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Weekly Notes, Catching up on some thoughts from a blog I'm following.

6/8/2011

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I haven't been AS diligent in recording all of the nuggets of wisdom I have come across since coming back from my trip (I have to keep some reason for people to want to interact with me face to face :), but I have read the rest of the posts I wanted to from Raptitude.com. Here they are:

I didn’t realize it, but writing is something I’ve needed in my life for a long time. From here on in I will never not write. It helps me clarify my thoughts and my values. It helps me figure out who I am. In a brief half-year, my goals have become clear to me, and I have no ambivalence about what I want to do with my life.
http://www.raptitude.com/2009/09/whats-your-problem-and-why/

"Children have a precious talent. They become enamored so easily, and by anything. Take a walk through a park with a young child, and it doesn’t take long before he’s stopped, crouched on the side of the path, captivated by a red leaf or line of marching ants. Wide-eyed and oblivious to you and everything else, he just watches.  He’s become enraptured by a curious sight that is — to him — a miracle.
"...most of us feel like we’ve lost most of our capacity for bewilderment, somewhere between childhood and high school.With a bit of attention, we can get it back... One eye-opening method is to incorporate the idea of ritual into your daily tasks. 
"One thing that all rituals have in common is that they are performed with attention.  The participants are fully absorbed in what they are doing, because they believe their actions are important.Essential to this idea is respect for the things and people involved.  Throughout your rituals, recognize the value and usefulness of objects as you pick them up.  Recognize the sensitivities and virtues of people as you interact with them.  Carelessness and haste have no place here.The purpose of ritual is to remind you that what you are doing is significant simply because it is what you are doing right now. Rituals need not have any lofty spiritual or religious pretensions; we’re just trying to cultivate attention.The whole operation doesn’t take any more time than doing it absent-mindedly, and the experience will leave you grateful and mindful for the next part of your day.  Those steps all have to be completed anyway, so what would be the benefit in letting your attention wander to something else?  There is none that I can think of, but it’s what would happen if you didn’t make a point of doing it all deliberately, by ritualizing it."
http://www.raptitude.com/2009/03/how-to-improve-your-quality-of-life-by-up-to-90/

"Please don’t only do what’s comfortable! That’s a perfect recipe for mediocrity. The older you get, the greater will be the gulf between what you could be and what you are, and the more sorry you’ll be."
"When it comes to meeting people, it’s easy to avoid it because they’re only strangers then. You can always write off a stranger as irrelevant to your life, as you know it right now. But you don’t realize that that stranger could have been your best friend, your mentor, your key to a fantastic opportunity, or even your wife. Everyone you know now was a stranger once.A new person in your life can open a new chapter. They can lead to new lines of work, new passions, new insight about the world and a broader, more colorful identity for you.""What can you do instead [of working for someone else]? Do what your would-be boss is doing. Create something of value, and find the people who value it most. A service or a product that people value, and that others aren’t delivering as well, or at all.If you need help to produce it, you will certainly be able to find a lot of people willing to sell you their time for a flat rate. If you need a method, there are hundreds of established, tested models in the library, online (yes, online), and at the bookstore. Pick one that speaks to you and see what happens."
http://www.raptitude.com/2010/02/3-pieces-of-advice-id-give-my-18-year-old-self-if-i-could/

"The bottom line of almost all self-help, spiritual, or religious literature is that our ability to be happy is determined by our ability to stay in the present moment. The Buddhists, the Toltecs, the Bible, Eckhart Tolle, Ram Dass, Emerson, Thoreau — anyone at all who is known for having found a path to consistent, recurring joy — cites staying present as the essential teaching.
Only when we’re present do we see beauty, enjoy gratitude, and experience happiness. It’s the moments we’re present for that make life good, so it only stands to reason that being present is something we’d do well to get better at."http://www.raptitude.com/2010/03/how-to-make-mindfulness-a-habit-with-only-a-tiny-commitment/

This post was interesting,http://www.raptitude.com/2009/05/the-results-are-in-experiment-no-1-day-30/

But this one was my favorite:http://www.raptitude.com/2009/04/how-to-always-have-something-better-to-talk-about-than-the-weather/


Oh, and this was a great quote from the Times:

"Fulfillment is a byproduct of how people engage their tasks, and can’t be pursued directly."http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/opinion/31brooks.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212
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Weekly Notes: GREAT Blog discovery, Emerson quotes, Self-Defense, and Religious "Evidence"

4/24/2011

2 Comments

 

I recently discovered an amazing blog by David Cain. It's called Raptitude.com (the name comes from a quote by Albert Einstein: “He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”—AMAZING. I recommend perusing his “best of” posts.).  I don't agree with everything he says, but some of the things the thoughts expressed are articulated so clearly as to be life-changing. Therefore, they belong on my site.  Enjoy!

