There has always been an interest in the power of the mind and, specifically, the effect of it's polarity.My goal in writing this article is to offer an explanation without any attachment to spirituality or religion as my understanding doesn't require that you subscribe to any particular system of beliefs.I think it's important to clarify that I don't believe positive thinking removes all obligation of taking action simply because the action step (no matter how seemingly insignificant the action may seem) is the step that solidifies the thought.In other words, your thoughts can also be called intentions and our actions/decisions/choices can be called beliefs in action.Lets outline the steps involved in solving any problem or coming up with a desired event.Unconscious steps will be lettered and conscious steps numbered."A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.".Winston Churchill.A."See" Possible Outcomes - It is important to note that this step is often overlooked.This is where a negative mind will filter out goals that current beliefs deem impossible and the goal is ruled out before getting to step 1.Therefore, the ultimate outcome is never even attempted.1.Choose Outcome - According to the results in step a, the goal is selected.B.Creative Inspiration - It is possible, before the rational/logical mind takes the reins, to allow yourself the luxury of inspired action.Instead of trying to figure out how according to what the logical mind is capable of focusing on you simply act on any impulses or inspiration that pops into your head.The negative mind will either be too focused on "the problem" to notice this step or just outright ignore it.2.Plan - Implementing or ignoring anything from step b, the small details that require completion first and overall process are defined.C.Visualize - Yes we do.Even if it only takes a fraction of a second.We "see" it or we don't.We believe it or we don't.This is where the negative mind, more often than not, has already chosen failure.That's right, before we even take the action step our mind has sabotaged our plans.3.Action - Despite the feelings that arose in step c, the majority of the time we proceed to the action step.It sounds crazy but we do it all the time.We complete the process whether we believe it will work or not.D.Confirmation - This is where we confirm our beliefs, limitations, and attitude.The negative mind says, "See I told you we were screwed!" and the positive minds says, "I knew it would work! It was even easier than I expected!".4.Review - We followed the plan, did it work?"The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.".Unknown.OK so what's the catch? Will you always succeed if you're positive and always fail if you're negative? No.It depends entirely on the limitations and beliefs specific to each scenario.The difference is the positive mind has more freedom, more opportunities and most importantly - more fun.The negative mind keeps building walls of limitations and failure until it can't even see the way out.The good news is that we have a choice.The bad news is that we have habits.In an effort to spare us from having to consciously control every aspect of our lives our unconscious mind provides us with an autopilot.The autopilot gets you to and from work, brushes your teeth in the same order, gets you dressed, and unfortunately - keeps you positive or negative.If you desire a change in mental polarity you must realize that you must make a conscious effort to switch habits.Be gentle with your mind, it was only doing what it was made to do.Your awareness of your thoughts will grow with your efforts to focus on them and change them and, eventually, your autopilot will be positive.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Positive Thought - The Stages of Power
There has always been an interest in the power of the mind and, specifically, the effect of it's polarity.My goal in writing this article is to offer an explanation without any attachment to spirituality or religion as my understanding doesn't require that you subscribe to any particular system of beliefs.I think it's important to clarify that I don't believe positive thinking removes all obligation of taking action simply because the action step (no matter how seemingly insignificant the action may seem) is the step that solidifies the thought.In other words, your thoughts can also be called intentions and our actions/decisions/choices can be called beliefs in action.Lets outline the steps involved in solving any problem or coming up with a desired event.Unconscious steps will be lettered and conscious steps numbered."A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.".Winston Churchill.A."See" Possible Outcomes - It is important to note that this step is often overlooked.This is where a negative mind will filter out goals that current beliefs deem impossible and the goal is ruled out before getting to step 1.Therefore, the ultimate outcome is never even attempted.1.Choose Outcome - According to the results in step a, the goal is selected.B.Creative Inspiration - It is possible, before the rational/logical mind takes the reins, to allow yourself the luxury of inspired action.Instead of trying to figure out how according to what the logical mind is capable of focusing on you simply act on any impulses or inspiration that pops into your head.The negative mind will either be too focused on "the problem" to notice this step or just outright ignore it.2.Plan - Implementing or ignoring anything from step b, the small details that require completion first and overall process are defined.C.Visualize - Yes we do.Even if it only takes a fraction of a second.We "see" it or we don't.We believe it or we don't.This is where the negative mind, more often than not, has already chosen failure.That's right, before we even take the action step our mind has sabotaged our plans.3.Action - Despite the feelings that arose in step c, the majority of the time we proceed to the action step.It sounds crazy but we do it all the time.We complete the process whether we believe it will work or not.D.Confirmation - This is where we confirm our beliefs, limitations, and attitude.The negative mind says, "See I told you we were screwed!" and the positive minds says, "I knew it would work! It was even easier than I expected!".4.Review - We followed the plan, did it work?"The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.".Unknown.OK so what's the catch? Will you always succeed if you're positive and always fail if you're negative? No.It depends entirely on the limitations and beliefs specific to each scenario.The difference is the positive mind has more freedom, more opportunities and most importantly - more fun.The negative mind keeps building walls of limitations and failure until it can't even see the way out.The good news is that we have a choice.The bad news is that we have habits.In an effort to spare us from having to consciously control every aspect of our lives our unconscious mind provides us with an autopilot.The autopilot gets you to and from work, brushes your teeth in the same order, gets you dressed, and unfortunately - keeps you positive or negative.If you desire a change in mental polarity you must realize that you must make a conscious effort to switch habits.Be gentle with your mind, it was only doing what it was made to do.Your awareness of your thoughts will grow with your efforts to focus on them and change them and, eventually, your autopilot will be positive.
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At what point do you give up? The answer is simple, when no one would blame you if you did.In the business world, in most cases, the appropriate "giving-up" point is somewhere around the halfway mark to accomplishment.In Edison's case, for the light bulb, that would have been around his 1,000th failed attempt.Try something, anything, a thousand times without success and I assure you, no one calls you names if you quit.Somewhere around 1875, a lab assistant must have cornered Edison near the water cooler and said "Tommy, I've been thinking, whadaya say we work on the phonograph thing for a while? You know, maybe put this bulb in the back room for a while." Although history has proved this wrong, at some point during that time, people must have thought he was idiot.I've made a bit of an unscientific study of the "giving up syndrome" over the years.It seems that giving up almost always begins with an outside influence.A sympathetic voice of reason.A person you turned to for encouragement that in seeing your pain and suffering wanted to save you from yourself.I figured out, that for those people, it's OK for others to give up long before their pending accomplishment.A couple of factors determine this.Their own threshold for sustained attempts at something and what they consider to be a reasonable number of times to fail.It is important to note, that generally at the time of reaching out, we are very much in a state of fragility.We always leave it too long before seeking that little morsel of encouragement.In some cases, that candidate is looking for validation to give up.I call it seeking approval to fail.High fives are given all round for the effort though.But for those who are genuinely seeking the thimble full of new resolve, these people will do you no good.Ask anyone who has ground out an achievement in their lives and they will tell you, there were many times when it would have easier to give up.I find that to be a funny phrase.It's always easier to give-up.You can only really give-up on two things.An idea or yourself.Often, through the passage of time, an idea, which may have started out as a great idea reveals it's self as an unworthy pursuit.Certainly no shame in that, as new information, findings, competitive advances, or a host of other variables shed a different light upon your thing.Where upon new ideas and pursuits become generated and the process begins anew.Idea people are just that way.There always comes a point when the pursuit becomes irrational.Certainly defying common sense from an outsiders view, perhaps even a little from an internal view as well.And yet this insistent little thing called your gut nags you.Thank goodness for guts.They trump the rational mind.It's the guts that tell you one more time, one more experiment, one more mile, one more try.Your guts are your best friends at this point, hell maybe even your only friends.Listen to them.Edison could never have known how many failed attempts he would have to get through.None of us know and that's a very good thing.Because in the mind of an optimist, it's always the next time.Each of 1999 times, Edison stood over a switch, exhaled and flicked it up.And then it lit.Every challenge I face, I think of as a light bulb.I plot out a plausible solution, execute it and throw the switch to see if it lights up.If it doesn't, I try again with a modified tactic.Eventually the bulb will light.It usually takes more tries than I originally figured.As a metaphor this helps me keep my challenges in priority and perspective.Some bulbs are 25 Watt-ers, some are the size of stadium lights.Each needs to be lit.Folks, when you are at your lowest point and it's getting lonely, when friends have encouraged you to give-up in-spite of your inner conviction, when it seems so impossible that you are at the brink, think of that idiot Edison.Then take your challenge, make it a light bulb and push on.If you do, I assure you, your future will be very bright.One last thing.Isn't it ironic, that the idea, which took 2,000 attempts, has become the international symbol for good ideas?
