Being here and now

Being here but not now ... dreaming about the future not yet now

Being here but not now ... dredging up things from the past

Being here and now ... accepting the past and not thinking about the future

Being here and now ... living in the moment... the current moment

The right thing to do: Gerald J. Arpey

Recently, American Airlines filed for bankruptcy protection and its CEO, Gerald J. Arpey, decided to call it quit even the board wants him to stay Why?

A recent op-ed article in the New York Times praised Arpey for his decision.

Arpey argued that he cannot ignore the implications of bankruptcy filing and lead American Airlines because ... "out of a belief that bankruptcy was morally wrong, and that he could not, in good conscience, lead an organization that followed this familiar path".

The article goes on to explain the human implications of bankruptcy filing:
"Since Congress deregulated the industry, it has been common for airlines to claim bankruptcy and regroup under the temporary shelter provided by Chapter 11. Continental filed in 1983 and 1990, United in 2002, US Airways in 2002 and 2004, and Delta and Northwest in 2005. In each situation, bankruptcy gave the airlines the chance to cancel their debt, get rid of responsibility for employee pensions and renegotiate more favorable contracts with labor unions."

Christine Lagarde

On being a woman... and the first woman in important roles:

Logan: In a lot of things that you've done, you are the first woman. Does it matter to you? Is it important?
Lagarde: What matter to me is that I am not the last one.

On what is important in life:
Lagarde: When my father passed away and then when later on I gave birth, those are sort of ground-breaking experiences that put everything else into perspective. You know, when I sit in meetings and things are very tense and people take things extremely seriously and they invest a lot of their ego, I sometimes think to myself, "Come on, you know, there's life and there's death and there is love." And all of that ego business is nonsense compared to that.

Humanity: Casualty of hierarchy

Living in a world where income inequality is expanding, I cannot help but reflecting on two seemingly unrelated works: one article by William Deresiewicz published in the American Scholar with the title "Solitude and Leadership", the other is the book by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett with the title "The Spirit level: Why greater equality makes societies stronger".

After reading these two thought provoking works, I develop a proposition that hierarchy (being hierarchy in an organization or social hierarchy based on income and status) is detrimental to humanity progress.

In Solitude and Leadership, Deresiewicz argues that higher educational institutions produce graduates who are obsessed about themselves and how they can climb up a hierarchy to achieve individual success:

"That is exactly what places like Yale mean when they talk about training leaders. Educating people who make a big name for themselves in the world, people with impressive titles, people the university can brag about. People who make it to the top. People who can climb the greasy pole of whatever hierarchy they decide to attach themselves to."

Another observation about hierarchy is that people who are "leaders" in bureaucracies are ordinary people:

"That’s really the great mystery about bureaucracies. Why is it so often that the best people are stuck in the middle and the people who are running things—the leaders—are the mediocrities? Because excellence isn’t usually what gets you up the greasy pole. What gets you up is a talent for maneuvering. Kissing up to the people above you, kicking down to the people below you. Pleasing your teachers, pleasing your superiors, picking a powerful mentor and riding his coattails until it’s time to stab him in the back. Jumping through hoops. Getting along by going along. Being whatever other people want you to be, so that it finally comes to seem that, like the manager of the Central Station, you have nothing inside you at all. Not taking stupid risks like trying to change how things are done or question why they’re done. Just keeping the routine going."


Bureaucracies reward those who are conformists. Some of these conformists with the aspiration to get to a higher status in a hierarchy are willing to sacrifice humanity's moral values to get to the high ground.

Now the Spirit level book argues that people who live in a high social inequality environment develop a sensitivity towards social comparison. They have anxiety about their status in a society. As a result, they develop a false sense of confidence to protect themselves against social evaluation threat:

"... people in many developed countries have experienced substantial rises in anxiety and depression" (p. 35)

"People with insecure high self-esteem tend to be insensitive to others and to show an excessive preoccupation with themselves, with success, and with their image and appearance in the eyes of others." (p. 37)

"As greater inequality increases status competition and social evaluative threat, egos have to be propped up by self-promoting and self-enhancing strategies. Modesty easily becomes a casualty of inequality: we become outwardly tougher and harder in the face of greater exposure to social evaluation anxieties, but inwardly -- as the literature on narcissism suggests -- probably more vulnerable, less able to take criticism, less good at personal relationships and less able to recognize our own faults." (p. 45)

Walking trail ... Living trail

Shapes, colors, and sizes of leaves ... reminder of experiences in life

Uphill steps .... reminder of challenging times in life

Downhill steps .... reminder of joyful times in life

Windy days .... reminder of uncontrollable circumstances in life

Other walkers .... reminder of acquaintances in life

Reading experiences

Three men sitting on a three-row seat on a train heading to a city on a working day

The first man was reading something on his iPad

The second man was reading his paper newspaper

The third man was reading his paperback

Will they have the same reading experience?

