To trust or not to?

Years ago, while going through a transformational workshop, I had an experience that I would like to relate to you. There were a little over a hundred of us in this large meeting room at a local hotel. During one of the breaks all of the chairs were removed from the room. When we came back in, the room was completely open and spacious.

The trainer informed us that we were about to do an exercise on trust. The instructions were simple. Each of us was to go around the room and in a ten minute period of time have a single interaction with as many of the others as we could. We weren't required to talk to everyone and we could pick and choose who we did and did not interact with. But the interaction itself was very specific. We were to walk up to a person, smile, look them right in the eye and say either "Hi, I trust you" or "Hi, I don't trust you". Loud dance music was played so that even though we were all together in the same room, each conversation was a private one.

Now the thing here is, none of us knew each other. We were all different people from different walks of life who had each independently signed up for this class. So there were no no preformed relationships. The only things people could base their decisions on was what the other person looked like or sounded like when they walked up and said hello.

For many people this was a very eye opening experience. In some cultures people almost never look each other in the eyes because it is seen as a sign of aggression. They never make a direct personal connection with anyone. For some people, they found out that although they had previously thought they were very trusting of others, in reality, they didn't trust anyone.  By the end of the ten minutes a whole lot of people were crying, some with happiness many more with the sadness of realizing the way they made choices just wasn't working for them. We got to see how we judged other people and how other people judged us. A great many breakthroughs were had that day.

Afterwards, there was another break and all the chairs were brought back in. Once we were all back, seated comfortably, the trainer passed a microphone around the room and asked us all to share our experiences. Most of the people said they found themselves saying more often than not that they did not trust the people they were interacting with simply because they were strangers. Many of the people that said they did trust the person they were saying hello to was because they were attracted to that person in some way.

I found my experience to be unique among all of the people that chose to share because I trusted everyone. I said hello and told every person I talked to that I trusted them. Was I just doing this to curry personal favor or to make them smile or in the hopes that they would say they trusted me back? Nope. It was the absolute truth.

See, I don't look at trust like most other people do. The commonly held belief is that if you trust a person you believe they won't do anything to hurt you. So, based on that if you believe a person won't hurt you, you say you trust them and if you believe they will, you say you don't trust them.

What I believe is a little different than that. I believe that each person is the most important person in the world to themselves. It is also my belief that people are generally good and want to do the right thing. But, when a conflict of interest occurs a person will, nearly without fail, do the thing that is good for themselves, regardless of how it affects others. I believe that it is hardly ever the intention of another person to hurt me, it is just more convenient than harming themselves.

A complete stranger, one whom I know nothing about and knows nothing about me, has nothing to gain by hurting me. There is no reason for me to believe they have any intention of hurting me. So, I trust them. Now that is not to say that my guard is completely down and inviting an attack. I am not an idiot. I take each new piece of information that comes in and modify my opinions based on circumstance. In other words, I am open and loving until shown that it is inappropriate for the circumstance.

The only way to be fair to everyone is to treat them all exactly the same way. By default, I could trust no one or I could choose to trust everyone. The first just seems like a sad sad way to live your life, don't you think?

One event. Multiple Stories. Why? pt2

Because of the tint applied to our vision there are things that happened that I will not have seen but you will and vice versa. And there are things that happened that neither of us will have seen.

Finally and probably the biggest one of them all is generalization. Life is complex and intricate. We would run out of time and get nothing done if every time we spoke about an event we started from the beginning and filled in every single detail of what happened.

For example, I can tell you I made a sandwich. Or I can tell you each step involved in making my lunch, every ingredient that went into it, where I found each one, how I decided what went into it and what did not, and how it compared with other sandwiches, that I have eaten. All of that data is relevant and I might share it once, but not every time I make or eat a sandwich, because I know you don't care about most of those things and through your own process of deleting, distorting and generalizing, most of what you are going to remember is that I told you a story about a sandwich.

Each day is made up of thousands of such events. Our mind breaks these complex sequences of events down to the most important most relevant details and generalizes the whole experience into the simplest to remember.

To sum up, we actually destroy the truth and replace it with a similar but much more convenient lie. And that is why one event with multiple witnesses will have multiple different stories, depending on who is called to task to tell the story.

Through the use of recording devices we can often get a more clear picture of things and that is one way of getting to the truth. But is is also possible for us to modify the delete,distort and generalization process so that our own story is closer to the truth. In fact, that is part of what self empowerment is about, being more conscious of what is going on around you, being better at observing and remembering what you experience. It does take conscious effort and will but I think it is worth it.

It is my personal mission in life to make my experience, my memory of everything that happens to me  be as close to the truth as possible as often as possible. Being able to tell the truth about something when asked what happened is important to me. Does it matter to you?

If it does, then make a new decision for yourself. Starting today do everything in your power to be more conscious of things that are going on around you. Be more present and aware of things as they actually happen. Make a conscious effort to remember things in as vivid of detail as possible. It may not happen immediately, but over time you should get better at recalling what actually happened.

Who knows? Maybe one day seven or eight out of ten people might actually be able to tell the same exact story about an event and have it be the truth.

How could you possibly know?