Auden's Quest For Fulfillment - A Journey From the Earthly to the Ethereal
"Turning and Turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.".The verse above indeed reflects the vision of 1930's.A world that believes not in making but in breaking the social integration and social ethos.It was the age of Darwin, the age of Industry and the age primarily of Reason.Religion hereof brings no solace as it is just a mere embodiment of "the dead tree that gives no shelter".Similarly, the rapid transgression to industrialization had efficiently transformed Men to Machines.Men, here as labourers evolve as commodified objects attached with an "exchange value".It was the world where nothing is measured beyond the material; the human relationship that use to give man a reason to live for was a "heap of broken images".Above all, thanks to the great minds and their virtue of rationis capax , for making men the maker of atom bombs.Now you call this progress or not- well the question pertains.Assuming it to be so - the elements that came out of Pandora's box along with the so called progression, were the negative emotions like guilt, faithlessness, dilemma and distrust, contributing in conditioning the helplessness in men.Auden very much a product of his age envisioned this pattern of life and living.Yet, hope floats.For Auden it was this hope that drew him to the quest for fulfilment - replicated through the reconciliation between the 'falcon' and the 'falconer', thus aiming to install life with a sense of shape and significance.To circumscribe an order out of disorder, meaning out of meaninglessness, was the change that the poets of thirties desired to bring.Auden was no exception.In his formative years he faced this destabilization and degeneration overshadowed from two directions, the war past and the war ever more likely to come.No longer did the world impart the flavour of joie de vivre instead living had just become a mere act of desperation.Thus to alter this condition change was inevitable.As Auden formulates."Coming out of me living is always thinking Thinking changing and changing living.".The poet believes that the whole process of transformation requires primary understanding.Thereof like a "helmeted airman" he desires to observe the world in and around.On a closer view of his life, we find that for this change he clings onto several remedial ideological beliefs resting on the significance of the Mind, the Material and the Majesty.The thesis replicating the existing social order collides with the antithesis highlighting change, leading to a peaceful synthesis - in making this world a better place to live in.Delving into the early years of Auden's poetry in Britain, we find the profound influence of the Freudian psychoanalysis and the Marxist socialism.Auden's primary rebellion seems to have been in the area of the personal life rather than social.The flaneur objectively observing could actually dissect the social and spiritual problems underlying in the society.Be it the 'intolerable neural itch' implied by the neurotic patterns of behaviour or the 'rehearsed response' that leads to repression, was superimposed by the society.Auden believed in our natural instinct as our true self.Thus the recognition of the uncontrollable forces of the Id and its dominance curbs the human notion of 'free will'.The very idea of pre determination is analogous to the Marxist notion of the self being determined by the forces of history and economics.The whole formulation by the poet reflecting the predominance of some supra human power over man, actually undermines the representation of then significant rationality.In a tribute to Frued on his death he concludes.."One rational voice is dumb.Over his grave The household of impulse mourns one deeply loved;".For the poet the true sense of judgment implied through rationality lies in understanding the predominance of our instinctive mind.The Fruedian concept thereof highlighting the significance of heart, promotes understanding, tolerance, charity thereby marking a distinctive change from the existing modules of belief.The very dictum of change is 'essentially' a Marxist phenomenon, that revolution will lead to a form of evolution derive from a similar pattern of thought.To alter the diseased time that it was, the poet prescribes a medication to "publish each healer that in city lives" as a mode of improvement, as a source of change.This appeal on counter revolution insist not on blood, chaos, destruction and suffering instead focused upon love, replicated through a "change at heart".The Audenesque transformation involves "a storm clearing the air for renewing the soil".The notion of commodification, materialism and alienation in mankind is spelled throughout his verses.Be it the 'cigarette-end', 'reserved tables' or 'in furs', 'in uniform', this part for whole technique actually signifies the commodities in recognition and man in alienation.The young Auden was anxious to alternate, thus instigating the reader to rethink the current condition.In the poem "O where are you going".He imparts the 'rider' the 'Farer' and the 'Horror' a significantly social role of leading the way, in order to search new implications to life.This phase thus reflects his belief more in action of the 'rider' than the intellectual 'reader' in contemplation.Auden insisting his influence upon Freud, Marx and Kierkegaard was not simple re utterance of their political and theological doctrine, instead his poetical works always reverberated a voice originally of his own.These doctrines served as a mirror that would reflect his poetic line of thought.In actuality how much Auden is concerned with the questions of surplus value, methods of production and distribution of profits is not validated.The transformation that one marks in the course of his lifetime is a sign of graver understanding, reflecting the journey of life - from the realm of innocence to experience.As the poet reportedly had said "my poetry does not change from place to place" , "it changes with years".The means of switching from one line of thought to another was intended to investigate the idea of the ideal.Consequentially it lead to questioning the whole notion of truth, lying beneath his existing philosophy and belief -."What do you think of England, This country of ours where no ones well?".The question constantly pervades, but the answer lay deferred and this deference leads to disillusionment.A disillusionment emphasizing the realization that the Hobbesean man is ruled by nothing but self interest, and characterized by the essentialities of being solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."Everything necessary to a modern Man" was a concomitance of "A phonograph, radio, a car and a frigidaire" reflect this "low dishonest decade".It was then that we mark Auden's recluse to religion, in and around 1940's.This period also envisions a physical shift from Britain to America, representing the land of new opportunities.No longer did Auden exploited these opportunities in thrusting his beliefs in the material man making magic.Instead desired to remake his own self with complete faith in God, playing an active role.The transcendental realisation that "the world is the other me" made him believe that the rectification of the internal being is important, as it is the individuals who maketh a society.This distilled society is not dictated by the "Bureau of statistics" or the "Producers Research" instead it was time to look into the self and ask "absurd questions" - "Was he free? Was he happy?".Here does the theological principles of Kierkegaard comes to action.The angst that denotes our existence actually exemplifies our living -."We are created from and with the world To suffer with and from it day by day.".Rebellion thus fails to provide a solution, as implied by Camus it proves nothing but a "perpetual confrontation of man and his own insignificance".Our insignificance lies in the preordained web our lives are structured into.Virtue thereof lies in accepting the will of God and submitting in the act of blind faith.Hereby granting him peace by refilling his mind with the "sea of faith" which guided Auden, "back to belief".I would now like to conclude with a question, that all the major influence of Auden seems to subscribe human destiny as priorly designed, so where does the quest for fulfilment lead us onto? I feel that the answer lies in the very concept of the quest - primarily signifying a mode of engagement to sustain in this bleak universe.Secondly, this quest is essentially individual and an attempt of transformation is marked from making a 'new society' to a 'new man'.It also underlines the factor that man is in a position of becoming, here does the notions of human choices comes onto.Choices structured within the binaries of the rational and the instinctive, the good and the evil, the nature and nurture, the political and the theology.Auden explores them all.This optimist poet replicates the modern Ulysses in search of a meaning, in search of that 'untravelled world'.At the end of all the poet does find solace in understanding and accepting.Understanding not estimated by reason but realisation.A realisation transcribing not to the material, but the transcendental.A vision exemplified in a form of an 'intuition' or drishti .Auden thereof subscribes a new mantra of life and living ---."Datta, dayadhvam, damyata Shantih Shantih shantih".
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Negative at Self Concept?
