brought into the “chamber” for a session. But again, what would have been their “punishment” for not following through on direct commands?
There is a drama being played out in my birthplace of Cleveland, Ohio that is somewhat relevant to this discussion. John Demjanjuk is believed to have been a Nazi Death Camp guard during World War II. Mr. Demjanjuk has been pursued since I was a child, and has stood trial in Israel for his crimes, found guilty, and then had the verdict overturned. He is currently the subject of another round of litigation to have him deported and stand trial in Germany. He has lived in the United States for over 60 years, has paid taxes and been a law-abiding citizen. No one accuses him of any wrongdoing after the end of the war. If Mr. Demjanjuk did commit war crimes, was he not choosing to follow orders rather than suffer his own death? Would his death at the hands of his superiors have saved even one life in the death camps? Doubtful.
Ultimately, the people who authorized and allowed these atrocious acts to happen are the ones to be prosecuted. Yes, the ones at the highest levels of our government. There is plenty of evidence that torture does not return reliable information. Who among us would not say just about anything necessary to make the torture stop? And indeed, we have known this for many years. But we let our zeal to crush the terrorists override the standards and values of the United States of America. Much like the people of Germany allowed a madman to override their standards and to kill millions of Jews in their zeal to find someone to blame for their woes.
Like in many other parts of life, leadership is accountable for what happens on their watch. It leads one to wonder if anyone was watching when all of this was allowed to happen.
Until Next Time!
Julius
Friday, April 24, 2009
Love Cures The Evils of Our Ego
"Criticism is often not so much about our achievements as it is an expression of the speaker’s perceived inferiority."
The speaker of the above statement is my counselor who has been such for over a year. I have learned a lot from him, and discovered even more about myself. He has had the thought above for some time, and shared it with me in a recent session. I happen to think he is right, although I would never had said it so, well, bluntly, but that is why I like him so much! The question it begs is “Why do we have such a need to feel superior to others?”
Many years ago I heard someone verbalize the thought that when people complain about you they are really complaining about themselves. It’s called projection. Example: “you are selfish” isn’t so much that the target is selfish, but that the speaker is selfish, and perhaps do not like that they are selfish. I have encountered many who say these sorts of things, and found that indeed they are usually commenting more on themselves than the subject of the moment. I find myself making these sorts of statements much less often than those around me, and wondered if I didn’t do it because I didn’t want to publically comment on myself or others. I have come to the conclusion that I am just far less judgmental than many and less extroverted (and vocal) than most, borne out by my INFP Myers-Briggs type.
Why are we so competitive? Why do we need so much to win in interpersonal situations? Why do we need to feel superior to those around us? My position for today is that the ego is the bad guy here, the ego as presented by Marianne Williamson in “A Return to Love” and subsequent books. Some excerpts:
“…ego…as the ancient Greeks used it – as the notion of a small, separated self. It is a false belief about ourselves, a lie about who and what we really are.”
“The ego is our self-love turned into self-hatred.”
“The ego…draws us away from the love in our hearts. The ego is our mental power turned against ourselves…it proceeds to counsel us to look out for ourselves, at the expense of others. It teaches us selfishness, greed, judgment and small-mindedness.”
Ms. Williamson’s teaching is that love is the one thing that every human being is born with, and that fear is it’s polar opposite, and fear is completely learned during our life experiences. It’s a powerful tool in the upbringing of many. It helps to provide boundaries. We “imagine” many things that we are afraid of, “borrowing trouble”, and very few of them come to fruition. If we believe the teachings of the Law of Attraction (LOA) community, then we attract that which we think and believe, ergo the manifestation of at least a fraction of our fears. Would it not be better to focus on the love in our hearts, the possibilities it can bring forth, and manifest love rather than imagined situations?
The other connection between Ms. Williamson’s teachings and the developing LOA beliefs is centered on energy. In Ms. Williamson’s world, love isn’t material, but rather energy. Recent teachings from John Assaraf, in his book “The Answer,” relate “energy” as the thing that differentiates one state from the other. For example, the protons, neutrons and electrons that make up all matter are the same particles. Why have some particles combined to become water atoms, others to become gold atoms, and so on? The current theory of quantum physics is that the energy at the moment of conception drove the distinction, and that energy can be controlled by our thoughts. It is how “thoughts become things.” Therefore, love being energy and energy being the key to attraction, it makes complete sense to me that by sharing our love inwardly and outwardly we can attract the kind of life that we want for ourselves and those around us in the world. And, following Ms. Williamson’s advice, by outwardly sharing our love we can impact the course of the world and move it to a better, more positive and less fearful place.
