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Archive for the ‘Wisdom’ Category

Avoiding Stupidity

October 5, 2023

“Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance. 90% of success can be boiled down to consistently taking the simple and obvious action for an uncommonly long period of time without convincing yourself that you’re smarter than you are.”

Some days I am convinced that I cannot avoid stupidity. It just seems so natural.

This idea of consistent, simple, small and obvious actions is powerful. Every swim meet last year I encouraged my granddaughter with “that’s great, just a little better every day.” And this year she is having a great year as a freshman on a very good high school team.

I go to the gym. My routine with dumbbells varies a little, but not greatly. I am lifting five pounds more per set than at the beginning of 2023. Small victory, but victory nonetheless.

The same happened with mediation. A few minutes a day, day after day, until one day weeks later I noticed the change in personality and outlook.

I still perform occasional acts of stupidity. Fewer than before, maybe. But overall these small acts do add up.

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I See Men As Trees Walking

October 4, 2023

For several months of looking through my study window about 6 am at meditation time I saw green grass, trees, bushes, birds, people walking. Now in early October, it is dark out. I can see just the blurred dark swath of trees and bushes. Then dawn rises. I gradually make out individual trees and bushes.

That probably relates to the phrase found in so many stories—it suddenly dawned on him.

But this takes me back to a country gospel song I first heard from Johnny Cash based on Mark 8—I see men as trees walking. Jesus touched a blind man, and that was the man’s response. Then Jesus touched him a second time, and he could see clearly.

We often experience coming to understanding that same way. Patience and perseverance pay.

Several things I’ve read over the past couple of weeks have nudged me to put aside my anti-Aristotelian prejudice and read Thomas Aquinas again. Last night witnessed the beginning of this journey. Summa Theologica Part 1. (I self-identify as Augustinian rather than Thomist; Neo-Platonist rather than Aristotelian.)

I struggled through the first few questions and proofs. Then, just as the dawn’s light brought those trees into view, I got the rhythm and sense of direction of the writing.

It’s the same—reading the Bible or a teacher’s text or even learning some new math equations. With patience and persistence, meaning will come.

Posted in Awareness, discernment, Learning, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

May I Say I Don’t Know?

October 3, 2023

Has it ever happened to you? Someone asks a question. You don’t really know the answer. But we feel the urge to say something. Anything. Sometimes out of pride we make up an answer. Maybe something we heard on YouTube. Maybe something overheard on the street. It may or may not be accurate. But who cares? We needed to fill the silent void.

I was trained to write with certainty, to develop an argument, to be persuasive. And to speak that way. Even when I am throwing out an idea expecting pushback and discussion, people take it as definitive. End of discussion.

Sometimes we need to say “I don’t know. What do you think?” Sometimes just a simple I don’t know:

When someone asks how a virus spreads…

When someone asks how to interpret a difficult Greek text…

When someone asks about politics…

When someone asks, why God…

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Body and Soul

October 2, 2023

The beginnings of Yoga according to tradition came from the desire to train the body to be able to sit in meditation for longer periods of time.

Have you an awareness of when your body tells you it just isn’t in peak form for thinking or undertaking a new task?

I had many good meetings last week in Folsom, California at the software conference. I was curious about many things. That led to many discoveries—about the software, about how people used it, and about problems they were all trying to solve.

There was one meeting that was quite unpleasant. The pain remains four days later. Rule 1 for exercising outside. Do not walk or run on a sidewalk. I was finishing. My inner brain guided me to the sidewalk outside the hotel. It was dark. There was one of those flaws you fear where one of the squares has raised. I couldn’t see it. My hands and knees met the sidewalk at full force.

The next three days revealed to me the barest glimmer of life with pain. Even with ample doses of Tylenol the brain struggled to focus on writing. I am much better today (Monday after the Thursday morning fall), but the feeling lingers.

Sometimes I make a poor food choice. Then I can feel it. I have trouble sitting and focusing on what I want to do. I know—I choose poorly.