Every person has their own interpretation of the events that happen in life. What is excruciatingly painful for one person might be only a mildly bad thing to someone else. Each experience is our own and unique. Nobody else will ever feel exactly the same thing about the same event.

That's why it's so common to feel alone when a negative experience happens. You are alone in your own little world surrounded by pain and suffering. Nobody else is having YOUR experience. When this happens we want to shut everyone out and not let them in. We feel that nobody can help us or give us useful advice. No one can have our experience so how can they help us?

Maybe it hasn't happened to you personally. Maybe you have only seen this type of thing in the movies or in books. But, I am sure you know what I'm talking about.

They make that "mistake" of saying I know how you feel and suddenly you explode. You rail out at the other person screaming and kicking and punching, bellowing forth at the top of your lungs how there is no way they could every possible understand what you are going through.

 At different points in my life, I have been both the person who was suffering and the person who was offering their condolences.When I was suffering, I was unreasonable and would not let others in. And when I was offering my assistance it was rebuffed by people acting the same way I had in the past.

I learned at some point how stupid it was to push other people away when all they wanted to do was to help me feel better. My lashing out, cursing and swearing at the people that wanted to make things better was childish and illogical.

Often, when we are in the moment, logic is not present. It is all about what is happening right at that second and how we feel about it.We can't see past that moment. But eventually that moment ends. Life goes on. You either find a way to heal, you go crazy(the dangerous kind) or you die.

I'm not fond of being dead or that other kind of crazy, so after my seriously bad moments I had to find a way to heal. I learned through experience that it doesn't matter that our experiences are different.

The bottom line is no life is without pain and suffering at some point. Just because a person has not gone through the exact same experience does not mean they have no knowledge of what it is to suffer. People that care about you are going to offer their sympathy simply because they see someone they care about in pain.

It really doesn't matter that your particular situation isn't as bad for them as it is for you. It doesn't matter if they have never been through a similar situation. They have been in pain and they see that you are in pain.

So, yeah. How could they possibly know what it is that you are going through? They don't. But they don't need to. Just accept that your friends and family, one do know what pain is like and two want to do their very best to make yours go away. Let them in. Let them assist you in starting to heal.

because the other options just aren't worth it.

An observation and a suggestion

A bit more of my slightly different perception of things.

People, when excited about a particular thing, have a tendency to emphatically state something to the effect of, it changed my life! Or it was truly a life altering experience. They declare such a thing loudly and boldly, often pausing between each word and also placing extra emphasis on each word to show just how serious they are about what it is that they are saying.

While I appreciate the severity of their declaration and share in the joy that something that happened to them had a profound effect on their life, I also kinda giggle somewhat inside at how ridiculous it sounds to me whenever someone says anything like that.

Why? Because everything that happens to you alters your life in some way. There are no non-life altering events.

Spilling coffee on your shirt alters your life. So does putting clothing on, going to work, disciplining your children, stopping at a red light or running it, doing homework, walking the dog, finishing up a puzzle, learning something new. Choosing to get up in the morning alters your life. Every single one of these things has some impact on your life even if it is only miniscule, even if it only provides background for other things.

Some, very few things, actually take our life in a completely new direction. They blaze a path to doorways that we never even knew existed. This is what most people mean when they are talking about something that changed their life. They have the passion correct. They just fail to properly articulate what it is that they actually mean.

And the second point for today I've been meaning to mention for awhile. I have a habit that I have formed over the past few years that has in many cases assisted me in preventing the tendency to overreact to certain stimuli. It has to do with creating a duality within your mind. When something happens, it doesn't matter what it is, create an image in your head of you being both present while the event happens and not present, standing outside the circumstance observing the event happening to and around the "other" you.

This way you can fully experience being in the moment while at the same time having a calm peaceful center from which to find the best solution to a given problem. Being able to have both an objective and a subjective point of view in virtually any circumstance allows for a great deal of emotional flare-up prevention. It also allows one to be more fair and reasonable under a broad range of circumstances.

There are times where others will not understand your apparently detached attitude, especially if they were ramping up for a fight, but I know from personal experience it is a much better option than simply reacting to everything that happens.

I think it should be called the dis comfort zone

While growing up, we learn things about the world, things that help shape who and what we are. We have all these different experiences with relationships and environments and based on those experiences we make decisions about what is and is not possible, about what can and cannot be done.

After getting burned a few times by life, our lives begin to fall into a certain pattern. A general routine gets formed and from that point on we pretty much blindly follow the pattern day in and day out for the rest of our lives.

That pattern is called our comfort zone and it is one of the biggest stumbling blocks there is to our growth as a person. It is called our comfort zone, even thought it is not necessarily a place we enjoy being, because it is what we are used to. It is familiar, comfortable. In our comfort zone life still happens and things are somewhat random, just in a way that we have control of.

Our comfort zone includes all of our beliefs, traditions and habits. Once we learn something new and accept it into our way of being, it becomes part of our comfort zone. And sadly once that happens our brains pretty much turn off and we live on auto-pilot. We don't think about that thing anymore. It just is.

The problem with this way of being is, life is dynamic. Things are constantly changing. What was true one minute may not be in another. In order to be as successful as we possibly can, in order to get as much out of life as possible, we need to constantly be testing our boundaries, checking for new ideas and testing to see whether old ones are still valid. There is nothing wrong with tradition or routine. What is wrong is blindly following without making sure that what was true once is true still.