Remembering the adage that “FEAR=False Expectations Appearing Real” reminds us that we can actually make our fears real if we dwell on them and give them the energy of the ego. By releasing our fears and letting our love shine through, we can make our lives better, stronger, and more productive while spending (or wasting) less time inventing situations that could go wrong, but rarely do.
Until Next Time,
Julius
Friday, April 10, 2009
Love and Sex: A Wisdom of Age Position…
Many years ago there was an installment of Dear Abby’s advice column that used equations to relate love and sex. In a nutshell, she made the point that love without sex does not equal zero. She, of course, is right, but there is so much more to consider. I have done a lot of reading lately of the works of Marianne Williamson, and that reading has inspired the following thesis:
The most basic equations on this topic are the following:
SEX = LOVE
LOVE = SEX
which are rigorously the same equation, but I have a reason for listing them both. Clearly, even a semi-enlightened person would agree that these equations are false. There is no direct relationship, particularly in today’s world between these two concepts. You can clearly have love without sex and vice versa. That would mean that the following equations are also incorrect:
SEX – LOVE = 0
LOVE – SEX = 0
So, if we accept that these equations are both incorrect, then either love or sex must have a greater value than the other. The complicating factor is that the determination of which is greater is completely dependent on the individual and their place in their life. Consider the range of possibilities for the first equation:
SEX – LOVE = [PLEASURE, NEEDINESS, MANIPULATION, CODEPENDENCY, RELEASE]
and a whole host of other possibilities (feel free to expand in the comments section below). If we believe in God, we believe that we were given free will, and the ability to have sex is a wonderful expression of our free will. Unfortunately, we may have used sex for the purposes listed above and many that I have not listed. The issue, as I see it, is that sex without love can be destructive. There are many implications for a dysfunctional relationship, and the added risk of an unplanned pregnancy. In fact, I would propose that we can lump “sex without love” in with a lot of other vices of today’s world that, when indulged to excess, are counterproductive. And I am thinking of food, alcohol, drugs, and any other means we have of dulling our senses to get through the day.
On the other hand:
LOVE – SEX = [HEALTHY, GLOBAL, HONORING OF GOD, FOR THE WHOLE HUMAN RACE]
and again, a whole host of other possibilities (and again, feel free to expand in the comments section below). The writings of Marianne Williamson teach that love is the manifestation of God that exists in each and every one of his creations, and if you are reading this that includes you! Sharing the love we have in our hearts allows us to expand our influence on the world, and helps bring people together for the common good. Love is the one universal concept, the one universal language that can stop the madness in today’s world and move us to a higher plane of cooperation.
That being said, I propose that the correct equation is:
LOVE >>>>>>>>>>>>> SEX
meaning that love is much greater than sex, and sharing that love improves the odds that you can change your life and bring yourself closer to your full potential. Find a way to share your love, and you can be happy! Find a way to have a career sharing your love, and you will never work another day in your life!!! And love is one of those rare things in our world that are truly multiplied when we share it with others!!!!
Until Next Time!
Julius
The most basic equations on this topic are the following:
SEX = LOVE
LOVE = SEX
which are rigorously the same equation, but I have a reason for listing them both. Clearly, even a semi-enlightened person would agree that these equations are false. There is no direct relationship, particularly in today’s world between these two concepts. You can clearly have love without sex and vice versa. That would mean that the following equations are also incorrect:
SEX – LOVE = 0
LOVE – SEX = 0
So, if we accept that these equations are both incorrect, then either love or sex must have a greater value than the other. The complicating factor is that the determination of which is greater is completely dependent on the individual and their place in their life. Consider the range of possibilities for the first equation:
SEX – LOVE = [PLEASURE, NEEDINESS, MANIPULATION, CODEPENDENCY, RELEASE]
and a whole host of other possibilities (feel free to expand in the comments section below). If we believe in God, we believe that we were given free will, and the ability to have sex is a wonderful expression of our free will. Unfortunately, we may have used sex for the purposes listed above and many that I have not listed. The issue, as I see it, is that sex without love can be destructive. There are many implications for a dysfunctional relationship, and the added risk of an unplanned pregnancy. In fact, I would propose that we can lump “sex without love” in with a lot of other vices of today’s world that, when indulged to excess, are counterproductive. And I am thinking of food, alcohol, drugs, and any other means we have of dulling our senses to get through the day.