I am an island

I am an island .... I am wavering the storm and the rain

I am an island .... I am here but you may not see me from a distance

I am an island ... I am a place of comfort when you want to get away from life

I am an island ... I am not in your mind when you are in the midst of life

Identity sculpting

Many of us use life experiences to actively sculpt our identity. We use both good and bad life experiences to actively construct "who we are". Leading scholars in this area, Eviatar Zerubavel and Christena Nippert-Eng, believe that identity construction is an active as well as a creative process.

As a result, we sometimes think of "life journey" as an act of searching, finding, discovering a bit more about ourselves. At certain times, we cannot help but wonder whether we will ever find a place where we belong.

For example, this news article from NPR tells a story about a struggle of native American kids who spent time in foster homes removed from their Indian heritage.

Here is a quote from the story that may be worth reflecting:

"... the only difference between running away and running home is whether or not you're running in the direction you belong."

Real human being

When Steve Jobs died a few weeks ago, the world weeps for his passing. Steve Jobs has been praised for being a great inventor, a great intellect who has keen eyes on design, and a great visionary who transformed computer, music, animated movie, and mobile phone industries. But when we stop long enough to think about Steve Jobs as real human being, we may come to a different conclusion.

A person's life is full of bright spots and some dark chapters. Steve Jobs's dark sides are his temper, his bullies for perfection, his lack of respect for several others.

Steve Jobs's life is a reminder that everyone of us is a real human being.

Water

We see and hear soothing water when we sit by the beach

We see and hear powerful water when we sit near a waterfall

We see and hear angry water when we imagine a tsunami

We see and hear distressed water when we imagine a flood

Future with no future experience

So many of our experiences deal with outcomes and expectation of a bright future. For example, we talk about education in a sense of its outcomes (skills, jobs, a better life). Another example is child raising.

But what to do when there is no future waiting at the end of these experiences. Emily Rapp recently wrote in the New York Times sharing her experience raising her son who has Tay-Sachs disease. Her son is 18 months old and very unlikely to live beyond his 3rd birthday. Here is the link to the full article.

She writes in a brave voice. She tells us that, at the end of the day, the best that you can do is living in the moment. In her case, loving her son in today moment and letting him go when the time comes. That is all you can do.

Street walking

Pause and observe street walking styles ... what do they tell us?


Walking ... Aiming for a destination

Walking ... Enjoying the journey

Walking ... Rocking left and Rocking right

Walking ... Sailing and following the wind

Walking ... Searching, Looking, Finding

Power of Imagination

Why is it important to imagine?

Only if ..... we can imagine what it is like to earn $1 a day and still need to feed the family.

Only if ..... we can imagine what it is like to have no access to healthcare

Only if ..... we can imagine what it is like to want to go to school but there is no school to go to

Only if ..... we can imagine what it is like to be the powerless

Power of Silence

Here is a beautiful poem from Philip Levine who was recently chosen to be U.S. poet laureate:

Fact is, silence is the perfect water:
unlike rain it falls from no clouds
to wash our minds, to ease our tired eyes,
to give heart to the thin blades of grass
fighting through the concrete for even air
dirtied by our endless stream of words.

Conan O'Brien's 2011 commencement address at Dartmouth

Conan O'Brien gave commencement address at Dartmouth. I found his speech to have several useful life lessons to teach new graduates, freshmen, as well as everyday individuals on perceived failures, successes, and identity.

Here are some of the excerpts:

• Eleven years ago I gave an address to a graduating class at Harvard. I have not spoken at a graduation since because I thought I had nothing left to say. But then 2010 came. And now I'm here, three thousand miles from my home, because I learned a hard but profound lesson last year and I'd like to share it with you. In 2000, I told graduates "Don't be afraid to fail." Well now I'm here to tell you that, though you should not fear failure, you should do your very best to avoid it. Nietzsche famously said "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." But what he failed to stress is that it almost kills you. Disappointment stings and, for driven, successful people like yourselves it is disorienting.
  
