Blog
That which happens when we come together
Buber saw the path to divinity through human contact. He speculated that a person could not approach the divine by reaching beyond the human: God is not in me and not in you, god is simply what is between us. God is the collective involuntary nervous system of human beings. The electricity that surges amid physical bodies. Anytime one person relates to another, and relates also to that relationship,…
Every decision we make is a brick in our foundation
Most of us are uncomfortable making decisions when we don’t have a lot of information. The idea of moving forward with very few data points is a terrifying prospect. Better to do additional research and get feedback and run a few more tests and then we can think about the possibility of maybe taking action. But the thing we forget is, we learn by making all decisions, even bad…
Plans that are blown aside by every shift of the wind
Dilbert once said that strategic planning is hallucinating about the future and then something different happens. It’s like work but without the satisfaction of completing anything. You have meetings and talk about the company’s strategy in vague, emotional terms. And then you sit in a room with inadequate data until the illusion of knowledge is attained. Anyone who’s ever sat on a board of directors can relate to this…
Burn all of your worries, geography is on our side
Like the kid from the horror movie who saw dead people, I see friendly people. They’re everywhere. And the really spooky part is, my body warns me right before it happens. One millisecond before some stranger sees my nametag and says hello, there will be a twinge in my stomach. It’s the strangest thing. Like having my own spidey sense, except instead of an extraordinary intuitive ability to sense…
Criticizing ourselves for the path we took to get here
Regret is a normal emotional response to missed opportunity. We risk it every time we make a decision. And nobody is immune to it. Even the most conscious among us know that to admit our regret is to understand we are fallible and human. But there’s a fine line between honoring our humanity and prosecuting ourselves for crimes past. If our regret about yesterday’s decisions and actions helps us…
Opening a valuable door of growth
Boundaries are deliberate limits that protect what we care about. And what’s empowering about setting them is, they not only keep us safe, but they can also spur another person’s growth. Years ago, my application for membership in an exclusive leadership group was approved and moved forward to the group interview stage. Which meant sitting in a chair facing twelve strangers who apparent job was to intimidate and challenge…
When the insanities and horrors of the world exhaust me
Reality is not interested in our opinions, objections or agendas. It is the one thing that’s ever renewing and ever progressing from one state of completion to another, with or without our consent. Question is, how do we forgive reality for being what it is? When things go south, how do we keep ourselves from punching holes in walls and hurling heavy objects across the room? There are two…
Hospitality is the work of the host, not the guest
My friend belongs to a church who has used nametags for fifteen years. In fact, their congregation has grown to a few thousand members, which is no small feat. The challenge is, several of the new hires to the church staff have opposing views about nametags. They out rightly refuse to wear them. Either because they feel silly, the badges clash with their wardrobe, they don’t like the attention,…
Save the trees, the bees, the whales and the snails
There’s an idealistic part of me that weeps for the future of the world. Because if we take a good look around, there are all these profound, pervasive, urgent and expensive problems that are not going away anytime soon. Somebody should definitely do something. But then there’s the pragmatic part of me that wonders if obsessing about and trying to create a solution for the world’s biggest problems isn’t…
The upside of feeling down about yourself
Health is the force multiplier of all of our other attributes. It’s the catalyst that drives us to fulfill our potential, the fuel that enables us to engage the rest of ourselves and the constructive force that propels our life forward. And if we’re willing to take care of ourselves without guilt or blame or justification, then the daily momentum of all those healthy actions will build the foundation…