Self concept in simple words means what u think of your self.Your views and perceptions about yourself are termed as self concept.How you think about your self affects your behavior to a great extent.When you have a positive view of self, you are confident, have high self esteem and resulting to a positive self concept.On the other hand, when you are low in love of self, and don't have a positive opinion of self.Criticize and judge yourself a lot, blame your self and have high degree of self doubt, all these contribute to a negative self concept.The seven reasons given here are my views based on famous theories or schools of psychology.Let us examine these seven reasons for negative self concept.Sigmund Freud, the father of psychodynamic theories stated that humans are driven mainly by the sexual drive (also called libido) and the aggressive drive.Freud explained that the libido mainly consisted of the id, ego and the superego.The id works on the pleasure principle that demands the immediate gratification of all impulses and engages in primary process thinking commonly known as wish fulfillment.Parts of the id spills into the ego which tries to gratify the ids' demands in a socially accepted way, it works on the reality principal and engages in secondary process thinking.The superego is the storehouse of rules and regulations a person learns from his/her parents and society.They are the absolute moral standards.When the person is dominated mainly by the superego, the ego tries constantly to find a balance between the ongoing conflicts between the id and the superego.One side a person wants to fulfill their desires and on the other side has moral and social obligations.Since the superego is dominating, it pressurizes the individual to comply, if the individual fails to comply, he/she faces a lot of guilt.This guilt often leads to a negative self concept.Next view is that of Abraham Maslow.Abraham Maslow gave a hierarchy of needs.Needs low in the hierarchy must be met before needs higher in the hierarchy can be satisfied.At the base of this hierarchy deep roots are observed pertaining to the need of belongingness, love, security, and basic needs like hunger, thirst, warmth.Above those lie aesthetic needs like beauty and order, cognitive needs like to know, to be aware, and esteem needs like to achieve, be competent.At the tip of this hierarchy stands self actualization.Generally people satisfy their basic and lower order needs like food and shelter, safety and security, but they do not fulfill their need for love and belongingness.They lack these needs and thus, stun their personal growth.The lack of these needs often lead to frustration and thus lead to a negative self concept.Erick Erickson gave a series of psychosocial developmental stages.At each stage individuals are faced with conflict or crises.How they deal with the crises can have an effect on their development.When dealt with positively can lead to a positive concept and if not dealt with can lead to a negative self concept.Let us see some of these crises, at infancy one falls in the crises of trust versus mistrust, at the early childhood one falls in the crises of autonomy versus shame or doubt, between the ages of three to five one falls in the crises of initiative versus guilt, between the ages of six to puberty one falls in the crises of industry versus inferiority, at adolescence one falls in the crises of identity versus confusion, at early adulthood one falls in the crises of intimacy versus isolation, at late adulthood one falls in the crises of generativity versus stagnation, and finally at old age one falls in the crises of integrity versus despair.When a crisis is not resolved it leads to a negative self concept.An example, in early adulthood the individual is faces the crises of intimacy versus isolation.If the person is not able to resolve this crisis and hence feels a sense of isolation, that sense of being isolated can lead to a negative self concept.Behaviorism states that reinforcement and conditioning play a dominant role in shaping a persons behavior.Behaviors are learnt through experiences in the environment.Behaviorism has two main principles, classical conditioning and operant conditioning.When a person behaves in an unacceptable manner, depending on the feedback or response of the people around him/her, that behavior is punished or reinforced.This will have an impact on the person.More than often people are not aware of the impact of their response on the opposite person.Consider the example, when a boy behaves in a way that is not acceptable to his mother, she might hit him or shout at him and say "you are a bad boy".This statement may make the boy feel that he is not good and he may start to develop a negative self concept of him self as "I m a bad boy".When trying to understand the reasons why people develop a negative self concept it must be remembered that first n foremost it is the person's perception of him/her self.Thoughts and feelings affect and shape our behavior and emotions.They contribute to the maximum extent in the development our sense of self.A psychologist Albert Ellis developed a technique called as A B C D E technique.Ellis introduces the rational emotive therapy.The ABCDE technique involves..A activating agent.B belief.C consequence.D dispute irrational beliefs.E effect.I would like to explain this theory by saying that feelings lead to thoughts and thoughts lead to behaviors.There fore all thoughts have some kind of feelings underlining them.We can not stop or control the activating agent may it be an object or an event, so to change our consequence to a situation we have to change our belief system.Most of the time, we are not aware of the fact that we as individuals consistently talk to our self, we are consistently talking to our selves.In my opinion we talk to are selves in two ways.We are either motivating our self or we are consistently judging or criticizing our selves.When our inner self, our inner voices are too harsh in judging our every move, it creates pressure on us and if we don't behave in accordance with our own expectations, we feel guilty.These thoughts and feelings often lead to our negative self concept.Another reason for a negative self concept thought the concept may be temporary is the biological factor.Biologically, a negative self concept can be explained in terms of chemical imbalances, i.E.Sometimes when our hormones are not in balance they can produce discomfort that can lead to a negative self concept.Consider an example, sometimes a thyroid dysfunction can cause depression and lead to a negative self concept.Humans are social beings; they can not live in isolation.Each society forms its own sets of regulations which become the base of our behavior.The society defines the roles we perform in our environment.It is the society that makes us what we are and it is through social comparison that we feel "accepted"; hence, we are obligated to obey the social norms.Unfortunately we humans are hedonistic in nature; we find it difficult to follow the social norms all the time.When we do not follow the norms, the society puts us under pressure.This pressure sometimes leads to a negative self concept.It should be known that all the different factors work together to form either our positive or negative self concept.But the most important step is to realize and be aware of our environment, and know what the different aspects that shape us are.
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› Be the first to review this item on Amazon.com The Bias For Pessimism, and The Myth Of The Evils Of Commerce
Since high school I noticed that pessimists and naysayers were considered "smart" and "perceptive" while optimistic people were treated like Pollyanna's and intellectual lightweights.Look at all the depressing authors we had to read in high school.Ugh.Even Thoreau was deluded about what would make the world better, as if we'd all be better off if we were spinning our own wool cloth, carrying water from the stream, and baking our own bread without technology.Try that sometime.It's not what it's cracked up to be.George Orwell's book 1984 was standard reading on how freedom and individuality would decline, Paul R.Ehrlich's The Population Bomb predicted we'd run out of food, and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was full of ecological doomsday wisdom that if you were "eco-cool" you believed.According to them, life on Earth should have declined into pollution, famine, and fascism thirty years ago.Problem is, none of those and other dire predictions by "leading edge" intellectual thinkers ever even came close to happening.Humans have been biased for negativity and danger since cave man had to worry about minute by minute survival.We're wired that way until enlightenment overrides it.And the mind is a wrong-seeking missile, so many people who are very mental are exceptionally focused on what could go wrong.Intellectuals are unusually biased toward pessimism, and are lauded and esteemed for their dire predictions--I used to call it pop nihilism--I thought it was new--but Ridley's book showed me that this bias toward negativity is very, very old.Every generation has lamented the decline of the current age and romanticized the lost golden past.Every generation has had it's "apocoholics" who thought their age was the end time.