We make snap decisions based on environment and negative reinforcement all the time that are true in that moment or that circumstance but not true overall in life. And it hurts us, in ways that we often do not realize.

 For example after a string of relationship rejections we might decide that there is nobody out there looking for someone like us. The truth was that those particular people were not looking for someone like us. But we decide to give up on being in a relationship based on those examples. There are billions of people on this planet. Deciding after ten, a few hundred, or even a few thousand rejections that there is no one out there for us is just stupid.

An experiment was done where a group of college students were assembled in a room. They were told they could leave whenever they liked. Immediately one of them tested the door and found it locked.

A few minutes later loud unpleasant music began to play. This was followed up by the lights flickering on and off intermittently. Then gradually all kinds of horrifying discordant sounds were added.

Several hours later all of the students were still sitting there in the room. After the experiment was over they found out that the door had only been locked for the first five minutes.

The one student had checked the door, found it locked and shared that information with everyone else who from that time on just accepted the "fact" that they were locked in even though it wasn't true.

They all suffered for hours just because of one thing that they made part of their comfort zone.

You might say if you were in that circumstance you would make a different choice, and perhaps you would, but we all make thousands of similar blunders throughout our lifetime.

How can this be avoided though? Get out of your comfort zone. Test the boundaries.Don't accept anything as permanently true. There is no need to be belligerent or mean spirited, but always be inquisitive. Find out why a thing is the way that it is, how long it's been that way and whether or not it has ever been different.

Be open to change. Either because things actually have changed or because new information causes you to find that things you thought were true were not.

Does fear run your life?

Fear.

It's such a simple short little word. Yet it can evoke some pretty scary nightmarish images within our minds. Many people's lives are nearly completely run by their reactions to it. The things they do or avoid doing as part of their daily routine are tailored specifically around the things that they are afraid of. With all the horror movies and Fear Factor type TV shows, it is certainly a topic that we as humans are fascinated with exploring.

Fear is a perfectly healthy, natural response to things that have the potential to be harmful to us.  It is what tells us to run when we are in the wild and encounter a bear. In that case fear is both useful and appropriate. But when the fear reaches a certain level our logical minds shut down and we just start randomly lashing out and reacting in whatever way we have to in order to get away from the object that we fear. Or worse yet it can literally cause both physical and mental paralyzation, complete shutdown.

Neither of these responses is helpful or good. What can be done about this?

To start with we need to realize that fear can be a useful tool in surviving our world. In order for that to be true though, we need to master it. We get to understand that what it is that we fear does not need to be logical or make sense.

A lot of people are afraid of the dark. Some are afraid of open spaces. Others still are afraid of the number 13. No matter how much time you spend attempting to reason with a person, sometimes, logic alone will not conquer fear. There is no logical basis for believing the number 13 is ever going to bring you any harm. Most intelligent people agree with this statement, even quite a few that are triskaidekaphobic.

If reason is out what does that leave us? Experience. Wait isn't experience what got us the fear in the first place? Not exactly. What actually happens is we have an experience and then our reaction to that experience determines whether or not we have a fear response in similar situations from that point on.

For example, take a man who has an irrational fear of all dogs. When he was a child a friendly dog, say a collie, may have jumped up into his stroller while his parents were taking him for a walk. The dog was highly excitable and smothered the infant with kisses. Even though the dog was not in any way hurting the child, he still got overwhelmed by the situation. The dog took up nearly his entire field of view, slobbered all over him, and there was nothing he could do. Panicked, he began screaming. Ironically, this scared the dog who then went away.

This example happened to the child when he was maybe two years old. From that point on he never wanted a dog and avoided all contact with them completely. He never had a dog as a pet while growing up and still fears and dislikes them to this day. If is walking down the road and sees someone coming towards him with their dog, he will cross to the other side of the street to avoid confronting his fear.

But avoidance, just like logic, does nothing to make the fear go away. The next time a dog appears the fear is back full force. It doesn't matter if it's a puppy, a poodle or a bulldog. The fear is the same.

So what kind of experience am I talking about? It's called immersion therapy. The only way to really deal with the fear is to have multiple positive experiences with and around the object of your fear. Now you wouldn't take the man in our example to the Humane Society and surround him with dozens of dogs all at once. Not in the beginning. That would just serve to reinforce the fear.

No, instead, you would put him in a controlled circumstance with one small, relatively docile dog. And to start with you would have it maybe twenty feet away and gradually decrease the distance until it could be close to him, without him freaking out. You get him used to the one small dog just being around over an extended time period. A few days perhaps. Then you would gradually introduce another dog to the equation, maybe  a little bigger.

At first the man would likely be terrified and not want to go through with it. But with each positive experience it gets easier and easier for him to deal with the fear, until eventually he can completely control it and maybe even enjoy having a dog as a pet.

Are there irrational fears that you have that prevent you from enjoying life to the fullest? Wouldn't you like to master them and take back control?

Do you concur?

Just today, while doing some reading, I came across a bit of data that I find to be true from past experience, but have never really thought all that much about.