 

First up, here are some thoughts from a post where he explicates some of his favorite quotations from Ralph Waldo Emerson (the one about being misunderstood instantly changed my life—that was TOTALLY one of my greatest fears):

 

·        “People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.“

A person’s opinion of the world they live in really seems to be a foolproof litmus test for their strength of character.  The tendency towards blame and disdain seems to vary inversely with the virtues of courage and compassion.

The wisest people I know invariably revere the world, and the most ineffective ones hate it.  For a while now I’ve believed that cynicism about the world is a method of defense against one’s one inadequacy.  When a person is defeated at every turn, they tend to peg the whole world as the culprit.  This relieves them from the painful responsibilities of humility and growth.

I have been on both sides.  Knowing the world as an enemy removes responsibility for oneself.  Behaving and speaking as though the world is against you is only a clever way of abandoning any accountability for the state of your life and the world you live in.   Knowing the world as an ally instead of an adversary leaves no room for excuses.

I now recognize disdain for the world as sure sign of weakness, not just when I see it in others but also when I catch myself thinking that way.  Whenever I’m caught up disparaging this or that, it’s a clear message to any astute observer that in that moment, I’ve lost my composure and maturity.

If you want to know if a person is a suitable teammate, lover, boss or employee, pay attention to their opinion of the world.  It reveals all.

“Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. — `Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

Remembering this quote has protected me from so many instances of shame and self-doubt for things I’ve said and stances I’ve taken.  One truth I keep encountering again and again is that one cannot stay the same person throughout life.  As we experience more and more, our perspectives change and consequently so do our beliefs...When someone is that afraid of being contradicted, they are no longer concerned with the truth, only with protecting their priceless investment in what they have said.  To honor a statement you made yesterday as a binding declaration of who you are is a tragic, yet extremely common mistake.  This is the fundamental error that plagues humanity: to mistake one’s ego for oneself.  Enforcing an impossible, lifelong consistency in what you say and believe can only lead to dishonesty and despair. Someone whose opinions change freely with experience is clearly someone who is not guided by dogma or the expectations of others, but instead by a clear internal compass of inquiry and honesty.  To such a “pure and wise spirit,” it is far more important to seek the truth than to be regarded as having had it all along.  “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” said Emerson.

Whenever I feel a pang of regret for something I’ve said, I remember that all I did was speak what I thought at the time in hard words, even if today I speak different ones.  It’s only human.
(David Cain, “Brilliant Remarks from History’s Wisest American, June 4, 2009)

Second up for this post, from another Raptitude entry, David brilliantly puts into words a lot of things I have observed about people justifying themselves in mediocrity as opposed to admitting that the fault could lie completely with themselves (he is giving himself as an example when he was known as being very quiet and “shy” at a previous job):

·        "When people feel inadequate in some way, they tend to make up whatever prejudices or beliefs they need to feel okay about it.
Of course, nobody realizes it while they’re doing it.  Forming beliefs out of self-defense is very common behavior, and it’s probably the source of most of the erroneous and destructive beliefs people carry.  I knew my coworkers weren’t all complainers and ingrates.  They talked about things I was interested in too, but they did it much more freely and comfortably than I could, and I hated that.

Another typical example of a self-defense belief: a person feels like he doesn’t make as much money as he wants, so he forms the belief that highly-paid people are greedy or materialistic, to defend himself from feelings of inadequacy about his ability to earn.

I told myself that everyone else talked too much, so that I could spare myself the rotten feeling of recognizing that I was really bad at something I knew was important.  I was painfully shy and I knew it, but like so many other behavioral problems I had, I rationalized it away.  I argued to myself that I had every reason for speaking exactly as much or as little as I did.  That belief kept me slightly less uncomfortable, but also prevented me from ever fixing the problem."

