Here’s your reminder as you prepare to begin another week. Go, be awesome.
I’ve posted previously about the Cal Newport book whose title was inspired by this Steve Martin quote. And you really ought to do yourself a favor and listen to Martin’s great audiobook, which I’ve raved about before.
“If you really want to communicate something, even if it’s just an emotion or an attitude, let alone an idea, the least effective and least enjoyable way is directly. It only goes in about half an inch. But if you can get people to the point where they have to think a moment what it is you’re getting at, and then discover it … the thrill of discovery goes right through the heart.” -Stanley Kubrick*
This has me puzzling and reflecting on moments of insight in my own life. Do we want knowledge handed to us? Yes, actually. But does it take that way? How well does it stick?
Figuring something out for yourself has got to be stickier than just being handed an idea. A well structured story or movie can you have trying to guess the twist and then surprise you with an insight or a plot turn you hadn’t considered. We all love an “aha” moment, that “thrill of discovery” that changes a perspective or opinion, that could change your life.
This probably is an obvious communication strategy to great teachers and novelists and filmmakers. But the rest of us should consider how we can prompt discovery in our communication efforts.
I’m imagining now how I can be more intentional about building discovery into my presentations and even into conversations with my kids. Have your audience do their own thinking. Make them earn the transformation. This requires more thought, more planning. Instead of the old speech prescription – “Tell them what you’re going to tell. Tell them. Tell them what you told them.” – appreciate the audience’s intelligence and help lead them on a journey where they have to arrive at an insight on their own. Give them a chance for an “aha” moment that just might change everything.
*Kubrick’s wisdom keeps popping up in things I’m reading. Clearly, I need to catch up on his films.
Inspired by Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, I wrote a personal mission for myself close to twenty years ago. The first line was: “Pursue truth no matter the cost.” I’m no martyr. I have not had to face hardships to pursue truth. The biggest cost I’ve paid in pursuit of truth is the loss of comfort, the kind of comfort that comes with a set worldview. I don’t always have fixed stars to guide my journey through uncertain seas. But it makes for a more interesting journey.
Now, who can really say what capital-T Truth is? Some “true” things I have believed are no longer true for me, while some truths remain. Letting go of “truths” that were cherished, that shaped my identity and character, was not easy.
I still keep shifting in my understanding and experience of truths, big and small. It would be easy and comfortable to just accept what is assumed by most to be true, to embrace conventional wisdom and the dogma that has informed generations, to pick an opinion and stick with it. But to be a human and not use your amazing ability to reason, to question and explore and think for yourself… That would be a hollow life.
What will you regret twenty years from now? What actions can you take now to live a life with fewer regrets?
Wise words from the great scientist Stephen Hawking on the celebration of his 70th birthday:
“So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious, and however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.”
When is the last time you were in a conversation and felt someone was genuinely, deeply listening and trying to understand you? When is the last time you genuinely, deeply listened to someone? Not just going through the motions, nodding at key moments while actually just waiting your turn to speak. Not listening just enough to give the impression you care while you’re really composing your next thought to share when an acceptable pause gives you your chance to talk.
The gift of attention is as priceless a gift as you can offer or receive, especially in this age of distraction where so many stimuli are tugging at us, beeping, vibrating, pinging away at our limited supply of attention.
What if you put away your devices, ignored alerts, and zeroed in on the person in front of you? It’s not easy. Make it a practice to really listen, without judgment, without formulating your response. Just try to understand. You don’t have to be particularly wise or have great answers of your own. Paying attention is more powerful and more generous than offering advice, wit, or wisdom. It’s a skill anyone can cultivate, but so few do that it seems to be a rare, special power, a superpower even.
No cape required. No advanced degrees. No years of toil. Just listen and be present and be a hero for someone in need of genuine, old fashioned human connection.
The novelist Ian McEwen on his fascination with science:
“Science is simply organised human curiosity and we should all take part. It’s a matter of beauty. Just as we treasure beauty in our music and literature, so there’s beauty to be found in the exuberant invention of science.”
This is from a great interview over on fivebooks.com, which is a site well worth getting lost in to explore lists of good books and interviews with book lovers.
There is more competition to be average than there is to be awesome. The fear of falling short keeps most people from aiming high. Most aim for safe and comfortable and unremarkable. So, if you pursue crazy big ideas you at least have the benefit of less competition.
I was at a conference in Denver last year and saw a headline in the local newspaper that said astronomers had determined conclusively that the nearest galaxy to ours, the Andromeda galaxy, is on a collision course with our very own Milky Way. There’s no way around it. It will be catastrophic, cataclysmic. Andromeda definitely will collide with the Milky Way… in four billion years.
The good news is that our solar system, our tiny little corner of the galaxy won’t be impacted by the collision until about two billion years after the initial impact. So, we’ve only got six billion years.
Need perspective? Think big picture. Really big picture. While pondering the scale of galaxies and the mind-boggling expanse of time and space may make you feel small and insignificant, our smallness and our life’s brevity are reality. But how amazing is it that we are a part – and a conscious, intelligent, aware part – of such a grand, awesome, beautiful universe?
Pause and reflect regularly on the wonder of it all. Look up. Look closely at the mysteries that surround us, from the blade of grass underfoot to the galaxies spinning far beyond. Be wowed by all that is and that anything is at all.
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” -Albert Einstein
Strength and intelligence alone mean little when your environment changes. What was smart in one situation may be perilous when things change. The newspaper industry and the music industry seemed to have bulletproof business models for most of the twentieth century. Then the internet happened. Only the players who have adapted to those changes rather than clinging tightly to what used to be smart and strong are thriving now.
I’m in higher education, and I imagine it’s in for some major shifts and rethinking in the next decade. Broadcast television, government, small business, religion… This century will look very different than the previous one.