On the other hand:
LOVE – SEX = [HEALTHY, GLOBAL, HONORING OF GOD, FOR THE WHOLE HUMAN RACE]
and again, a whole host of other possibilities (and again, feel free to expand in the comments section below). The writings of Marianne Williamson teach that love is the manifestation of God that exists in each and every one of his creations, and if you are reading this that includes you! Sharing the love we have in our hearts allows us to expand our influence on the world, and helps bring people together for the common good. Love is the one universal concept, the one universal language that can stop the madness in today’s world and move us to a higher plane of cooperation.
That being said, I propose that the correct equation is:
LOVE >>>>>>>>>>>>> SEX
meaning that love is much greater than sex, and sharing that love improves the odds that you can change your life and bring yourself closer to your full potential. Find a way to share your love, and you can be happy! Find a way to have a career sharing your love, and you will never work another day in your life!!! And love is one of those rare things in our world that are truly multiplied when we share it with others!!!!
Until Next Time!
Julius
Friday, March 27, 2009
LinkedIn & the 6 (or less) Degrees of Separation
Those in the business world may be familiar with LinkedIn, a networking site that allows “business” people to connect for the purpose of doing business together, trading stories of consultants, and finding employment (me, at the moment I am writing this). The information I have been finding in my quest to find work is telling me that LinkedIn is one of the primary methods for networking and uncovering the “secret” job market, those positions that are never posted, and apparently get filled just via this referral network.
As I listened to a recent webinar about using LinkedIn in this manner, many of the participants were unfamiliar with the service. The instructor took some time to explain that it is in the vein of social networking sites, like Facebook and MySpace, but has managed to stay rather serious. As I listened to her discussion of how large some people’s individual networks were, IT HIT ME!!! Let’s pull out the six degrees of separation theory!!!
I will not take space here to explain to those who are totally clueless, but do provide the ubiquitous Wikipedia link for you: CLICK HERE
I realized that I needed to expand my network in a big way!!! Here’s why…
I was sitting there with about 35 connections, since I saw no reason to actively pursue additional people to my network. Well, if one of my connections had 200 connections, and one of those had 200 different connections, I was sitting two steps away from 40,000 people who might know of a job opening that I could fit nicely into!!! Add another layer of 200, and BINGO!, I’m up to 8 million possibilities!!! I don’t even need another 200 connection layer before I, theoretically, have connected myself to EVERYONE on LinkedIn!!! AWESOME!!!! And I have one direct connection with over 400 connections, and another with over 500!!!! This is like taking candy from a baby!!!!
Wait, reality is setting in… I would need a few of those connections to really sell me to the next layer, and they need to do the same, for ME, and so on and so on… And we are in a major recession… Well, maybe the candy hugging baby is a big one!!!
In summary, I imported my email address list, and I am now at 77 connections!!! Which gives me twice the bandwidth on LinkedIn that I had before? Or is that 4 times the bandwidth? Or 8 times???
I’ll let you know how the job networking works out.
Until Next Time!
Julius
As I listened to a recent webinar about using LinkedIn in this manner, many of the participants were unfamiliar with the service. The instructor took some time to explain that it is in the vein of social networking sites, like Facebook and MySpace, but has managed to stay rather serious. As I listened to her discussion of how large some people’s individual networks were, IT HIT ME!!! Let’s pull out the six degrees of separation theory!!!
I will not take space here to explain to those who are totally clueless, but do provide the ubiquitous Wikipedia link for you: CLICK HERE
I realized that I needed to expand my network in a big way!!! Here’s why…
I was sitting there with about 35 connections, since I saw no reason to actively pursue additional people to my network. Well, if one of my connections had 200 connections, and one of those had 200 different connections, I was sitting two steps away from 40,000 people who might know of a job opening that I could fit nicely into!!! Add another layer of 200, and BINGO!, I’m up to 8 million possibilities!!! I don’t even need another 200 connection layer before I, theoretically, have connected myself to EVERYONE on LinkedIn!!! AWESOME!!!! And I have one direct connection with over 400 connections, and another with over 500!!!! This is like taking candy from a baby!!!!
Wait, reality is setting in… I would need a few of those connections to really sell me to the next layer, and they need to do the same, for ME, and so on and so on… And we are in a major recession… Well, maybe the candy hugging baby is a big one!!!
In summary, I imported my email address list, and I am now at 77 connections!!! Which gives me twice the bandwidth on LinkedIn that I had before? Or is that 4 times the bandwidth? Or 8 times???