(See the Woody Allen movie, Midnight In Paris for a fun take on over-romanticizing the past and coming to embrace the present.).Year after year life on planet Earth gets better overall, and when people look back with misty-eyed nostalgia for some past they think was simpler and better, they're overlooking the hardships, diseases, lower standards of living, longer work hours, and higher mortality rates of those 'golden ages.' Poverty back then was severe, while people considered to be living at poverty level now often have cars, cell phones, and TV's!Compared to even a hundred years ago, we now live much better (and longer) than the richest kings of old ever did.If a king had 2000 slaves, you now have many thousands of people supplying you with goods and services that king could never dream of--and things are so affordable, even the poor have what used to be royal luxuries.As you supply others with your goods or services, and money circulates, prosperity expands, and everyone has more than they could make alone as self-sufficient subsistence farmers or hunter-gatherers.Media negativity about the recession only makes a slower economy worse, and creates a depressed response from people, companies, and markets.Spiritual and supposedly "progressive" people have demonized commerce, money, and large corporations for too long.If not for large corporations, many people would not be able to earn a living, as most people are more suited to working for others in a structured interdependent environment than they are to generating a living solo.Large corporations provide regular paychecks for millions who then don't appreciate it and complain.Socialist countries have either disintegrated or stagnated, because they don't encourage innovation, incentive, reward for performance, and free thought.They don't succeed.Ridley enlightens us to the simple fact that commerce has been a major force in evolution.Societies with strong healthy trade and commerce flourished, whereas societies with stifled or stagnant trade actually died out.He proves statistically that prosperity creates more prosperity for everyone.So the next time you start thinking the answer is returning to a simpler time, having less, and using less, read The Rational Optimist.One of Ridley's most brilliant suppositions is that evolved societies are "collectively brilliant." That no one person on the planet can make a computer mouse, but collectively we do it.It takes thousands of people cooperating, from the drilling of the oil to make the plastic to the making of the chip to the LED light.I love Ridley's catchy phrase that in the density of cities, "ideas have sex with other ideas" creating faster and faster evolution through exchange of ideas, products, and services.Sure, we can do better, and we will, continually, but be sure you have a basis for any beliefs you hold (and that they support your vibration rather than crashing it) rather than just listening to what popular leaders who seem to be progressive or spiritual say.Darryl Hannah wrote an article citing a bunch of popular unfounded ecological scare beliefs that I'm sure she's heard other hip ecologists spouting, such as that there are more enslaved people today than ever before.What??? Did she ever hear of ancient Egypt, Rome, and feudal England, where most people were slaves or serfs? Ridley cites the statistics.It's simply fashionable and hip these days to cry wolf and complain about everything from the economy to the environment to health.You know what a vibration-trasher complaining is.What actually happens is that humanity sees a challenge, has a strong desire that births new ideas and breakthroughs, and makes a change before disaster happens.Intellectuals base their predictions on facts staying the same as they are today, and nothing stays the same as it is today--we evolve, especially when disaster looms.It's those very threats that get us off our laurels to do something different, or to innovate, or regulate.Maybe the world doesn't always make the changes fast enough to suit some, but we do change.The air and oceans are cleaner than a decade ago, thanks to stricter regulations and lower emissions.Agricultural production is at an all time high, fewer people starve than ever before, although world population is at record high.Fewer people die of diseases, though the media regularly urges us to panic over the disease du jour.AIDS is now manageable and no longer an epidemic except in a couple of places in the world.Bird flu killed only a few more than a hundred people, rather than the hundreds of thousands predicted.Mad cow disease only killed a few people and never did become the disaster the media predicted.Ridley's book gives a thousand examples backed up by reliable, provable sources.Of course, disease non-profits know that if they admit cancer is steadily declining, no one will give, and if the Diabetes Society starts admitting it's getting better, it won't get them grants or donations.Ecologists know that their funding will run dry if they admit there are more trees than ever, not fewer, and fewer pollutants than ever.Unfortunately, it is valuable to scare the public to some degree to bring about change, but YOU don't have to buy it wholesale to your detriment.Hollywood and television are obsessed with disaster stories for some incomprehensible reason.It seems odd that that's considered entertainment, but it's a Free Will universe, and diversity is good.Y2K, mass destruction by acid rain, terrorist domination, the nuclear holocaust--none of it ever happened.Life really is on our side, and not only that, due to increased trade, globalization, technology, and communication--in addition to and because of the new vibrational energies coming in--human evolution is on a steeply accelerated upward curve.Communication and the internet is increasing the speed of spread of ideas, and making it harder for atrocities to happen without the whole world knowing about it.The doomsayers simply ignore all this positive evidence, and no one seems to take them to task for being dead wrong about the many disasters they predicted.They just write yet another doomsday book (that will turn out to be wrong) and continue to try to convince us that we need to face some awful reality.They think reality is something you observe, not something you create.And they fail to get how resourceful, flexible, and powerful humans are when they want to be.People who see opportunity in challenge innovate rather than give up in despair and powerlessness.They do something to change it before disaster happens.Again, we do sometimes wait till it's severe before we innovate and change, but we do change, and we will continue to, more rapidly every year as evolution speeds up.This world will never be complete and finished, but we'll keep evolving and spiraling upward if we stay awake.There are still things to improve, and we'll improve them, with certain pockets of the world like yours leading the way.Remember when you see a problem to stop and focus on what you'd like to see.You can't hold the problem and the solution at the same time without splitting your energy.Don't expect the doomsayers to stop.They'll even get Nobel prizes for their work.Just keep your nose tipped up, and create your own reality.They'll be wrong, especially for you.Enjoy The Rational Optimist.It's also good fodder for those state-of-the-world conversations with people who aren't spiritual, who might think you're a Pollyanna if you say it in spiritual terms, but who might just take a look at The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley.Love,.Lola.
Feelings of Scarcity In Business
Scarcity noun - insufficiency or shortness of supply; dearth.One belief among business owners is that they do not have enough money, time or resources.Common complaints are.."We don't have enough money to be able to buy the help we need"."We don't have enough time to do everything that needs to be done" ."We don't have enough knowledge, we don't have enough team members, we don't have enough employee engagement, we don't have enough talent, etc.".What I discovered is that this particular position is a disposition.Often, it is not a real situation.A business owner must examine their financial resources to determine their ability to build a business that is worthy of themselves and the customers they seek to serve.When engaging in a new opportunity, it is necessary to be efficient in the use of money, however entering a situation on the cheap usually results in a cheap outcome.Realize that when starting a business, it may take time before the business can pay you.You must be able to float yourself long enough at the beginning to not only get everything done, but done well.Understand the critical tasks of the business and decide that you will not be able to do everything yourself; you cannot do everything yourself.This is probably the only thing that you cannot afford to do.Ask yourself what can be delegated that is outside of your Unique Ability.Consider hiring an overseas assistant for as little as $3 or $4 an hour if you cannot afford a full-time employee.Consider a joint venture with someone based on a revenue sharing model that would be advantageous to all involved.In the book "The Rational Optimist", Matt Ridley makes a strong claim that self-sufficiency is a fantastic formula for poverty.The book is focused on addressing the issues of civilizations, but the application to business owners is quite profound.You are going to need other people, so the question really isn't "what can I afford?" it's "how can I afford it?".Consider how you can creatively find ways to pay for help that delivers the customer service experience that creates delight.If you feel that you are cash-strapped, consider this an opportunity to be inspired.Know that not being able to afford things and being self-sufficient is not a good enough answer for the long-term success of your business.
Mindset Analysis
A Roadmap towards Positive Thought-Patterns.INTRODUCTION.Life is effort-return phenomenon.People make efforts to actualize returns.There is nothing more frustrating than putting in lots of effort and getting no desired results.The secret to the wasted efforts lies dominantly in a person.A survey indicated that 75% of businesses are failed in their initial phase, first 3 to 5 years, and the major reason of business failures, about 90%, are executives.They are not genuinely prepared for the task in hand.In addition, an established business may also decline or can produce less than optimal results due to negative mindset or stagnant behavior of executives.Human behavior is predominantly the outcome of his/her mindset.Mindset affects the actions of a person and outcomes of efforts, having a negative mindset or even a neutral mindset can distort the actions and undermine the efforts.How it works? Answer is simple, whenever a person possesses a negative mindset, he radiates negativity.Negativity means pessimism, despair, and disinterest.It compels people to avoid/dislike/misinterpret him.Moreover, when a person is negative, he tends to see only hurdles and magnify them.And when someone sees only hurdles or magnifies hurdles wrongly, he tends to feel stress.When a person is feeling lots of stress, he can't be sensible or creative.Therefore, a negative mindset undermines rationality creativity, dynamism, and productivity.In contrast, a positive mindset allows someone to deal with inevitable challenges with rationality, creativity, dynamism, and resourcefulness.The complete positive or negative mindset is a special phenomenon.In real life, we come across with partial positive or negative mindset.A person may be positive at some situations or negative at some other situations.However, its effectiveness is normally misunderstood and misused.We make an effort to comprehend its nature, importance and significance for its better usage.DEFINITION.Suppose there is a glass.It is half full or empty with water.If we take a small survey and ask about the water situation in the glass, there would be two true answers..First, glass is half full with water, Second, glass is half empty with no water.It is said that the group of persons mentioning it half full are optimist or have positive mindset; on the other hand, the other group is pessimist or have negative mindset.It is not right conclusion.Both statements are true or scientific.The positive or negative mindset is indicated when a person delivers a statement about or respond with some predictable exactness / exaggeration.A mindset refers to a framework of intentions, perceptions, and emotions held by a person so established that predetermines a person's response to and interpretation of situations /persons.NEGATIVITY TRAPS.We take a few real life situations to fully grasp the concept and the characteristics that make up a negative or positive mindset..1.A person faces a new situation/person and takes it with doubts without any scientific basis; it is indication of negative mindset.The other examples of doubtful mindset are - doubt about personal strengths, expect failures, and doubt on ground realities.