  
• Now, by definition, Commencement speakers at an Ivy League college are considered successful. But a little over a year ago, I experienced a profound and very public disappointment. I did not get what I wanted, and I left a system that had nurtured and helped define me for the better part of 17 years. I went from being in the center of the grid to not only off the grid, but underneath the coffee table that the grid sits on, lost in the shag carpeting that is underneath the coffee table supporting the grid. It was the making of a career disaster, and a terrible analogy.
  
  
• There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized. ... Your path at 22 will not necessarily be your path at 32 or 42. One's dream is constantly evolving, rising and falling, changing course. This happens in every job...
  
  
• It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.

• So, at the age of 47, after 25 years of obsessively pursuing my dream, that dream changed. For decades, in show business, the ultimate goal of every comedian was to host The Tonight Show. It was the Holy Grail, and like many people I thought that achieving that goal would define me as successful. But that is not true. No specific job or career goal defines me, and it should not define you. In 2000—in 2000—I told graduates to not be afraid to fail, and I still believe that. But today I tell you that whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality.

• Many of you here today are getting your diploma at this Ivy League school because you have committed yourself to a dream and worked hard to achieve it. And there is no greater cliché in a commencement address than "follow your dream." Well I am here to tell you that whatever you think your dream is now, it will probably change. And that's okay. Four years ago, many of you had a specific vision of what your college experience was going to be and who you were going to become. And I bet, today, most of you would admit that your time here was very different from what you imagined. Your roommates changed, your major changed, for some of you your sexual orientation changed.
  

Complexity

As a society, we have created many complex systems. Think medicine, education, and finance as prime examples. In parallel to these collectives, we also create perhaps a false belief that each individual in these systems should focus on their selfish selves and, by doing just that, these collectives will prosper and make progress.

Atul Gawande talked about these issues eloquently using an example in medicine.

He said "The truth is that the volume and complexity of the knowledge that we need to master has grown exponentially beyond our capacity as individuals. Worse, the fear is that the knowledge has grown beyond our capacity as a society. When we talk about the uncontrollable explosion in the costs of health care in America, for instance—about the reality that we in medicine are gradually bankrupting the country—we’re not talking about a problem rooted in economics. We’re talking about a problem rooted in scientific complexity."

He further added "That’s why we as doctors and scientists have become ever more finely specialized. If I can’t handle 13,600 diagnoses, well, maybe there are fifty that I can handle—or just one that I might focus on in my research. The result, however, is that we find ourselves to be specialists, worried almost exclusively about our particular niche, and not the larger question of whether we as a group are making the whole system of care better for people."

Overall, Gawande raised very fundamental questions for society to seriously consider and take some actions NOW before it is too late. Also, how do we make sure that the new generations are raised to ask important questions about collectives and their roles in them?

Sensemaking through comparison

There was an OpEd article in the New York Times a while ago. It portrays the contrasts in decision making, attitudes, and actions between the treatment of military and schools in the U.S. Here is the link to the article.

I found the comparison to be a powerful reminder for all of us especially why we blame teachers on school failures.

Here is an interesting quote from the story:

WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.

And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.

Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.

Who am I?

One of the highlights from Kung Fu Panda 2 is the pondering from Po, the panda, on the question "Who am I?"

I think all of us, at one point or another, may have a similar question popped up in our head. We often let some past experiences define who we are.

According to Kung Fu Panda 2, we cannot go back and change the past regardless of how much we may want to. Of course, the past may leave scars. But scars do fade.

Responsibility and character: Active sculpting of reckless mindset

Here is a quote from Gretchen Morgenson, a New York Times reporter on her recent NPR interview regarding the reckless behaviors of Fannie Mae that provide a template for reckless behaviors later on Wall Street.

"If you had had regulators doing their job, and if you had had a tough overseer of Fannie Mae who made it increase its capital, who made the company take greater care with some of its loans that it - that it guaranteed or bought, then you wouldn't have had this problem. So you can't lay it simply at the feet of Fannie Mae, but you have to throw in all of these other characters that were acting in their own interests.

It wasn't about the homeowner. It wasn't about expanding home ownership so that immigrants could, you know, build a nest egg for their children, because the kinds of loans these immigrants were given had absolutely no ability to build a nest egg. They were so punishing in their terms, that there was no way the immigrant could possibly pay them off.