When I was probably around ten or so, my local rec center had this game called Super Pac Man. It was basically Pac Man with a slight twist. IF you don't know who or what Pac Man is, please buy a ticket back to the '80s. I promise it will be worth the cost.

The game had both regular and "super" power pellets. The super pellets made Pac Man much larger and let you munch your way through some barriers and basically ignore the ghosts. If you consumed both of the power pellets one after then other then,for a brief time, you became an awesome, enormous, dot munching, ghost crunching, unstoppable force that zipped around the stage wreaking havoc and destroying barriers. After which you returned to the standard mild mannered, ghost fearing, dot muncher.

I was always pretty good at Pac Man so when Super Pac Man came out, I was determined to be the best. But not having a large allowance, I couldn't play as much as I wanted to make that happen. So, I did all the research I possibly could. Hours were spent reading up on the best patterns to use on each board and how to "fake-out" each ghost to make them stop chasing you.

Being a kid, I spent my allowance on various different things. So, some days when I stepped up to the machine, I was able to play more games in a row than others. Over time I found that, the games where I scored the highest were generally the first or second that I played in a given day. Each day that I played, I was better than the previous, but more practice on any given day did not really make me all that much better that particular day.

Although I played it on the Nintendo, rather than in the arcade, I had a similar experience with Tetris. The first game or two I played each day were generally the best for the day. Other games played usually averaged better then previous days, but while I was directly focused on the game, I wasn't learning anything new about it. And actually, I quite specifically found that I scored significantly better if I was somewhat distracted, letting my subconscious mind make some of the choices for me.

Throughout my life, this has happened in many different areas, not just with games. The reading that I was doing today said that various examples in both psychological studies and the practical experience of many world famous inventors shows that, we actually do our best at a task when we are not directly focusing on it. Many of the ideas behind some of the biggest scientific breakthroughs and inventions have occurred at a time where the genius involved was on a break or out of the office.

This data suggests that the best way to solve a problem is to first do as much research as you possibly can about the subject at hand. Learn all you can. Focus your conscious mind as hard as you can towards knowing all there is to know about this one thing. Think with all your might about finding a creative solution to the problem. Then, drop it and go do something else.

Later on come back to the issue and pick up where you left off. When your conscious mind walks away from the problem, your subconscious mind will engage and often either solve the problem completely while you are "not looking" or will come up with the seeds for the idea that will solve it.

If I had just read this concept around the time I was still playing Super Pac Man, I may have had my doubts. But due to a lifetime of experience, I concur.

Do you see examples of this happening in your own life?

Do not take my word for it.

After over six months of sharing my life lessons with you, it occurs to me to mention something that should have been posted on day one or two. I urge you not to believe a single word that I say. Does that sound insane?  Perhaps some explanation is in order.

Most of the posts in this blog are an accumulation of literally thousands of hours of research and experimentation on how to live a happy life. It is the skills and ideas that have taken me from an angst ridden frustrated angry person to one who is happy, enjoys life overall and has a great sense of inner peace. I have looked at hundreds of problems from countless different angles and whittled down the massive numbers of potential solutions until I have found the one or ones that will work the best.

After seeing that my life works for me and that I am happy, many other people take what I say on faith, without testing it. This is foolish and to some degree saddens me. Still confused?

The way that I do the things that I do, work for me. There is no other person on earth that I can ever understand or know as well as I know myself. When I am attempting to solve a problem, generally, I am looking for solutions that work the best, for me. The only person who has all of my past life experiences is me. The only person with my specific mental condition is me. The only person with my memories, thoughts and emotions is me.

Changing a simple variable in an equation usually changes the outcome. Life, not being simple and black and white, throws curve balls into every situation. When it comes to solving real world problems often changing a single variable adds or removes other variables, making the equation an entirely different one, with different options and possibilities to consider.

Just because something is true for me, or works for me, or some other person that has decided to copy that aspect of my life, does not mean it will be true, or will work for you. When I say what I think is best, I am telling you what has worked for me and other people who have attempted it.

It is not in any way my intention to tell you that my solution will work for you. I am merely suggesting that you may want to look at an example that has proven effective in a similar situation. You may want to attempt to follow my way to the letter, or you may want to modify it to fit your specific circumstance.

But do not take what I say on faith. Do not just blindly accept it as true. Realize that it is my experience that causes me to say that one way is better than another. However, I am not perfect in any way. And I have not had every experience possible, not by a long shot. A different experience may show you a better way. Or my way may not fit your situation at all.

If there is an area where I am successful and you are not, there is probably something that I know about that particular thing that you do do not. Though, that does not necessarily mean that what I do in that area will work for you. Feel free to use my knowledge and experience to make finding your own solutions shorter and easier. But test what I say at every opportunity. Look for places where my way works and look for places where it does not.

Find out what works for you and what does not. Implement what does and discard what does not.

Are you coachable?

We all want successes and victories in life right? But it's not easy when life keeps throwing us curve balls. Just around the bend is always some new set of experiences that we have no idea how to handle. And nearly every time we start to think we may be just about to be getting to the point where we can start to tread water with our current problems, the next waves hits us.