(Doubt).2.A person faces a novel situation/person and loose mental stability and responds with volatile attitude; it is indication of negative mindset.The other examples of volatile mindset are - lethargic response, impatient behavior, whimsical decision making.(Volatility).3.A person faces an unfavorable situation/person and loose self control and responds with anger; it is indication of negative mindset.The other examples of unjust mindset are - under or over estimations of abilities, excessive criticism on mistakes, and mild response on blunders.(Injustice).4.A person faces a surprised situation/person and feels envy but responds with jealousy, it is indication of negative mindset.The other examples of jealous mindset are - happy response on someone's miseries, sad feelings on someone's success, & defamation of opponent.(Jealousy).5.A person faces a disliked situation/person and responds proudly without any scientific basis, it is indication of negative mindset.The other examples of proud mindset are - perfectionist approach, slavery of habits, and dictatorial stance during decision making.(Proud).6.A person faces an unexpected situation/person and considers it a threat without any scientific basis; it is indication of negative mindset.The other examples of fearful mindset are - fear of future, fear of criticism, and fear of failure.(Fearful).7.A person faces a new situation/person and feels frustration and respond with grief sentiments; it is indication of negative mindset.The other examples of grief mindset are - overwhelmingly critical behavior, pessimism, and disbelief on real success.(Grief).These examples indicated seven major negativity traps or vicious circles of mental framework that make up a negative mindset.The solution to avoid the vicious traps is to develop a mental framework with positive intentions, positive perceptions, and positive emotions.MIND ANATOMY.Naturally human mind has two sides - left and right.The left side is logical, analytical, and critical.On the other hand, the right side is intuitive, creative and synthetic.The left side is problem seeker while the right side is problem solver.Both sides have their own importance and significance.In addition, we have two levels of mind - conscious and subconscious.The subconscious mind is filled with energy and power to accomplish multiple insurmountable tasks but is led by our conscious mind.Conscious mind makes selection from continuous stream of thoughts (negative & positive) and develop a working pattern or belief system for subconscious mind.It is a continuous process of selection and execution remain active in everyone's life.Unfortunately, negative thoughts have a tendency to flit into our conscious mind, involve left side of mind turning down the right side of the mind, do their damage and then flit back to continuous stream of thoughts; the significance of process is generally unnoticed.In addition, we hardly perceive them as negative thoughts; we do not challenge them properly so that they may reside in our mind and can distort our mental framework, now and then.Fortunately, the same process is with positive thoughts.They blink in our conscious mind, involve both sides of mind, without letting down any side of mind, do their constructive work and flew back to thought stream.It is hardly to notice them and to harness for permanent constructive activity.By noticing, captivating, maintaining, and protecting a positive thought, we can make them a permanent part of our mental framework for everlasting fruitful results.Mindset is combination of intentions, perceptions and emotions.It has three powers for execution, i.E., will power, intellect power, and emotional power.These powers are essential ingredients of our mind.Equilibrium is necessary for the stability of mind pyramid; however, equilibrium may be wise or positive and unwise or negative.MINDSET DEVELOPMENT-Self Suggestion.We have learned the mind anatomy with negativity traps that make our life miserable and unhappy.We can move now towards positive mindset.To avoid negativity traps, self suggestion is considered the best technique for mindset development.The words and phrases of self-suggestion should be real, constructive, energetic and dynamic.By continuous repetition we can make a positive image of self.A person can make his own list; however, we mention a few quotes..Anything fruitful for humanity will must realize sooner or later, Any right effort with right intent and methods will must produce good results, There is no real/permanent threat only opportunities, Any misery has blessing in disguise, Success is not pursued, it is attracted, Gratitude brings benefits, Patience is best and fruitful strategy in difficulties, and Courtesy costs nothing but buys everything.Any positive suggestion is reacted by negative suggestion.A war is started in mind about these self suggestions with negative suggestions.The process remains active until a belief is not finalized.A belief may be negative or false and positive or true.A negative belief about something/someone, e.G., life is aimless, no real relationship is possible, the hells are always the others,success is impossible, miseries are permanent, benefits are short-lived, and difficulties are long lasting.A negative belief produces or breeds new negative beliefs and a negative belief system is developed.A negative belief system plays havoc with an individual or system or society.A scientific / factual approach is strictly needed to avoid a negative belief system.There are two tested weapons for negative suggestions - Knowledge and Wisdom.Knowledge is a weapon used at conceptual level to counter negative suggestions/beliefs, while, the wisdom is applied at practical level.A suggestion based on knowledge and wisdom would be free from negativity traps.It is noteworthy that a rational person can make errors but not systematic errors.We learn from past errors / other's errors and adjust our beliefs and actions accordingly.EXAMPLE.We take an example from socio-economic life to establish and internalize the whole concept.It is three steps road map towards positive mindset - Thought Awareness, Rational Limitation, and Self Suggestions.Step - I (Thought Awareness).Suppose you are going for some presentation / negotiation.There are some typical negative thoughts you might experience about presentation / negotiation..Fear about the quality of performance, technical problems that may come up, and harsh criticism; Worry about the reaction of peers, general audience, and stakeholders; Doubt on real strengths / potential opportunities, Visualizing the negative consequences of a poor performance; Self-criticism over less than perfect preparation, rehearsal and practice, Frustration or Anger on certain real inadequacies or deficiencies.These negative thoughts / negativity traps can damage confidence, harm performance, paralyze mental skills, and radiates negativity.Step - II (Rational Limitations).In rational limitation process you challenge the negative thoughts and counter them with rationality.Looking at some of the examples, the following challenges could be made to these common negative thoughts..Quality of performance. Have you gathered the information you need and prepared it properly for the event? Have you conducted a reasonable number of rehearsals, real or mental? If so, you've done as much as you can to give a good performance.Technical Problems and issues outside your control. The key to develop a rational limitation for successful presentation / negotiation on technical problems is to realize that you cannot control all relevant factors in your presentation / negotiation that may create a distraction.While you can control your own behavior or your organizational skills, you cannot control traffic jams, airline delays, power shutdown, computer network outrage, and communication problems due to damaged equipment.However, it is important to consider the possible risks and necessary steps to mitigate their effects.Fear about harsh criticism / Worry about other people's reaction. If you perform the best you can, then you have given a good performance, fair people are likely to respond well.If people are not fair, then the best thing is to ignore them and rise above any unfair comments.Problems during practice. If some of your practices were less than perfect, then remind yourself that the purpose of practice is to identify problems so that they will not be repeated during the performance.Similarly, ask yourself whether it is reasonable to expect perfect performance.All that is important is effective/great performance not perfect.Step - III (Self Suggestions).By now, you would be more positive.The final step for effective positive mindset is to prepare self-suggestions to counter any remaining negativity.Continuing with the same example, some positive affirmations could be..Quality of performance. "I have prepared well and have rehearsed thoroughly.I am ready to give an excellent performance.".Problems of distraction and issues outside your control. "I have thought everything that might reasonably happen and have planned how I can handle all likely contingencies.I am well equipped to react flexibly to any surprised situation.".Worry about other people's reaction. "Fair people will react reasonably to a well-prepared performance.I will rise above any unfair criticism in a mature and professional way.".CONCLUSION.Usually, people have advocated positive thinking with a piece of exaggeration, as a solution to everything.It is also an indication of negative mindset in the garb of positive thinking.Positive thinking must be accompanied by actions such as planning, preparation and practice.Secondly, positive thinking must demand positive associations.Positive associations lead to creativity, cooperation, solutions, and bigger dreams.It's often said that the books you read and the people you associate will determine where you'll be in next three to five years.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