(David Cain, “How to Always Have Something Better to Talk About Than the Weather,” April 2009)

 

Last Great thought comes from a an article from the Mormon Times about evidence and proof in a religious context. I LOVED it. It is a great distillation of my thoughts as to why people should not jump to conclusions about new ‘discoveries’ and/or theories about the Book of Mormon or anything, really:

 

·        There seems to be some confusion among believers and critics as to the nature and meaning of “evidence.” I’ve often written, for example, that I don’t believe that spiritual things will be proven by secular means. Critics, however, read this and claim that I don’t believe there is evidence to support the Book of Mormon. This is blatantly false.

In addition to a spiritual witness (which is certainly an “evidence” that supports belief), I believe there are many secular evidences that support of the Book of Mormon. I’ve offered a number of these throughout this series and will continue to share more (for several weeks I discussed the numerous evidences supporting a Lehite migration through Southern Arabia).

I don’t believe, however, that there is secular “proof” for the Book of Mormon, and I believe that such “proof” would contradict the laws of agency and wouldn’t convince the hard-hearted anyway.

Evidence is basically any data that support a proposition. Not all evidence is equal in strength, and we evaluate the strength of evidence based on numerous other factors — including additional evidence. As explained by Daniel Peterson, “There is evidence for all sorts of things, and we routinely speak of ‘conflicting evidence’ regarding as yet unresolved questions. Some of it is strong to the point of proof or near-proof. Some of it is weak to the point, almost, of non-existence. Much of it is somewhere in between....Evidence is not proof. Proof is generally a conclusion we infer from what we see as strong or overwhelming evidences. Scholars generally tend to avoid terms such as “proof” when dealing with inconclusive and open-ended topics such as religion, certain aspects of history, or archaeology. One writer for Psychology Today, for example, states:“Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a scientific proof. Proofs exist only in mathematics … not in science. …Scientists prefer theories for which there is more and better evidence to theories for which there is less and worse evidence. Proofs are not the currency of science.”
Michael R. Ash, “Challenging Issues, Keeping the Faith,” April 11, 2011

That is all I’ve kept track of this week, but shortly I hope to have organized my Goodreads.com profile for everyone’s enlightenment (really, it is a GREAT way to share with others what you are reading and learning!)

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Weekly Notes, Solving Problems, Fear, and Families in the Book of Luke

3/27/2011

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In my zealous pursuit of knowledge, I had the idea to (instead of keep them in Microsoft OneNote), share some of the nuggets that I find during my week when I don't have enough time or enough content to justify individual posts. So here are some things I came across this week.

Making Decisions
“Brainstorm every possible solution you can think of. Write down every idea — even the crazy ones. Sometimes the crazy ideas lead you to new solutions you hadn’t thought of. Trust that the solution is there, and you will find it.”
From Tips for making tough decisions, http://www.mormontimes.com/article/20178/5-tips-for-making-tough-decisions-with-confidence?s_cid=rss 

On the pressure to succeed:
“your value is not, and never will be, on the line. Your value is infinite and determined by God, so make sure to leave your value out of it.”

 After relating a story about feeling awkward at a karaoke party:
 “When you are experiencing fear… your focus is all on you!  You are worried about looking stupid, not being liked or being rejected.   You are totally insecure.  Insecurity, by nature,  is a very selfish place to be!   It’s all about you!
 As soon as I felt more secure (or less afraid) my fear level went down and in this place… LOVE could show up again.  Now that I wasn’t worried about myself, it became really easy to focus on others. After a couple minutes I was looking for other people who felt awkward who I could reach out to.
Why didn’t I do that in the beginning?
 I was too focused on me.
 So the moral of the story is… FEAR seriously messes up your life and robs the world of your love. When you are afraid for yourself – you aren’t capable of loving others.”