So it was an idea, but the execution - the idea was OK. The execution was disastrous. And it was because there were so many self-interested people at the trough."

Imagining university

Here is one perspective to understand universities in today's world. Imagine a spatial unit that stands on three legs. The three legs are financial viability, student learning, and knowledge boundary.

Lately, research universities have increasingly focused on the first leg (financial viability) and, to some extent, the third leg on a push for new knowledge through funded research. This is because funded research serve both purposes. However, this leads universities to become unbalanced and perhaps unsustainable in the long run. The fact that many universities do not offer "meaningful learning experiences" is very disturbing.

So, the daunting question is how to maintain all these three goals in a more balanced way in order to obtain sustainable progress? Not easy indeed.

Increasing concerns about the consequences of excessive technology use

In recent years, some people have become skeptical about the role of technology like Facebook orTwitter and in some cases, the role of private companies and their influence on our lives and our digital identity.

• Here is a TEDtalk on the concern of "overcustomization" of information that we see, not under our control though, but from the decisions of some companies (e.g., Google, Facebook) to select only the information that they think we like to see. For example, people who have affinity for travel are more likely to receive results related to resorts, travel destinations when type in a country name in Google. On the other hand, people whseems o are more politically inclined may see results related to a recent unrest in that country. Essentially, the overcustomization makes us become narrower and narrower to just a bubble that is full of ourselves. This does not sound like a good thing and to defeat the original purpose of the Internet.
  
  
• Here is an article in the New York Times on the concern of an overuse of social media like Facebook and Twitter. The obvious drawback is "distractions". However, there are more grave concerns when it comes to young adults' over-reliance of Tweets (140 characters) for news. The concern is "We may raise a generation that has information but no context ... Craving but no longing." Indeed, this is a very serious concern.
  

Just imagine ...

I found the analogy that Atul Gawande uses in this illustration of the consequences of errors made in medicine with errors made in the game of baseball to be intriguing and may worth reflecting. Here how it goes:

"Imagine, though, that if every time Mike Lowell threw and missed, the error cost or damaged the life of someone you cared about. One error leaves an old man with a tracheostomy; another puts a young woman in a wheelchair; another leaves a child brain-damaged for the rest of her days. ... Someone would want to rush to the field howling for Lowell's blood. Others would see all the saves he's made and forgive him his failures. Nobody, though, would see him in quite the same light again. And nobody would be happy to have the game go on as if nothing had happened. We'd want him to show sorrow, to take responsibility. We'd want the people he injured to be helped in a meaningful way." From Better by Atul Gawande.

I want to add a few sentences to this story. Yet, in the end, nothing happens. The world goes on as if none of these happened. The bottom line is, sometimes, we don't use these failures to be better.

Puttiing things in contexts

I often wonder why people may change their decisions when questions are put in different contexts. Here is an example. I read Peter Franklin's story from the book "Better" by Atul Gawande. One day, Peter became sick so he called his father who is a doctor. He went through a chest X-Ray and they found a very large tumor in his chest. However, his dad also discovered that Peter had a chest X-ray four years ago. He went back to look at the diagnosis and found that the radiologist discovered his tumor then but it was never mentioned to Peter. Eventually, the Franklins sue the doctors and they won the case and was awarded $600,000 in damages. Peter eventually survived the aggressive treatments.

Here is when things become interesting to me. After completing medical school, Peter decided to move into radiology. However, he was rejected by his top-choice residency programs. His dean at Boston University called the chairman of the radiology department and they told him that he did not get in because "This guy's a maverick! He's suing doctors!". Then, the dean told Peter's story and asked "If this was your son, what would you do?" And, Peter got accepted after that.

So, what is the moral of this story? Why our decisions are shaped by the contexts? Why do we need others to rephrase the question for us to develop compassion towards other human beings? Why can't we use our own imagination and put things into perspectives ourselves?

Experience and actions

"We should draw from our direct experience (good or bad), reflect on it, and finally use it to help us become a better person."

Anonymous

Power

What do men with power want?

Answer: More power

From the Oracle, The Matrix Movie

Collective failure: University Experiences and Progress

The two authors of the book "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses" who found that college students do not learn much from their 4-year college experiences. In other words, there was little improvement in students' critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills.

Here is their challenge to university faculty and administrators in their recent New York Times OpEd:

"Most of all, we hope that during this commencement season, our faculty colleagues will pause to consider the state of undergraduate learning and our collective responsibility to increase academic rigor on our campuses."