Those institutions and people that have the courage to let go of relying on outdated strengths and conventional wisdom are the ones likely to thrive as we face an era of unprecedented change.
How can you brace yourself and condition yourself for change personally? How can you shed habits and patterns and try on new approaches and behaviors to be prepared to adapt and thrive?
The more we know, the more we realize we don’t know.
What an awesome, overwhelmingly mysterious universe we live in.
“He who thinks he knows, doesn’t know. He who knows he doesn’t know, knows.”
You want a calling, a noble mission that can consume your life? Make it your work to help push humanity’s understanding of the universe and our place in it even a little further into the vastness of the unknown.
Tolstoy said you shouldn’t have to puzzle over art and try hard to figure it out. Great art, he thought, should be able to be grasped by even a child. An artist has a feeling, an idea, something that moves him, and he wants to share it with others. If he makes good art, then others, those who read his writing or view his painting or hear his speech, will get that same feeling. “Art is infection,” he said.
All of us are artists. What is meaningful enough to you to want to share with others? How can you convey it simply and memorably, in such a way that even a child could get it?
Whose fire can you warm yourself at who would benefit from a listening ear and genuine interest? Even those who don’t seem to be generating much smoke have a fire within that might just need a little tending, a bit of compassion and connection, to spark into a powerful flame.
Life after death? I have no solid information. Who does? (“Solid” being the key word.)
We can speculate, hope, imagine, doubt. Of course, the faithful can offer great certainty on this topic.
We all, however, have solid information about life before death. We are alive in the most amazing time in human history. Opportunities abound. Perils abound, too. The greatest peril for most of us is the threat of mis-living our one precious life, of getting to the end of it and looking back with regret.
“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” -Mary Oliver
What if our highest art, our greatest work was crafting the quality of each day? What if we went to bed more days than not to the satisfying slumber only a day well spent can provide?
What makes for such a day for you? Here are some things that can make my day: genuine connection with the people I love, laughing with my wife and kids, authentic smiles and moments of kindness shared with friends and strangers, work that fully engages my imagination, making something, learning something, improving a skill even slightly, awakening possibilities in myself and in others, physical exertion, play, a delightful book, the pleasure of good food and thoughtful conversation, small sensory joys like the feel of grass on bare feet and the sound of rain falling on the roof and the taste of chocolate – dark, dark chocolate…
The list could go on, but even having one or two great moments in a day can make it worthwhile. It’s remarkable how simple the elements of a good day are for most of us. Maybe just paying attention to what makes for a good day and being intentional about living those kinds of days is the simple secret to a good life.
String enough good days together you’ll have a good week, a good month, a good year. String good years together and you will have a good life.
I heard Joseph Campbell say in an interview that people claim they are searching for the meaning of life, but what they really want, he said, is a full, satisfying “experience of being alive”. That rings true. It’s the feel of a thing, not the think of it, right?
One day at a time, one step at a time on the journey that becomes a life well lived.
I can try to eat better, or I can eat better. I can try to write something every day, or I can write every day. I can try to get started on that big project at work that’s scary exciting, or I can just start. I can try to be a better listener and try to be a more attentive, present parent. Or I can just do it.
I find myself couching my commitments in the safety of “try”, giving myself room to not actually follow through. Dropping the “try”, though, takes away the net and calls my bluff. Will I do it or not? No points for just trying.
Where do you need to drop “try” and just do it?
Funny, and right on if you think it’s the day of the week that’s the problem.
I believe prayer that makes requests is pointless. What will be, will be. But I value the kind of prayer when you stand at the edge of the sea, or beneath a tree, or smell a flower, or love someone, or do a good thing. Those prayers validate existence and snatch it away from meaningless […]
“We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive.” —Thich Nhat Hanh
I came across this quote in an excellent post by Jonathan Mead about preparing to live but never really living. Check out the video embedded in that post. It’s a fascinating interview with Ido Portal who looks like some kind of superhuman gymnast Zen ninja. Very cool.
As far back as my undergraduate days I’ve been talking about and pondering this dilemma of seeing everything in life as a means to an end but nothing as an end in itself. I remember giving a talk to a group during my senior year of college and saying something like, “You want to graduate so you can get a job so you can get a car so you can get a house so you can get a wife or husband… Then what? A bigger car? A bigger house? A bigger wife or husband…?!” I got a good laugh from that line, and still do, but it’s a legitimate quandary (except for the bigger spouse part).
We always seem to be getting ready for something out there in the future but never truly living in the present. But when you get to the future, it’s just the present, right? The peak moments in life are the ones where past and future fall away because you’re so aware of and alive in the present moment. Think back on the moments in your life when you felt most alive and see if that’s not true. That’s why thrill-seeking is a thing. It’s hard to worry about next week or feel regret for last week when you’re on a roller coaster or jumping out of an airplane. Or when you’re truly listening to someone you love or in a tickle fight with your kids or completely engrossed in work you love. Go read Thich Nhat Hanh’s classic little book, Peace Is Every Step. What an awake, aware life he must lead. Yes, the unexamined life is not worth living, but most of us most of the time are actually living a sort of unconscious life, hoping we’ll get there, someday.
So, how do you have more of those moments? This 2-minute video featuring an Alan Watts story beautifully exposes how our culture ingrains this future focus in us and leads to most of us never truly living. And he offers a nice metaphor for how to shift your perspective for a more excellent experience of life:
What human beings want, once they have enough food and shelter, is meaning. We want to matter. We want to engage with people who matter. We want to do something worth talking about. That’s our shortage. We don’t have a shortage of stuff; we have a shortage of caring. -Seth Godin True. This is from […]
Excellent Journey 