Now, if we were reincarnated life after life, over and over and were able to remember each of our past lives, this wouldn't be such a problem. Each life would have some similarity to the lives that had gone before it. Then every life after the first would be easier as we would remember what we did before and be able to better gauge what decisions we had made that were good and which to avoid making in the future.

It would be easier, but such is not the case. Reincarnation may or may not be real, but if it is we don't carry those past memories into future lives. However, that idea does bear within it the seed that will, once it bears fruit, assist us in solving many of our problems.

The thought behind that idea is learning from experience. If only we could learn everything from our past experiences, life would be so much easier. While we can not do that, we can do something just as valuable. We can learn from the past experiences, the triumphs and defeats of others. And the information will be more timely and relevant because it will be from people who are currently living.

Think about any sports team out there. The all have a character that more or less leads the team to victory by showing them what to do and what not to do. Imagine the chaos that the NFL would be like if there were no coaches at all. If there was absolutely no direction whatsoever, nobody to compare one teams performance to another, nobody to point out when mistakes were made. Any team ever winning a single game would be sheer chance. Talent and skill would be practically useless because nobody would know where to apply it or when.

Life is the same way. Without the guidance and coaching of people that know better than we do what to do in certain situations, success is simply a shot in the dark. That is why it is so important to be able to accept constructive feedback from others.

 Other people can tell us, from experience, how a thing that we have never successfully done is going to work. If you have failed to do something ten times and someone else has succeeded just once, then they have information that is valuable to you, whether you want to admit it or not.

It is the nature of our egos to not want to accept that other people may know more than we do about a given thing. It is natural to resist the feedback, but deadly to our chances of success.  If you don't want your chances of success in life to be just plain luck then you need to be coachable. If what you are doing is not working and someone who has already accomplished that goal offers a solution, set your ego aside and give their idea a chance.

A first impression is not a person.

I spent some time today looking over previous posts that I have written here. It actually surprised me the number of completely different things that I have talked about over the past few months. My knowledge and experiences are rather eclectic, literally all over the place. Every day of my life is a new day full of value that I and other people can learn from.

And I am no different from anyone else in that regard. We all have unique valuable experiences that others can learn from even if we do not realize it. There is no way to know what or how much you can learn from any other person. But it is a fact that there is something valuable that you can learn from every person.

Yet it is said that the average woman will decide within the first two minutes of meeting a guy whether or not she wants to be with him. The average boss will decide based on first impression alone whether or not the person they are interviewing is a good fit for the job. Things like physical appearance, posture and facial expressions are often the sole tools used to make these decisions. This is completely unfair because the true value of a person is what is inside and there is no way of knowing that in such a short span of time.

We see a homeless person on the street and based on how dirty, dingy and ugly they look we decide that it is no wonder that they are homeless. Many homeless people are disabled vets with a great understanding of battlefield tactics and strategies, things which with just a little bit of tweaking can be effective and useful ideas for how to run a business better. Many others are people who were at one time skilled carpenters, auto mechanics, or metal workers. Others still are great scientific minds capable of solving difficult or dangerous problems that we need solutions to. But, we decide, and wrongly so, that, they have no value within our society.

We are being unfair to both ourselves and the other person when we just throw them away based solely on our first impressions. Do you like it when people shun you because of a bad first impression? Of course you don't. So why treat others that way.

Now I am not saying you should just ignore glaring warning signs that something is wrong with a person. But I am saying that if they are not an immediate threat to you, that you at least give them a chance to prove to you that your first impression is wrong. And even if your first impression is not wrong, even if what you do not like about them turns out to be true and valid maybe you could look past that to see the gems hiding within the trash.

Every adult, during their lifetime, has thousands of hours of experience, many of which could be positive life changing events for you, if you can manage to see past their flaws. Just  imagine how much better life could be for all of us if everyone actually learned from everyone else, instead of judging and avoiding one another as much as possible.

Experience

Have you ever tried to avoid reading a big heavy book for a book report by getting someone else to summarize the book for you. Perhaps you used Cliffs Notes. Then you wrote up your report based on someone else's summary.

If you have, you probably did alright but not amazing with your report. But what if, after you handed in your report, the teacher called on you to answer some specific question and to back up your answer with how you think a certain character in the book would have felt in the circumstance. You would probably be floundering at that point, not sure what to say. After all if you had actually read the book you should be qualified to answer the question.

But, since you did not, you would not have the knowledge that would have been gained by the experience of actually reading it. You only have the limited knowledge based on the summary that you used. Due to the nature of summarizing, a great deal of the detailed specifics of what went on in the book would be completely unknown to you.

The same is true in nearly every area of life. People are constantly looking for the quick way or the shortcut to a thing. And the truth of the matter is, after you have gained the knowledge and experience of a thing it is easy to condense most of that information down to a few easy sentences or paragraphs.To other people who are just as learned in the topic you are discussing as you are, those few words will call up the entire experience and they can then comment on their thoughts and feelings on the subject.

People without that collection of knowledge and experience will only get the base meaning behind your words and will have no framework for which to apply them to. Often times your summary will make no sense to them at all for this reason.