The Bias For Pessimism, and The Myth Of The Evils Of Commerce
Since high school I noticed that pessimists and naysayers were considered "smart" and "perceptive" while optimistic people were treated like Pollyanna's and intellectual lightweights.Look at all the depressing authors we had to read in high school.Ugh.Even Thoreau was deluded about what would make the world better, as if we'd all be better off if we were spinning our own wool cloth, carrying water from the stream, and baking our own bread without technology.Try that sometime.It's not what it's cracked up to be.George Orwell's book 1984 was standard reading on how freedom and individuality would decline, Paul R.Ehrlich's The Population Bomb predicted we'd run out of food, and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was full of ecological doomsday wisdom that if you were "eco-cool" you believed.According to them, life on Earth should have declined into pollution, famine, and fascism thirty years ago.Problem is, none of those and other dire predictions by "leading edge" intellectual thinkers ever even came close to happening.Humans have been biased for negativity and danger since cave man had to worry about minute by minute survival.We're wired that way until enlightenment overrides it.And the mind is a wrong-seeking missile, so many people who are very mental are exceptionally focused on what could go wrong.Intellectuals are unusually biased toward pessimism, and are lauded and esteemed for their dire predictions--I used to call it pop nihilism--I thought it was new--but Ridley's book showed me that this bias toward negativity is very, very old.Every generation has lamented the decline of the current age and romanticized the lost golden past.Every generation has had it's "apocoholics" who thought their age was the end time.(See the Woody Allen movie, Midnight In Paris for a fun take on over-romanticizing the past and coming to embrace the present.).Year after year life on planet Earth gets better overall, and when people look back with misty-eyed nostalgia for some past they think was simpler and better, they're overlooking the hardships, diseases, lower standards of living, longer work hours, and higher mortality rates of those 'golden ages.' Poverty back then was severe, while people considered to be living at poverty level now often have cars, cell phones, and TV's!Compared to even a hundred years ago, we now live much better (and longer) than the richest kings of old ever did.If a king had 2000 slaves, you now have many thousands of people supplying you with goods and services that king could never dream of--and things are so affordable, even the poor have what used to be royal luxuries.As you supply others with your goods or services, and money circulates, prosperity expands, and everyone has more than they could make alone as self-sufficient subsistence farmers or hunter-gatherers.Media negativity about the recession only makes a slower economy worse, and creates a depressed response from people, companies, and markets.Spiritual and supposedly "progressive" people have demonized commerce, money, and large corporations for too long.If not for large corporations, many people would not be able to earn a living, as most people are more suited to working for others in a structured interdependent environment than they are to generating a living solo.Large corporations provide regular paychecks for millions who then don't appreciate it and complain.Socialist countries have either disintegrated or stagnated, because they don't encourage innovation, incentive, reward for performance, and free thought.They don't succeed.Ridley enlightens us to the simple fact that commerce has been a major force in evolution.Societies with strong healthy trade and commerce flourished, whereas societies with stifled or stagnant trade actually died out.He proves statistically that prosperity creates more prosperity for everyone.So the next time you start thinking the answer is returning to a simpler time, having less, and using less, read The Rational Optimist.One of Ridley's most brilliant suppositions is that evolved societies are "collectively brilliant." That no one person on the planet can make a computer mouse, but collectively we do it.It takes thousands of people cooperating, from the drilling of the oil to make the plastic to the making of the chip to the LED light.I love Ridley's catchy phrase that in the density of cities, "ideas have sex with other ideas" creating faster and faster evolution through exchange of ideas, products, and services.Sure, we can do better, and we will, continually, but be sure you have a basis for any beliefs you hold (and that they support your vibration rather than crashing it) rather than just listening to what popular leaders who seem to be progressive or spiritual say.Darryl Hannah wrote an article citing a bunch of popular unfounded ecological scare beliefs that I'm sure she's heard other hip ecologists spouting, such as that there are more enslaved people today than ever before.What??? Did she ever hear of ancient Egypt, Rome, and feudal England, where most people were slaves or serfs? Ridley cites the statistics.It's simply fashionable and hip these days to cry wolf and complain about everything from the economy to the environment to health.You know what a vibration-trasher complaining is.What actually happens is that humanity sees a challenge, has a strong desire that births new ideas and breakthroughs, and makes a change before disaster happens.Intellectuals base their predictions on facts staying the same as they are today, and nothing stays the same as it is today--we evolve, especially when disaster looms.It's those very threats that get us off our laurels to do something different, or to innovate, or regulate.Maybe the world doesn't always make the changes fast enough to suit some, but we do change.The air and oceans are cleaner than a decade ago, thanks to stricter regulations and lower emissions.Agricultural production is at an all time high, fewer people starve than ever before, although world population is at record high.Fewer people die of diseases, though the media regularly urges us to panic over the disease du jour.AIDS is now manageable and no longer an epidemic except in a couple of places in the world.Bird flu killed only a few more than a hundred people, rather than the hundreds of thousands predicted.Mad cow disease only killed a few people and never did become the disaster the media predicted.Ridley's book gives a thousand examples backed up by reliable, provable sources.Of course, disease non-profits know that if they admit cancer is steadily declining, no one will give, and if the Diabetes Society starts admitting it's getting better, it won't get them grants or donations.Ecologists know that their funding will run dry if they admit there are more trees than ever, not fewer, and fewer pollutants than ever.Unfortunately, it is valuable to scare the public to some degree to bring about change, but YOU don't have to buy it wholesale to your detriment.Hollywood and television are obsessed with disaster stories for some incomprehensible reason.It seems odd that that's considered entertainment, but it's a Free Will universe, and diversity is good.Y2K, mass destruction by acid rain, terrorist domination, the nuclear holocaust--none of it ever happened.Life really is on our side, and not only that, due to increased trade, globalization, technology, and communication--in addition to and because of the new vibrational energies coming in--human evolution is on a steeply accelerated upward curve.Communication and the internet is increasing the speed of spread of ideas, and making it harder for atrocities to happen without the whole world knowing about it.The doomsayers simply ignore all this positive evidence, and no one seems to take them to task for being dead wrong about the many disasters they predicted.They just write yet another doomsday book (that will turn out to be wrong) and continue to try to convince us that we need to face some awful reality.They think reality is something you observe, not something you create.And they fail to get how resourceful, flexible, and powerful humans are when they want to be.People who see opportunity in challenge innovate rather than give up in despair and powerlessness.They do something to change it before disaster happens.Again, we do sometimes wait till it's severe before we innovate and change, but we do change, and we will continue to, more rapidly every year as evolution speeds up.This world will never be complete and finished, but we'll keep evolving and spiraling upward if we stay awake.There are still things to improve, and we'll improve them, with certain pockets of the world like yours leading the way.Remember when you see a problem to stop and focus on what you'd like to see.You can't hold the problem and the solution at the same time without splitting your energy.Don't expect the doomsayers to stop.They'll even get Nobel prizes for their work.Just keep your nose tipped up, and create your own reality.They'll be wrong, especially for you.Enjoy The Rational Optimist.It's also good fodder for those state-of-the-world conversations with people who aren't spiritual, who might think you're a Pollyanna if you say it in spiritual terms, but who might just take a look at The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley.Love,.Lola.