 “the voice of fear in your mind believes that if you can see bad in others, if you can make them “the bad guy” then you must, by default, be the “good guy”.
When you find mistakes, character flaws or badness in another person… there is a subconscious feeling of superiority that shows up...The problem is… in reality we are all exactly the same.
 We all have both good and bad in us.
 We all have good moments and bad moments.  We all make mistakes and are sometimes selfish or rude.  We all do it!  There are no good guys and bad guys… There is just all of us imperfect, stupid, struggling, scared, trying to do better but screwing up all the time human beings!  There is just all of us imperfect but amazing, gifted and innately good, same as everyone else human beings!
We are all the same.
 If we were to see people accurately, we would see them with compassion and forgiveness because we would see that they are the same as us.  They may have different weaknesses than ours but we both have weaknesses!  No one is better than another.
 We would see their infinite and absolute value along with our own!  We would realize that we don’t have anything to be afraid of… we are all good enough… and we could just start loving each other.”
From http://www.trunity.net/claritypoint/articles/view/149347/?topic=47173


Mark Zuckerberg visited BYU:
I also attended a question and answer session with the founder of Facebook when he visited my Alma Mater.  Most of the questions focused on technology and political policy related thereto (interesting, but not potentially life-changing, and therefore, do not belong on my website, but one of the last questions sparked a real gem. Mark was asked about how to get in to the higher levels at Facebook. It felt like he answered it as a general hiring question, but I take it as a mantra for the changing working world in general. He said something to the effect of "We want people with passion. You have an engineering degree. That's great. What initiative have you taken ON YOUR OWN? Or have you JUST gone to classes? What community involvement have you engaged in? In what way do you want to change the world? If you can't convince us that you have enough passion to change the world in some way, we don't want you. We want people who, in interviews, tell us that Facebook is SO FAR from what it could be that it is BROKEN and by sheer force of will, they want to fix it in big ways--to take it to the next level by their passion for what the world SHOULD be."  It was quite inspiring. And I COMPLETELY resonated with it. I was recently accepted to Teach for America, and I think what really set me apart was my enthusiasm. It really showed them that I want to change things. I wasn't content with just "doing" the job, I wanted to be a teacher that would transform kids' worlds--invite them to a higher level of viewing and living life (which is also how I view my own life--which is why I take the counsel of books and prophets so literally).
Families in Luke  
Today I attended a fireside with the director of the Jerusalem Center for dozens of years, Dr. S. Kent Brown. The man is a genius. He has studied the book of Luke for over 20 years, and shared with us some insights, all on the theme of families in the Book of Luke. Some insights were:

"Nor given in marriage." Not meant to be passive voice, but rather, is reflexive--as in "give herself". Showing that Jesus is teaching that women should have a say in their marriages (and not be treated as objects only--e.g., to be "given away" to the husband).

Daughter of Jairus: put the noise outside, the static of the world. Was 6 months away from betrothal age. Saved a potential new family.

Miracle of casting the nets. Gave their families food and income.
Build his house : can be *household* on bedrock.
Two other thoughts, not really related to family, but nonetheless very interesting, are
1. The story of the quadriplegic: "sins forgiven?" How so? He can't move. Mean that he can't dig a pit or steal etc, rather his sin was that he resented his lot.

2. Christ Never performs a miracle for no reason. Look for the reason, find the principle.
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Some thoughts from the son of a Billionaire

11/21/2010

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Here is a short excerpt of something I ran across on a website by Bill Gates that I find myself frequently perusing. Very Good lessons, says I.   Here is what Bill says:

"Peter Buffett recently published a terrific book, titled Life is What You Make It. Peter writes about the values he absorbed growing up as the son of Warren Buffett and his -late mother, Susan Buffett, and the path he has pursued to identify and pursue his passions in life.

Contrary to what many people might assume, Peter won’t inherit great wealth from his father. Instead, he was encouraged by his parents to find his own path. The book is a chronicle of that journey – and the wisdom and perceptions he has developed along the way. 

In particular, Peter’s insights about the four core values he “absorbed” growing up in the Buffett home really resonated with me. They are:
1. Trust in the belief that the world is fundamentally a good place and that all people, however, flawed, are—at the core—well-intentioned
2. Tolerance for other people’s viewpoints and perspectives
3. A passion for education—not in the traditional sense but as a way to approach life with curiosity and an openness to what others have to teach us
4. A personal work ethic grounded in self-discovery and a commitment to finding something that you wake up every morning looking forward to"
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