Think for a moment of a mathematician. If you were to walk up to him and ask him to start explaining to you a certain differential equation, his answer would likely make no sense at all to you if you were not also a mathematician. The reason for this is because it is an advanced math. If you do not already know calculus, and a number of other things you would not have the knowledge to be able to do anything with his answer.

What about man's search for enlightenment? Lots of movies and books show the novice going up to a wise man or master of some sort and asking for the secrets to life and happiness. Invariably, the answer is always something that the unlearned person can not understand.

In a great many areas of life a person learns things slowly over time and at each step adds a bit more to their knowledge base. Eventually they are able to come to understandings and conclusions that simply were not possible from the start. Their paradigm changes over time to include more and more complex notions based on things learned much earlier. The person who completes this process is not the same person who started it.

There is no quick easy way. If you want to be successful at a thing you need to put in the time required to gain the knowledge and experience. You must surround yourself with the thing you want to know and look at it from new and different angles as you learn more and more about it.

Then, one day, people will come to you and ask you to summarize the subject that you are an expert at. And on that day, you can smile cryptically and give them an answer that is perfectly true but makes no sense to them.

Judgement

Yesterday, I sent a very empowering non-fiction book titled "The Science of Getting Rich" to a friend of mine. I was thinking to myself that I hope that he truly sees value in the book, that he really gets it so to speak.

Many such books, including this one, have a chapter at the end that sum up the book.  And even some of the ones that do not, have either a jacket or a first or last page that sum up what the book is about. Often, people will skip ahead to such summaries and decide whether or not they agree with the statements made therein. Thankfully, my friend is not the sort of person that tends to do these things. If he were, then both his time and mine would be completely wasted by my sending it to him.

The problem with people that do act this way is that they will judge the book based solely upon their previous knowledge of the world without actually reading it. The purpose of reading books with "new" information in them is learn about new things not to judge them based on things you already know.

In my personal life, there have been dozens of books that I did not agree with the overall summary at the time, before I read them. But, by following along and reading the guiding principles that made up the unfamiliar philosophies, testing each of the parts individually and finding them to be true, by the end I was entirely in agreement with what was being presented to me. I have become a better stronger person as a result, both physically and mentally.

All of the knowledge within a two hundred page book cannot be imparted in two or three pages. So "judging a book by its cover" just leads to one remaining in ignorance and no new growth can occur as a result.

Now what happens when you judge a person the same way?Quite often one person will be judged by others even before they speak. The way a person dresses and their general posture(the artwork on their cover) will be enough for other people to get a preconceived notion of what that person is about and how they think.  Then they open their mouth and say something and we continue judge them based on what they just said. We use a few chance brief words(the summary of the book) that come out as a way of deciding for ourselves whether or not this person has value.

Since those words are not likely to be that person actually, intentionally summing up their philosophy and  beliefs, it is even more unfair to treat a person this way than a book. The sum total of useful knowledge in any given person would likely fill dozens if not hundred of volumes, if we were to listen to everything that person could actually tell us about their life and experiences.

I believe that if people are not being openly hostile or aggressive there is no reason to discard them simply because we do not agree with the first couple of paragraphs that they speak. When people say something that you feel you may disagree with, ask deep probing questions so that once they have finished answering you have a complete understanding of what exactly it is that they are saying and why they feel that it is true. Then armed with this knowledge make a decision about whether or not you agree with them. But if you do not agree with them, discard the information as being without value, not the person.

Do not make snap decisions based on very little input. You can not make an accurate assessment of the facts until you have them all. Never judge a book by its cover and always give each man enough rope to hang (or free) himself.

Dungeons and Dragons

Our normal every other Saturday gaming group is going to be starting up a new game on the alternate Saturdays. It is a game that is going to be a mix of the Dungeons and Dragons universe and the Disney universe. Several of the players are going to be playing established Disney characters and the others of us are making standard Dungeons and Dragons characters.

We have known about the game for several weeks now. The first session is tomorrow evening. As far as I know, most of the players have had their characters done for quite awhile.One other player and I did most of our preparation for the game today. We both had a generalized concept for what we wanted to do ahead of time. But, I have nearly thirty years of experience playing a vast array of different role-playing systems with Dungeons and Dragons being the one game I have the most knowledge about. He has only been playing for a couple of years.

The difference between the complexity level of our characters and the overall amount of work done by each of us should not, but kind of does surprise me. He is playing a paladin which is pretty much a straight up fighter with a couple of spells and some nifty abilities granted by his fealty to a cause. It is one of the easier classes to set up a character for. It would probably take me a total of maybe an hour to do including generating stats, picking out equipment, choosing necessary feats, deciding which spells to use and copying down any game relevant info about the character from the two or maybe three books that were needed.

The character that I am playing is a wizard and if you know anything about fantasy role-playing games you know wizards are a complex lot. Any class that is primarily spell focused has a lot of calculation and bookkeeping that goes along with it, even at character creation.You have to decide and keep track of all the spells that they know, which ones they have memorized, how many they can cast per day and what bonus spells they get for having high stats.

Determining all of the data associated with the casting of spells often takes longer than setting up a complete character that does not cast. And from the very beginning I knew that this character was going to take even more work. I won't go into all the details, but to do what I wanted required the source material from at least nine different books that I had in .pdf format on my hard drive as well as thirteen open tabs in Firefox on my desktop.