The Bias For Pessimism, and The Myth Of The Evils Of Commerce
Since high school I noticed that pessimists and naysayers were considered "smart" and "perceptive" while optimistic people were treated like Pollyanna's and intellectual lightweights.Look at all the depressing authors we had to read in high school.Ugh.Even Thoreau was deluded about what would make the world better, as if we'd all be better off if we were spinning our own wool cloth, carrying water from the stream, and baking our own bread without technology.Try that sometime.It's not what it's cracked up to be.George Orwell's book 1984 was standard reading on how freedom and individuality would decline, Paul R.Ehrlich's The Population Bomb predicted we'd run out of food, and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was full of ecological doomsday wisdom that if you were "eco-cool" you believed.According to them, life on Earth should have declined into pollution, famine, and fascism thirty years ago.Problem is, none of those and other dire predictions by "leading edge" intellectual thinkers ever even came close to happening.Humans have been biased for negativity and danger since cave man had to worry about minute by minute survival.We're wired that way until enlightenment overrides it.And the mind is a wrong-seeking missile, so many people who are very mental are exceptionally focused on what could go wrong.Intellectuals are unusually biased toward pessimism, and are lauded and esteemed for their dire predictions--I used to call it pop nihilism--I thought it was new--but Ridley's book showed me that this bias toward negativity is very, very old.Every generation has lamented the decline of the current age and romanticized the lost golden past.Every generation has had it's "apocoholics" who thought their age was the end time.(See the Woody Allen movie, Midnight In Paris for a fun take on over-romanticizing the past and coming to embrace the present.).Year after year life on planet Earth gets better overall, and when people look back with misty-eyed nostalgia for some past they think was simpler and better, they're overlooking the hardships, diseases, lower standards of living, longer work hours, and higher mortality rates of those 'golden ages.' Poverty back then was severe, while people considered to be living at poverty level now often have cars, cell phones, and TV's!Compared to even a hundred years ago, we now live much better (and longer) than the richest kings of old ever did.If a king had 2000 slaves, you now have many thousands of people supplying you with goods and services that king could never dream of--and things are so affordable, even the poor have what used to be royal luxuries.As you supply others with your goods or services, and money circulates, prosperity expands, and everyone has more than they could make alone as self-sufficient subsistence farmers or hunter-gatherers.Media negativity about the recession only makes a slower economy worse, and creates a depressed response from people, companies, and markets.Spiritual and supposedly "progressive" people have demonized commerce, money, and large corporations for too long.If not for large corporations, many people would not be able to earn a living, as most people are more suited to working for others in a structured interdependent environment than they are to generating a living solo.Large corporations provide regular paychecks for millions who then don't appreciate it and complain.Socialist countries have either disintegrated or stagnated, because they don't encourage innovation, incentive, reward for performance, and free thought.They don't succeed.Ridley enlightens us to the simple fact that commerce has been a major force in evolution.Societies with strong healthy trade and commerce flourished, whereas societies with stifled or stagnant trade actually died out.He proves statistically that prosperity creates more prosperity for everyone.So the next time you start thinking the answer is returning to a simpler time, having less, and using less, read The Rational Optimist.One of Ridley's most brilliant suppositions is that evolved societies are "collectively brilliant." That no one person on the planet can make a computer mouse, but collectively we do it.It takes thousands of people cooperating, from the drilling of the oil to make the plastic to the making of the chip to the LED light.I love Ridley's catchy phrase that in the density of cities, "ideas have sex with other ideas" creating faster and faster evolution through exchange of ideas, products, and services.Sure, we can do better, and we will, continually, but be sure you have a basis for any beliefs you hold (and that they support your vibration rather than crashing it) rather than just listening to what popular leaders who seem to be progressive or spiritual say.Darryl Hannah wrote an article citing a bunch of popular unfounded ecological scare beliefs that I'm sure she's heard other hip ecologists spouting, such as that there are more enslaved people today than ever before.What??? Did she ever hear of ancient Egypt, Rome, and feudal England, where most people were slaves or serfs? Ridley cites the statistics.It's simply fashionable and hip these days to cry wolf and complain about everything from the economy to the environment to health.You know what a vibration-trasher complaining is.What actually happens is that humanity sees a challenge, has a strong desire that births new ideas and breakthroughs, and makes a change before disaster happens.Intellectuals base their predictions on facts staying the same as they are today, and nothing stays the same as it is today--we evolve, especially when disaster looms.It's those very threats that get us off our laurels to do something different, or to innovate, or regulate.Maybe the world doesn't always make the changes fast enough to suit some, but we do change.The air and oceans are cleaner than a decade ago, thanks to stricter regulations and lower emissions.Agricultural production is at an all time high, fewer people starve than ever before, although world population is at record high.Fewer people die of diseases, though the media regularly urges us to panic over the disease du jour.AIDS is now manageable and no longer an epidemic except in a couple of places in the world.Bird flu killed only a few more than a hundred people, rather than the hundreds of thousands predicted.Mad cow disease only killed a few people and never did become the disaster the media predicted.Ridley's book gives a thousand examples backed up by reliable, provable sources.Of course, disease non-profits know that if they admit cancer is steadily declining, no one will give, and if the Diabetes Society starts admitting it's getting better, it won't get them grants or donations.Ecologists know that their funding will run dry if they admit there are more trees than ever, not fewer, and fewer pollutants than ever.Unfortunately, it is valuable to scare the public to some degree to bring about change, but YOU don't have to buy it wholesale to your detriment.Hollywood and television are obsessed with disaster stories for some incomprehensible reason.It seems odd that that's considered entertainment, but it's a Free Will universe, and diversity is good.Y2K, mass destruction by acid rain, terrorist domination, the nuclear holocaust--none of it ever happened.Life really is on our side, and not only that, due to increased trade, globalization, technology, and communication--in addition to and because of the new vibrational energies coming in--human evolution is on a steeply accelerated upward curve.Communication and the internet is increasing the speed of spread of ideas, and making it harder for atrocities to happen without the whole world knowing about it.The doomsayers simply ignore all this positive evidence, and no one seems to take them to task for being dead wrong about the many disasters they predicted.They just write yet another doomsday book (that will turn out to be wrong) and continue to try to convince us that we need to face some awful reality.They think reality is something you observe, not something you create.And they fail to get how resourceful, flexible, and powerful humans are when they want to be.People who see opportunity in challenge innovate rather than give up in despair and powerlessness.They do something to change it before disaster happens.Again, we do sometimes wait till it's severe before we innovate and change, but we do change, and we will continue to, more rapidly every year as evolution speeds up.This world will never be complete and finished, but we'll keep evolving and spiraling upward if we stay awake.There are still things to improve, and we'll improve them, with certain pockets of the world like yours leading the way.Remember when you see a problem to stop and focus on what you'd like to see.You can't hold the problem and the solution at the same time without splitting your energy.Don't expect the doomsayers to stop.They'll even get Nobel prizes for their work.Just keep your nose tipped up, and create your own reality.They'll be wrong, especially for you.Enjoy The Rational Optimist.It's also good fodder for those state-of-the-world conversations with people who aren't spiritual, who might think you're a Pollyanna if you say it in spiritual terms, but who might just take a look at The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley.Love,.Lola.
Presidential Temperament - Obama Vs McCain
Looking beyond the sound bites of what has become an increasingly sound-bite driven campaign, it is the candidates' true temperaments we need to consider.The next President will inherit many tough problems from George W.Bush.How he goes about addressing them may be just as important as the political ideology that influences his solutions.Historically speaking, it would probably be a good bet to take McCain in the Presidential race, as a major party Artisan candidate has never lost a November election.However, sure things never are.Only this past weekend, a 38-1 long shot defeated Big Brown's bid for the Triple Crown.Lorena Ochoa lost her bid for the LPGA Grand Slam.Even Tiger Woods has been vulnerable.So, my friends, this roller coaster election still promises more ups and downs than your stock portfolio.Before Mrs.McCain begins choosing the new White House china pattern, let's take a look at our presumptive candidates and what we might expect from an Obama or McCain presidency.Specifically, how will the new President's temperament impact the country as we move on from the last 8 years?Since history does have a tendency to repeat itself, perhaps the best way to see how our candidates would behave if elected is to look at their most recent predecessors who share the same temperament and type.Let's look first at John McCain and his Artisan predecessors.It turns out we don't have to go back far at all to find one - George W.Bush is also an Artisan Promoter.Gleaning from his television appearances and press interviews, it does appear that with John McCain, we would be getting a repeat performance of George W.Bush's presidency.But, since Bush is currently the most unpopular president of all time, let's not tar McCain with that brush.It may be more instructive to look at another Artisan Promoter president, Lyndon B.Johnson (LBJ).There are a number of similarities between LBJ and a potential McCain presidency; they share some very strong traits.Each follows a fellow Artisan Promoter into the office; their predecessors come from elite, super-wealthy, East Coast families.Each is incredibly sure of his own abilities as a troubleshooter, and sure that he can 'win', no matter how dire the situation.Both men would inherit a far-off war that would show no signs of being winnable from a U.S.Perspective; civil wars in countries with borders drawn by outsiders who ignored the realities of the regions' cultures.Neither takes the 'Big Picture' view; they don't seem to consider the results of their actions, outside the current playing arena.Hence, LBJ escalated, and continued to escalate, America's involvement in Southeast Asia, despite his own advisors telling him that the strategy was doomed.The war must be won at all costs! (Sound familiar?).McCain doesn't deviate from this script.Notably, he has taken to ruminating