Spaceship Earth, Buckminster Fuller and Henry David Thoreau
Buckminster Fuller made famous the phrase “Spaceship Earth” as a term describing the situation in which all humans live on Earth, literally as aboard a fragile spaceship planet with finite resources. The implications of humanity’s continuing to damage our spaceship are terrifying. There is significant evidence of permanent damage that has been done by humans […]
“When You’ve Robbed A Man Of Everything, He’s Free Again” ~ Solzhenitsyn
The intersection of power and adversity sometimes yields freedom. Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote: “You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power – he’s free again.” This is a surprising paradox: that we humans become […]
“The only lost cause is one we give up before we enter the struggle.” ~ Vaclav Havel
Loyalty to so-called “lost causes”? Who me? Who you? Most likely, each of us has at least one cause to which we remain loyal no matter what. It could be anything: a sports team, a family member, a political issue – a belief in something that you refuse to give up. Czech activist and the […]
Do You Know Serendipity When It Appears?
Wikipedia defines serendipity as “the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else entirely.” It’s going out to dinner with friends and meeting your Forever Love at First Sight and never changing. It’s Louis Pasteur’s experimenting with molds and discovering what ultimately allowed Alexander Fleming to invent Penicillin. It’s […]
Kaizen Is Moving Forward Some Distance Every Day
Expanding your income and / or your business is a matter of expanding your relationships. You may have noticed that after a certain point, you have not maintained the same enthusiasm for developing new contacts that you once had. Perhaps the need has changed, and you’re more comfortable. Perhaps you have felt that you don’t […]
Freedom To Be and The Hero’s Journey
The promise of the Hero’s Journey is to return safely home – not necessarily unwounded or unscathed – but free. The freedom comes as a result of losing one’s fear of death during the journey. The Hero is able to resist looking into the past with regret or into the future with apprehension. Upon the […]
“Changing” Habits versus “Breaking” Habits
You may prefer the phrase “changing habits” to the implications of “breaking habits” because experience teaches that it is far more powerful to be in favor of something than to be against it. “Changing” may be more powerful than “breaking.” Consider how it feels to say, “I’m changing my habit of eating sweets to habits […]
The Power of Forgetting and Starting Over
This week has been one of our best in Study Hall . . . thanks for attending and sharing. STARTING OVER is definitely a muscle that wants to be strengthened. Fact: the past is over! As Will Rogers famously said, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” The advantages of resetting […]
Releasing Attachment to Wrongs and Starting Over
So far this week, we’ve focused on our own starting over. Today, consider the wisdom of allowing others to start over with you. Everyone has made mistakes in life. It’s just a matter of degree, but . . . face it, no one escapes doing some really dumb things. We can assist others in their […]