This must be the reason the Apostle Paul used so many athletic metaphors and examples. The body is the temple, take care of it. He knew that to keep up the pace of meetings, speaking, traveling, writing, and his spiritual health, he had to maintain the physical body.

Yes, intentional physical activity and nutrition and sleep are key elements toward pursuing a rich spiritual life. Take care of yourself. And don’t walk on sidewalks, especially in unfamiliar places, in the dark!

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Build the Life You Want

September 29, 2023

Arthur C. Brooks teaches a happiness class at Harvard Business School. Students line up to take the class. Probably because the place is filled with people looking for happiness in all the wrong places (to paraphrase a song).

Oprah Winfrey read his bestseller, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life, contacted him and invited to her home in California. They hit it off and agreed to collaborate on this book just out this month, Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier.

This book is readable and practical. Much of this I know and practice. Many will not have heard of this research and story. This will help you and/or someone you love.

Let’s begin with “Happiness is not the goal, and unhappiness is not the enemy.”

Philosophers from ancient times have known that happiness is a byproduct of living, not the goal of living. Yet, each generation must learn the lesson anew.

The first chapters discuss managing our emotions.

The four pillars are discussed in detail in the remainder of the book:

Family
Friends
Work
Faith (Find Your Amazing Grace)

I leave you with two takeaways.

Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine) gave a student three pieces of advice.

The first part is humility; the second, humility; the third, humility; and this I would continue to repeat as often as you might ask direction.

Another takeaway.

We need to detach ourselves and become free of sticky cravings. We honestly examine our attachments. What are yours? Money, power, pleasure, prestige—the distractions we sought to be free of with greater emotional self-management? Dig deeper. Just maybe they are your opinions. The Buddha himself named this attachment and its terrible effects more than twenty-four hundred years ago when he is believed to have said, “This who grasp at perceptions and views go about butting their heads in the world.” More recently the Vietnamese Buddhist sage Thich Naht Hanh wrote in his book Being Peace, “Humankind suffers very much from attachment to views.”

Posted in Attitude, Awareness, emotions, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Injured

September 26, 2023

I seldom follow American-style football anymore. Maybe part of the reason is that I grew up a Browns fan. They’ve been pathetic for years. Maybe someday an owner will come along who has a clue. Another part of the reason is due to style of play. They stopped tackling in the 80s in favor of the NFL-promoted “big hit.” The career expectation of a running back, for example, is less than six years.

I see guys around town with obvious after-effects of having played football in high school. Let alone college. The injuries place a toll on the body that outlasts playing age.

Of course, injuries can happen in any athletic endeavor. I even tore my quadriceps by doing something awkward following an intense game as a referee.

There were at least two prominent career-ending injuries in the National Football League in the first couple of weeks of this season.

Athletics are not the only human endeavor leading to possibility of injury.

Just today during my brief five minutes on Facebook I saw several instances of intent to injure with words on posts. Do people not take a few minutes to consider the effect of words before hitting send?

When you put yourself in leadership or service you are now open to injuries from unthinking or uncaring or even bad people. I have seen career ending injury through words even in church settings.

We have also seen injuries caused by church and other organization leaders.

When a player goes down injured in a sporting event, a team of medical experts rush to the player to diagnose, triage, treat the injury. Afterwards there may be a team of people who help rehabilitate and restore.

We need more of those type of people in everyday life to come to the aid of the hurting. Although many times I’m at a loss for how to react. It’s something to continue to learn.

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Look Inside For Causes

September 11, 2023

So instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all. And instead of hating the people you think are warmers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed–but hate these things in yourself, not in another.
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Oh, how easy it is to look at others and judge. How difficult to look within and see all the evil residing therein.

Somewhere inside we need a pause button. Like before we speak. Probably every time.

We look at someone and a story about them comes to mind. Usually not a good story. We think the worst.

Maybe if we hit that pause button and then ask a conversation starting (not ending!) question and actually listen. Maybe by listening we hear a story. Almost always that story will change the opinion. We discover people who are hurting just like us (who won’t admit it).