Very critical question indeed.

Experience, competency, decision

I found the answer from the Dalai Lama when he was asked to open a discussion on peace in the family to be profound and should be deeply reflected and applied in the context of everyday individual and collective lives.

His answer was "I have no experience".

That is an important point to show that we may not be able to offer well founded opinions when we do not have direct experience on the subject matters.

Searching

Can a person be good at several roles that s/he is doing in his or her life?

• Can one be a good boss and a good person?
• Can one be a good colleague and a good person?
• Can one be a good mentor and a good person?
• Can one be a good parent and a good person?
  

Two-level human

Prompted by the celebration of bin Laden's death, an article in the New York Times talks about the two qualities underlying the natural selection:

• Lower-level (selfish self): Humans are selfish and will compete aggressively with others in the group. This concept promotes the selfish nature of humans.
  
  
• Higher-level (collective self): Humans as collectives compete with other collectives for the survival of the group, not individuals. In other words, each one of us focuses on something that is bigger than each one of us.
  

The question is how can we apply this understanding to workplace or community that promotes the higher-level thinking rather than the lower-level thinking of selves.

Flower gardens

I would like to use flower gardens as metaphors for the development of collective scholarship.

• Should we create gardens that allow a million flowers to bloom?
  
• Will this be a sustainable model to develop collective scholarship?
• Alternatively, should we focus more on "conformity" (i.e., gardens with one kind of flowers)?

Four reliances

Rely on the message of the teacher, not on his personality;
Rely on the meaning, not just on the words;
Rely on the real meaning, not on the provisional one;
Rely on your wisdom mind, not on your ordinary, judgmental mind.

From the Buddha as quoted in the book "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying"

Loneliness

"It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction--everyone second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and the excitement at about a million miles an hour."

From The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

Lucky number

Here is a conversation between mother and her daughter on "lucky number:

Daughter: I don't like school.
Mother: Why not? What is wrong?
Daughter: I don't like Gym class. I don't like recess. I don't like anything.
Mother: O.K. What else you don't like?
Daughter: I don't like my classroom. I don't like room 17.
Mother: Why not?
Daughter: 17 is not my lucky number.
Mother (with a perplexed look on her face): How do you know that 17 is not your lucky number?
Daughter: My fortune cookie told me. :)

What is the value of a teacher?

As a teacher, I often wonder if what we do in classroom matters to student lives years after graduation. Recently, I read a touching story in the New York Times from a writer who praises a few teachers from her high school days. These teachers went out of their ways to shape her life. Here is the link to the story.

Here are an inspiration thought from the story:

"If we want to understand how much teachers are worth, we should remember how much we were formed by our own schooldays. Good teaching helps make productive and fully realized adults — a result that won’t show up in each semester’s test scores and statistics."

Horns and Cape (Collaborative version)

I have posted two versions of this story earlier, one is a concise version and another is an extended version. In this post, I am going to put out another version that extends from the extended version. This time, the extension comes from a very very dear friend.

Here again "Horns and Cape, the collaborative version"

One day, a creature woke up with two (ugly) horns growing on its head. Why in the world did someone do this to me?, the creature wondered. I was given two ugly horns on my head and the tribe leader said I can no longer live here. "Go find a new habitat." That is the command given to me.

Broken hearted, confused, depressed, the creature had no choice but to do what it was told (all in the while with two shiny ugly horns on its head.) The creature aimlessly walked, walked, and walked until it came across another promising habitat. It talked to the caretaker and the first thing the caretaker said is: "Why in the world did you have those two ugly horns on your head?" Although the creature wishes that nobody would notice the two ugly horns, the creature was compelled to be honest and answer the question. It said "I was told that I have not contributed enough to the tribe and I have not carried independent tribe building activities." "But look, I listed all the wonderful things I have done at that tribe ... look please and you will see that I am a good creature and worthy bringing in to your tribe."

Despite the begs and pleas, the caretaker finally said "No, I don't think I can. With those two ugly horns on your head, we will not be able to take you in." The creature sank deeper into its sorrow and helplessness. What if I cannot find a new habitat? What will happen to me?

Months have passed .... One day, the creature fell asleep under a big banyan tree. This time, it woke up with a beautiful cape with magical power growing on its back. The creature thought to itself... "Wow, I have been given magical power. I hope everybody can see it."