I knew in my head that the idea that I had in for my character was doable and that there were bits and pieces in different places to support my concept. I was cross-referencing and comparing and jotting down notes on what would and would not work and how much of what to put where. We both started around the same time. I have been done for several hours and he is still working at it. The actual writing down and creating of the character took me about an hour and a half once I knew for sure that the rules supported what I wanted to do.The difference for each of us is that I know enough about the system to know where to look for the things that I want and he does not.

I suppose as far as playing Dungeons and Dragons goes I am familiar enough with it that I could be considered an expert. And many things within this system that seem easy for me are a great struggle for a lot others. I wonder how many other areas of life in general this shows up in.

How often do we get upset at others for taking a long time to do or to figure out something that we think is "easy" and obvious?

Are you on the same level?

Have you ever found yourself getting deeply into a discussion about something that you are very passionate about and realizing about half way in that everyone around you is just kind of staring blankly at you because they have no idea what it is that you are talking about?

This kind of thing used to happen to me all the time. And what was worse, I had no idea why they were lost. It seemed to me that the things that I was talking about were often not that complicated. I mean sure they were based on something that was based on something that was based on something. But if you knew and were familiar with those three somethings, then the thing that I was talking about seemed self evident. Okay, so maybe it was kind of complicated.

Even though I knew it subconsciously, it took me a long time to realize that we all have different experiences in life that make us who we are. Every single thing that happens to us helps us to form a frame of reference for what goes on in our life. Every single person's frame of reference is different. And if your frame of reference does not include similar experiences to the person that you are talking to, when you get into certain topics you are sure to lose them. Even now, I need to be reminded of this from time to time.

There are two basic ways to prevent this. The first is to ask questions to determine the other person's overall general knowledge of the subject that you want to discuss. That way you can tailor what you say and how you say it to the specific level of knowledge that the person you are speaking to happens to have. Depending on the person this could be quite a long onerous process.If the other person has partial knowledge of what it is that you want to discuss, this is usually the better way.

The other way is to assume that the person is a completely blank slate and has absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about the topic of which you wish to speak. In this case, you can treat everyone the same. You start at the very beginning and step by step get to the more complicated stuff, once the listener has indicated that they understand and agree with the first part(s). At any point the listener can inform you that they understand the part you are explaining and you can move on to the next point. OR at any point they can ask questions to increase their level of clarity. I prefer this method because I enjoy treating everyone as if they were equals. It usually takes a little longer but I do not have to memorize four or five different ways to explain a thing. If you properly explain all of the steps leading up to a thing, when you finally get to your point, that point will seem natural and self evident.

Doing either of these things may seem like a hassle but if you want people to be into the kinds of things that you are passionate about then you are going to need to be able to talk to them about those things without them constantly looking at you like you just grew another head. That way you can share the things you love with the people you love and you can grow and enjoy life together. And isn't that really what we all want?

Learning

Have you ever taken a martial art and wondered why it seems like you do the same few moves hundreds if not thousands of times? Or you may have noticed that in role-playing games, either computer or pen and paper, a lot of what you do is the same thing over and over? Travel to point A. Fight just about everything you encounter. Loot the corpses. Then rinse wash repeat for points B through Z? Or how most songs are a few lines of verse then a chorus and a few more lines of verse and the chorus again. Repeat ad infinitum.  In school grammar and arithmetic are pretty much the same thing year after year from elementary to high school.

Do you know why all those things operate under the same general principle of repetition?
In martial arts the theory is that if you do a thing thousands of times it will become a part of who you are and after awhile you will no longer need to be afraid in dangerous situations. You will be able to protect yourself and those you care about by instinct.

Songs generally have a chorus so that there is a part that will stick in your head and be memorable.
Role-playing games have you follow the same formula over and over to simulate what happens in real life.  No you probably don't travel around in real life brandishing a claymore, slaying tons of monsters and equipping yourself with the items they drop when they die. But you do use the experiences that happen in your life to grow stronger as person just as you do in a role-playing game.

And last but not least you do the same things year after year in school building just a little bit more each time on what you learned last time, because that is how we as people learn, through massive repetition.

That's right all of these things are connected because they tap into how we accept new data into our lives. When we are children we learn to speak a language by hearing countless tens of thousands of conversations going on all around us. We learn the alphabet by being told over and over what each letter is. Once we learn what letters are we learn what words are by seeing the letters of the alphabet shaped into words again and again. And we learn to read by seeing the printed word and being told what words make what sounds repeatedly. We learn through repetition. People that learn faster need less repetition. But very few people ever learn anything all the way through the first time.

Have you ever read a book then had a couple of years go by and then read that same book again and got something completely different out of it? It's not because the book changed in any way. It is because you are not the same person that you were when you read it the first time.

When you find yourself doing some repetitive task that you think is boring and you just do not see the point, instead of tuning out, try asking yourself, what could I possibly learn or be learning from this experience?

Am I human pt2

Awhile back I wrote about part of an experience that happened when I was two years old. This is the other part of what I remember. And yes I am aware that what you are about to read seems like some crazy made up fantasy.  But I believe every bit of it to be true and those that really know me know that I would not make something like this up, especially considering my beliefs on the judeo-christian myth.