Maybe there is grief in the family. There are many kinds. They hurt.

Maybe they just feel left out. All they needed was someone to greet them and listen to them.

Maybe a recent diagnosis–theirs or family or friend–is weighing on them.

Maybe we pray for peace and justice, but even there we need that pause button and look inside at our attitudes towards other–maybe fear based on our own insecurities, maybe dislike merging with hatred of someone different, maybe rooting for war somewhere.

Pause and look inside. I know. I have. There’s no perfection there. Work remains to be done.

Posted in Awareness, Disciplines, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

In Pursuit of Virtue

September 8, 2023

The realization hit me squarely in the face. Recent reading seems to return to the theme of virtue. Christian reading. Reading from the Stoics. General reading.

Virtue.

I’d like to believe I lead a life of virtue. Don’t you? Wouldn’t it hurt if someone told us, “What you just did was not virtuous.”

Me, being me, wondered, what does it mean to be virtuous?

One of my bosses told me many years ago that everyone knew who the good teachers in the school were even though you couldn’t quantify it. He was an engineer. That’s an amazing statement from a numbers-driven person.

Perhaps virtue is similar. We all know a virtuous person even if we can’t really define it.

But, that doesn’t help us. When we leave our beds in the morning (or whenever you happen to rise), how are we going to behave starting then in a way that could be described as virtuous?

I’m not a fan of lists. Especially lists of rules we need to follow. Sometimes, though, a list can spur our thinking. Beginning a list of 20 thoughts about a topic can lead to a breakthrough idea. I offer this list from Benjamin Franklin, yes that guy whose face adorns the 100-dollar bill. He was a fan of checklists and introspection. He had a checklist of these virtues that he would use to measure his day every evening.

This list comes courtesy of Wikipedia.

Temperance: Eat not to Dullness. Drink not to Elevation.
Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling Conversation.
Order: Let all your Things have their Places. Let each Part of your Business have its Time.
Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.
Frugality: Make no Expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e. Waste nothing.
Industry: Lose no Time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary Actions.
Sincerity: Use no hurtful Deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
Justice: Wrong none, by doing Injuries or omitting the Benefits that are your Duty.
Moderation: Avoid Extremes. Forbear resenting Injuries so much as you think they deserve.
Cleanliness: Tolerate no Uncleanness in Body, Clothes or Habitation.
Tranquility: Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable.
Chastity: Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dullness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another’s Peace or Reputation.
Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Posted in Intention, Living, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Dream Dreams To Pass On To Others

August 3, 2023

I am not Roman Catholic, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating Catholic leaders and thought. This from Pope Francis I found especially meaningful.

The prophet Joel once promised: “Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men will have visions” (3:1). The future of the world depends on this covenant between young and old. Who, if not the young, can take the dreams of the elderly and make them come true? Yet for this to happen, it is necessary that we continue to dream. Our dreams of justice, of peace, of solidarity, can make it possible for our young people to have new visions; in this way, together, we can build the future.

The challenge for those of us a bit past prime time—what are we dreaming that we wish would have been better? How are we passing those dreams to the new generation?

Posted in Disciplines, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

True Wealth–A Random List

July 24, 2023

I picked up this list from a tweet by one of my favorite modern writers, Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He wrote Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, among other books. This is one of those lists you can tape above your desk and contemplate often.

TRUE WEALTH (2nd Ed)

Worriless sleeping
Clear conscience
Reciprocal gratitude
Absence of envy
Foamy coffee
Crusty bread
Inexperienced enemies
Frequent laughs
No meals alone
No gym classes
Gravel bicycling
Good digestive functions
No Zoom meetings
Periodic surprises
Nothing to hide: financial and fiscal tranquility
Muscular strength & endurance
Ability to nap
Access to a hammock

Note: That was from a tweet, as on Twitter. By the time you read this, Twitter may be X. Elon Musk seems to think X is a manly character. He says he’s changing the name of the service this week. Some people have more money than sense.

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