It looks around to see if there are other creatures around so it can show off its wonderful cape. Unfortunately, no one was around. So, it decided to take a walk. It came across one old creature resting near a big rock. The creature excitedly approached the old creature and asked: "Do you see the wonderful cape I have on my back?" The old creature replied "What cape? I only see your two shiny ugly horns on your head."

A creature is confused ... Has it become an ugly creature that nobody wants to welcome? OR Has it become a great creature with magical power to change the world?

What should it think of itself now?

The story continued ...

The caped creature roamed far and wide, crossing land and sea to find a habitat that could see the magical cape. One day, finally willing to risk sharing itself with another being, the creature approached the caretaker of a lovely, green habitat. “Look how I have contributed to the tribe that I came from. See my cape that gives me magical powers. And, please, I beg of you, do not mind my horns,” the creature said.

The caretaker looked at the creature with compassion and understanding and responded, “What you call horns are scars that every creature endures. Some creatures have horns; others have humps; still others have beards. In this land, we look upon such scars as building character—in much the same way that your cape builds character. Neither one is who you are, but they both contribute to who you will become. I sense great beauty and great potential inside you. I welcome you to leave your cape behind, and join us in this habitat.”

The creature has a choice to make. . . To believe in the power of the horns and the cape or to believe in its own power to forgive, to trust, and to shine?

Journey

"Great journey begins with one bold step"

David Brooks, the New York Times

Descriptors

All of us give ourselves various descriptors as ways to form our own identity. It is also important to say that there is another set of descriptors that others prescribe to us. Again, over the years, as we cannot help ponder on those descriptors, we, sometimes, incorporate them as part of our identity or who we are. Some of these descriptors may have positive connotations while others may have negative connotations. The detrimental consequence to people especially young people is what if we choose to believe the negative things that other people have used to describe us!

Cryptic language

Here is example of the use of cryptic language by experts (Full disclosure: me included):

The question is why nosebleeds most often afflict young children.

The answer given by one otolaryngologist is "digital and other manipulation is the usual cause."

Translation: nose-picking or putting foreign objects in the nose.

Wow!

Question of the day

What are the implications of the lack of conscience?

Horns and Cape (Extended version)

One day, a creature woke up with two (ugly) horns growing on its head. Why in the world did someone do this to me?, the creature wondered. I was given two ugly horns on my head and the tribe leader said I can no longer live here. "Go find a new habitat." That is the command given to me.

Broken hearted, confused, depressed, the creature had no choice but to do what it was told (all in the while with two shiny ugly horns on its head.) The creature aimlessly walked, walked, and walked until it came across another promising habitat. It talked to the caretaker and the first thing the caretaker said is: "Why in the world did you have those two ugly horns on your head?" Although the creature wishes that nobody would notice the two ugly horns, the creature was compelled to be honest and answer the question. It said "I was told that I have not contributed enough to the tribe and I have not carried independent tribe building activities." "But look, I listed all the wonderful things I have done at that tribe ... look please and you will see that I am a good creature and worthy bringing in to your tribe."

Despite the begs and pleas, the caretaker finally said "No, I don't think I can. With those two ugly horns on your head, we will not be able to take you in." The creature sank deeper into its sorrow and helplessness. What if I cannot find a new habitat? What will happen to me?

Months have passed .... One day, the creature fell asleep under a big banyan tree. This time, it woke up with a beautiful cape with magical power growing on its back. The creature thought to itself... "Wow, I have been given magical power. I hope everybody can see it."

It looks around to see if there are other creatures around so it can show off its wonderful cape. Unfortunately, no one was around. So, it decided to take a walk. It came across one old creature resting near a big rock. The creature excitedly approached the old creature and asked: "Do you see the wonderful cape I have on my back?" The old creature replied "What cape? I only see your two shiny ugly horns on your head."

A creature is confused ... Has it become an ugly creature that nobody wants to welcome? OR Has it become a great creature with magical power to change the world?

What should it think of itself now?

Horns and Cape

One day, a creature woke up with two (ugly) horns growing on its head.

The next day, a creature woke up with a (beautiful) cape with magical power growing on its back.
...
A creature is confused ... Has it become an ugly creature that nobody wants to talk to? OR Has it become a great creature with magical power to change the world?

What should it think of itself now?