lately that the Vietnam war was "winnable" and that it was only lost due to "a lack of will by the American People," not because it was un-winnable militarily.He's pretty clear that he will follow Bush's strategic footsteps in Iraq - in fact, he has stated that it wouldn't bother him, "if we stay there for 100 years." When questioned about massive war spending and its effect on the American economy, he is as sanguine as LBJ ever was.In other words, the economy is of much less interest to him than the war and combating terrorism.Like LBJ and his Gulf of Tonkin ruse, McCain also seems unwilling to challenge the Bush administration propaganda linking Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein, and now to the Iraqi insurgency.These traits, and the complete lack of introspection exhibited by both LBJ and John McCain, point toward a McCain Presidency being very much like that of LBJ.Strong-willed, "stay-the-course," "you're either with me, or against me" - a very stubborn mentality.We may see individual decisions and actions, such as LBJ's historical Civil Rights legislation of 1964, that hint at greatness.But every decision, every program, will tend to be measured on its immediate implications, without considering the Big Picture, or what will occur in aggregate in the future.If you believe in the current course, it's easy to support Mr.McCain.If you are looking for someone willing to question his own beliefs - to back down and accept either criticism or contradictory advice at times, McCain's temperament simply won't go there.Though his record shows a consistency in action over his career (he supported the Iraq invasion from the start, and has been its staunchest supporter even when facing overwhelming public opposition), he can appear chameleon like.He says exactly what's on his mind at the moment, and moments change.He is completely sincere when he admonishes the President regarding the use of torture in military interrogations.He's just as sincere when he later votes against a Senate bill that would outlaw use of such torture.In his mind, this is not a conflict, a lie, or a deception.He lives in the moment - not yesterday, and not tomorrow.For Barack Obama, there are fewer past presidents to compare - actually, there is only one.Dwight David Eisenhower was a Republican, so again I can steer away from areas of political ideology and address what kind of president Senator Obama might be.As Organizer Rationals, Obama and Eisenhower share a number of visible traits.Neither purposefully projects the typical Rational persona in his public appearance.Noted by historians as "a very tense man," Eisenhower was able to fashion a public image of an amiable, sunny, sky-blue optimist with enormous patience.Serving under Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines, he was the speech writer behind MacArthur's reputation for eloquence.He tempered his positions on many divisive issues, and frequently took actions that were more liberal than his Democratic successor (JFK) in supporting civil rights and warning against the military-industrial complex.Similarly, Barack Obama masks the hard-driven Organizer Rational intensity behind an easy smile; he has become known (positively by supporters, negatively by detractors) as 'Joe Cool'.His eloquence in delivering written speeches has become almost legendary, but like Eisenhower, this eloquence comes from his skill with language, as opposed to an Artisan ability to perform.And Obama has, like Eisenhower, tempered some of his positions on issues that are dear to his (in Obama's case liberal) base - he supports off-shore oil drilling, nuclear power, and 'clean coal'.What else can Eisenhower tell us about a potential Obama presidency? Ike was a strategic thinker who was masterful at seeing the 'Big Picture'.So, important decisions received a great deal of thought and contingency planning.Pragmatism outweighed ideology in his decision making process.Eisenhower appointed five Supreme Court justices during his tenure; political ideology doesn't seem to have been a consideration in his decision process, as the appointments ranged from moderately conservative (Potter Stewart) to very liberal (William Brennan).Though he projected a sunny public exterior, he was a demanding and involved Chief Executive, who expected subordinates to give honest input, even if contrary, into the planning process.According to the book Presidential Temperament, by David Keirsey and Ray Choiniere, Dwight Eisenhower had a well-developed ability to work with people.He could be patient, yet persuasive; tactful, yet dominant.He could formulate his own opinions and still listen thoughtfully to opposing views; he could disagree with his subordinates' views and still work to reconcile them with what needed to be done.Another Rational president, Abraham Lincoln, exhibited this trait most strongly when he appointed his strongest political foes to his cabinet at the darkest moment in American history.To solve the hardest problems, a leader needs to encourage strong ideological debate in formulating the solutions.An Obama presidency that reflected these characteristics of Rational temperament would be a definite contrast to one of Operator Artisan John McCain.Of the two, Senator McCain is more comfortable in making quick decisions.McCain is more at home 'in the moment', the reactive, tactical world of daily politics where spontaneity, improvisation, and deal-making are key.Barack Obama is more comfortable in a 'Big Picture' world, where comprehensive strategies can be developed before leaping to action.The two candidates' reactions to the recent Wall Street meltdown were a good window into the differences between how the two men react to a crisis.Writing about Presidential temperaments was personally enlightening - it gave me reason for reading about and observing the candidates more extensively than I otherwise would have done.Perhaps not surprisingly, it has strongly influenced my own opinions of the candidates and how I will vote in this historical election on November 4th.
The Single's Guide to Stress Management
How do you keep up with this highly competitive and rapidly changing world and manage your stress levels and stay healthy.And look for Mr or Ms Right at the same time?Well from my observations at a typical suburban nightclub recently, lots of you are not doing very well!The obvious signal of high stress/low health is the pall of cigarette smoke that hovers over the whole place and the full ashtrays and bar-gutters and the dirty floor.I stood next to one guy who chain-smoked for an hour and I counted 10 cigarettes - just think.If he was there till stumps at 3am, that means he'd have smoked 40 cigarettes in a night.And it's probable that the mixed drink he had wasn't just coke and if he had only one of those an hour his blood-alcohol would have been over the limit.If he hadn't "scored" on top of that, imagine what a grumpy, depressive and potentially explosive driver he would have been on the way home!No wonder we have road rage nowadays - it starts with all those singles who over-did it on the weekend.And it doesn't have to be that night of course - it'd take at least 2 days for the body to recover from that sort of damage, so our friend is a walking time-bomb for that long until his body detoxifies and he returns to the mild-mannered executive that he really is.(Please note - I'm not being sexist with my example - of course she could just have easily been a lady!).Let's look at how the singles scene rates for stress in terms of the 10 strategies I cover in my keynote presentation entitled "10 Sure-fire strategies for realistic stress reduction, easy stress-management and maximal good health".The first strategy asks you to rate your satisfaction, success and stress over the four categories of experience - your thoughts, your feelings, your body and your behaviours.Most singles swing from highs to lows with the first two, depending on their night's outcome.The body is sure given a stress test - especially if they're at the night-club scene second time round after a broken marriage.(Isn't it ironic that the same folk who used to go to bed on a Friday night at 10.30 are just getting ready to go out? What does that do to your bio-rhythms?) And behaviours.That same executive who is responsible in their top-level job can do the craziest things on the big night out - from over-drinking and smoking to having un-safe sex in the back seat of a car with someone they've just met!The second strategy asks you to think positive, optimistic thoughts.Well the truth is, the most positively thinking single can still find themselves going home alone at the end of a long hard night.Here's where you have to be an optimistic and realistic thinker.The pessimist thinks in black and white - I'm ugly, all men are jerks, and there's no-one out there for me.The optimist accepts that sometimes it's hard to meet someone, there are lots of good men out there, and those available men are probably thinking the same thing about their chances of meeting a good woman.(What's that old saying.A hard man is good to find?).The third strategy is to cope with your negative feelings.Don't beat yourself up because you're lonely again, and don't wallow in your depression.(It is OK though, to admit that you're disappointed that you didn't have a good time and you spent another 60 bucks and all you got to show for it is a hangover).The fourth strategy is to take care of your body - Limit your CATS (caffeine, alcohol, tobacco and sugar intake) - Yes.I'm talking to you! Set yourself some limits for goodness sake - aim to have no more than 3 drinks and one coffee.As a reformed smoker and stress-management consultant I can't allow you any ciggies - after all, you want to meet someone intelligent.And it's impossible to smoke and be intelligent at the same time!The good news is that you can overdose on dancing - get that aerobic exercise you need at the same time you're cruising for the sex that you also need to manage your stress.Now that's called time management! That's your fifth strategy!The sixth strategy is planning.Single parents need to plan and program their environment to support their health.It'd be crazy to go out till 4am when you're expecting the kids to be dropped off at 8am.Save the big night for the weekend you're all alone and have a recovery day next day.And the non-parent fitness freaks have to watch it too.Don't head off to the gym after 4 hours sleep with a hangover.Or worse still, attempt the local fun run.Dehydration and collapse is not a good look!The seventh strategy is to understand personalities.Well we can all be experts at that after the third drink can't we? It's been said that " Some people drink to make ugly people look beautiful and others drink to make dumb people appear intelligent." You can sure see a lot of that out at the singles clubs.The eighth strategy is to regularly pamper yourself - make time just for you and do things that give you space, pleasure and joy.Well you can combine singles life with pampering in your preparations so that you go out all mellow and smelling gorgeous after your bubble bath, hair-do and facial.And now let me recommend something for the ladies.That's a joke for the guys! I hope you get it?The ninth strategy is to have a sense of purpose.The question one asks is "what gets me up in the mornings? What drives me to seek my best and give my best?" Well for the community and planet, your purpose could be to help prevent pollution.So why not keep the same purpose when you go out to clubs.Who's game to start a drug-free adult nightclub?I guess that the absolutely best stress-management strategy for singles though is Number 10 - keep your sense of humour.Have fun when you get out there.Let go of your goal-orientation to meet "the one" and see it as just a good night out.Be present in the moment.Treat each person that you meet as someone who is just like you - really worthwhile and interesting - (not desperate and interested in just one thing - unless of course, you're like that???).Above all else - HAVE FUN!Be like the angels and birds - how is it that they can fly? Because they take themselves lightly!Remember singles serenity is an "inside job.".
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