So the child forty feet or so below me ceases its cries for help. Suddenly, I feel an urge to be elsewhere. And suddenly I am. At first it seems dark, but as my eyes adjust, the darkness slowly falls away, peeling off bit by bit. Until at last, there is  brightness is everywhere. It is as if the ground the sky and everything around me are made of white light.

At first, this is disorienting and I stumble around blindly, not knowing where I am and having trouble differentiating between the ground and the air and things lodged within one or the other.  As the eyes tend to shy away from bright lights automatically, at first, it is difficult to look anywhere and focus on any one thing. Gradually my perception shifts and I begin to see each thing as its own light and to sense the places where one ends and another begins.

Yet somehow, even while stumbling around, I was heading in the right direction or maybe every direction lead to the same place. At some point though I feel the urge to stop moving forward. I do so and looking up from the ground in front of me, I see what looks to be the oddest shaped mountain in existence. The first thing that I notice is that this one immeasurably tall thing is a white gold in color as far as the eye can see. It is the only thing in this place that is not a plain white. It is also far brighter than all the white that I have seen so far. The intensity is such that another period of adjustment is required for me to be able to look upon this mountain without pain. Oddly enough, I find that I can not look away from it.

And then, a great sound, from too far away to possibly imagine, reaches my ears. The volume is such that I am certain anyone for easily ten thousand miles can hear the words, but I know they are meant solely for me. The air and everything around me literally vibrates with the deep, powerful, yet gentle rumbling of this voice. It soothes and caresses while also querying.

Suddenly, in my mind's eye, I see this enormous mountain that I have been straining to see all of. It is impossibly large. In my mind I see the whole of it and I realize that it is a brilliant gold being seated upon a throne of white.  As far up as I could possibly see before it got lost to my field of vision, the part that I perceived to be a mountain, was merely this being's right sandal and a couple of toes.
While taking all this in, I realize that I still have not answered this immense being. In fact, though the words completely surrounded me and massaged my very being, I had not yet considered them.

They came yet a second time.

Would you like to stay here?

All around me was at peace. There were others in the surrounding area. All were happy. There was no fear, worry, sadness, loss or pain. In fact now that I was really thinking about it I knew I was surrounded on all sides and in all ways by love in its purest form.

It truly would be pure bliss to stay here I thought. But I can not.
"No", I replied "there will be people that need me"

...and then a child woke from a coma in a hospital somewhere in south Florida. And I was once again that child.

The power of the memory of that experience is still enough to bring tears to my eyes to this day. Whether dream or out of body experience it somewhat blows my mind that at not even three years old I had the presence of mind to give up that wondrous possibility for even a brief time to choose being in service to others. It hits me that I felt I could not accept the peace and tranquility yet, because I had a duty to perform first.

Yet, every time I think about it, my belief that I am here to make the world a better place becomes stronger and stronger.

Despite what others may think of this tale, I honestly believe that my spirit directly interacted with the being that the Christians worship. But I am not a Christian, just a good Samaritan.

Why are you grateful?

A lot of books about self improvement and empowerment tell you that part of the secret to success is an attitude of gratitude. They say that all of the good things coming to you will only make their way to you once you have shown appreciation for what you already have.

But gratitude or gratefulness what is it? It is the state or act of being thankful. It is being happy or glad for the mere existence of some particular thing in your life.

What kind of things should you be grateful for? The short answer is everything. I am grateful just to be alive, to be able to breathe in great lung fulls of air, to be able to smell the scent of flowers, taste wondrous foods, to feel and be able to differentiate between smooth and rough textures,to be able to see my beautiful wife and to hear the sounds of my son tearing through the house on his quest to play with everyone and everything. I am grateful for the love of my wife and the existence of my son.
I am also grateful for all the negative experiences in my life, all the challenges and obstacles. Up until this point you were probably going, "yeah right on! I feel you". But now I may have lost you. I really do value all of the things in my life good and bad. And here's a couple of reasons why.

I would not be the person that I am today if I had not had the exact set of experiences, good, bad or neutral, that I have had throughout my life. If even one minute detail had been different, I would be a slightly different person. And more likely than not, one small detail being different would have led to different thoughts,emotions,decisions and actions. A snow ball effect would probably have occurred and a great many things about me might have turned out differently. And the things is I REALLY REALLY like me just the way I am. There are of course things that I may not be perfectly in harmony with, but that's natural. We always have room for improvement and I am working on those things. But the point is I am grateful for all the experiences that have made me who I am.

Also, life needs contrast. People who grow up rich their whole lives never really understand what it is like to be poor or homeless. They have thoughts and ideas designed to help those that are less fortunate, but more often than not they are doomed to failure because they do not really understand what it is like to BE less fortunate. Likewise, without having great tragedy or failure you can not properly appreciate great success. It is still possible to achieve, it just won't mean anything to you when you do.  I am grateful for all my mistakes and failures because they provide opportunity for new growth. I am grateful for all the pain that I have had in my past because it allows me to properly appreciate the joy that I have today. I am grateful for all of the people that choose to spend time with me in my life right now and all the people that have shared their lives with me in the past.

What are you grateful for?