I’ll let you know how the job networking works out.
Until Next Time!
Julius
I'm Back!!!! With Career Hunting Advice...
Took some extended time off from my blogging activities here to work on myself. Check out my posts at http://www.transformation.com/NCDrJCN/blog/.
On to career hunting advice...
I was downsized for the third time on February 23, and have been given "outsourcing resources" to assist in my transition. This company has many webinars to teach us the skills needed to find a job in today's world. During several of these sessions, I have heard several "one company" folks talk about the uncertainty of today's job market, and how they haven't had to do this for 20+ years and never thought they would have to again.
In the spirit of The Wisdom of Age, I have captured some thoughts that were rambling throught my head during one of these exchanges, and thought rather than blurt them out and offend anyone, I would blurt them out here for a more controlled audience. Also, I find blogging things to be healing...
• Many of these folks want to know the "rules," the kind of rules that we learned when we were young and that told us how to do everything. Well, right now, there are no rules and there is no rule book! The things that worked in the past may not work now, and I am not convinced that strategies that may have not worked a year or two ago won’t work now. You need to try anything and everything!
• The reality of the 21st Century is that companies, particularly bigger companies, hire and downsize employees just like we trade stocks. There is very little emotion, just a commitment to the bottom line for the next quarter. It is ironic to me that the current financial mess has been created, to a large extent, by companies willingness to engage almost entirely in short-term thinking. After all, had the geniuses on Wall Street and all of the banks been looking forward a bit more they should have all realized that this thing was going to crash sooner or later…
• Companies that are on the ball, and companies that "get it," are hiring right now if they can. They know that there is an unprecedented glut of talent out there right now with free agent status. They can upgrade their work force and be ready for the other side of the mountain, whenever all of this stimulus finally kicks into high gear, or maybe just out of neutral!
• These companies want to know what you can do right out of the box. Degrees do not seem to matter for much outside of your starting title and pay grade. Show me the results!!
• My personal opinion is that there are opportunities galore in the chaos that currently exists. Many companies do not know what is coming, and can use the help of learned minds to help them sort through it all. After all, there have been downturns before, and everything has been OK when the line starts going up again!!!
Please share your thoughts in the comments section. I am curious to hear what you think, particularly if you are out there seeking something interesting to do with the rest of your life!!!
Until Next Time,
Julius
On to career hunting advice...
I was downsized for the third time on February 23, and have been given "outsourcing resources" to assist in my transition. This company has many webinars to teach us the skills needed to find a job in today's world. During several of these sessions, I have heard several "one company" folks talk about the uncertainty of today's job market, and how they haven't had to do this for 20+ years and never thought they would have to again.
In the spirit of The Wisdom of Age, I have captured some thoughts that were rambling throught my head during one of these exchanges, and thought rather than blurt them out and offend anyone, I would blurt them out here for a more controlled audience. Also, I find blogging things to be healing...
• Many of these folks want to know the "rules," the kind of rules that we learned when we were young and that told us how to do everything. Well, right now, there are no rules and there is no rule book! The things that worked in the past may not work now, and I am not convinced that strategies that may have not worked a year or two ago won’t work now. You need to try anything and everything!
• The reality of the 21st Century is that companies, particularly bigger companies, hire and downsize employees just like we trade stocks. There is very little emotion, just a commitment to the bottom line for the next quarter. It is ironic to me that the current financial mess has been created, to a large extent, by companies willingness to engage almost entirely in short-term thinking. After all, had the geniuses on Wall Street and all of the banks been looking forward a bit more they should have all realized that this thing was going to crash sooner or later…
• Companies that are on the ball, and companies that "get it," are hiring right now if they can. They know that there is an unprecedented glut of talent out there right now with free agent status. They can upgrade their work force and be ready for the other side of the mountain, whenever all of this stimulus finally kicks into high gear, or maybe just out of neutral!
• These companies want to know what you can do right out of the box. Degrees do not seem to matter for much outside of your starting title and pay grade. Show me the results!!
• My personal opinion is that there are opportunities galore in the chaos that currently exists. Many companies do not know what is coming, and can use the help of learned minds to help them sort through it all. After all, there have been downturns before, and everything has been OK when the line starts going up again!!!
Please share your thoughts in the comments section. I am curious to hear what you think, particularly if you are out there seeking something interesting to do with the rest of your life!!!
Until Next Time,
Julius
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