Vision of development from a quality of life perspective

Poverty has proved to be one of the most difficult social problems to solve. Of course, there are many different approaches to address this issue that plague the progress of our society. Some people believe in, what I call, "the economic" approach. This way of thinking addresses poverty by using whatever ways to help the impoverished increase their income. The underlying assumption is that higher income will bring purchasing power and lift people out of poverty. Others believe in ,what I call, "the quality of life" approach. This way of thinking generally believes that it is important to focus on well-being as an outcome. As such, ways to address poverty may not necessarily emphasize on growing income. Solutions may include quality education, affordable health care, good career path, etc.

For example, Charles Kenny, a development economist argued in the recent article in the NY Times (link to article) that "the biggest success in development has not been making people richer but, rather, has been making the things that really matter — things like health and education — cheaper and more widely available."

A boy and a red balloon

We often hear a story of a kid and a balloon told from a kid's perspective. Now, let's hear it from a different voice, a balloon.

A red balloon is happy because finally it finds an owner, a nice little boy
A red balloon accompanies the boy everywhere he goes ... just following along, bubbly and happy

After a few days ....
A red balloon finds that it has become smaller, less shiny, and full of wrinkles
Before long, a boy did the unthinkable ... letting go of the red balloon
A red balloon is lost, scared, sad, confused ... It wonders where that nice little boy goes?

Here and Now

Breathing in ... Breathing out
Breathing in ... Breathing out
I am blooming as a flower
I am fresh as the dew
I am solid as a mountain
I am firm as the earth
I am free

Plum Village, France

Aristotle

Some words of wisdom from Aristotle:

• Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
  

• "Eudaimonia" -- Humans can attain eudaimonia by fulfilling their potential.
  

What makes "Organization" GREAT

Here is a story of how one medical doctor discovers answers to the question "what makes a hospital great (i.e., excellent patient care)?"

Here is the link to the full article in the New York Times.

• She used to think that hospitals have great results because their surgeon are so good at their operations.
• She discovered from her own experience and from reading the latest study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that, in fact, investing in new technology and acquiring superstar surgeons may not be the top reason to why hospitals reap great results.
  
• Instead, improving patient care require investing in and focusing on cultivating the culture of the organization.
• What kind of culture? "A culture in which there is a cohesive organizational vision that focused on communication and support of all the efforts to improve care."
• Dr. Bradley, one of the the investigators said "We have to focus on the relationship inside the hospital and be committed to making the organization work. It isn't expensive and it isn't rocket science, but it requires a real commitment from everyone."

I can't help but wonder if this is true for other kinds of organizations as well.

Managers and their influence on employee's quality of work life

What are the three main reasons people leave a workplace? According to this article in the Times, here they are:

1. They don't feel a connection to the mission of an organization or sense that their work matters.
2. They don't really like or respect their co-workers
   
3. They have a terrible boss

Some places could have all three of these issues. I would also add that, in some cases, people who face with these circumstances decide NOT to leave a workplace. Perhaps, this could be more detrimental to an organization as a whole.

It turns out Google has a project called "Oxygen". They have more than 100,000 observations about Google managers across more than 100 variables. More importantly, Google uses the results as a feedback to develop training modules for their worst-performing managers. In the end, Google came up with 8 good behaviors:

Measure of progress

Another day, another article that supports a broad idea that we, as a collective, cannot go on and measure our progress by relying solely on those measures of economic growth such as GDP. It is important to view progress from a holistic life point of view. One of a promising measure is "happiness index". Here is a link to the Op-Ed article in the Times by Roger Cohen.

Some of the direct quotes and evidence from the article are:

• "We can't go on like this, running only to stand still, making things faster and faster, consuming more and more food (with consequent pressures on prices); that somehow a wold of more than seven billion people is going to have to downshift to make it, revise its criteria of what constitutes well-being."
• Britain will begin measuring how Britons' happiness by asking the citizens to respond on a scale of 0 to 10 on 4 questions:

1. How happy did you feel yesterday?
2. How anxious did you feel yesterday?
3. How satisfied are you with your life nowadays?
4. To what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?

• Although it is a step forward to shift from focusing on financial prosperity to the idea of overall well-being, we still need to make sure that what we learn from well-being links to policy making.
  

Move on

Stop worrying where you're going, move on
If you can know where you're going, you've gone
Just keep moving on.
....

Move on!
Move on!

Stop worrying if your vision is new.
Let others make that decision . . .
they usually do!
You keep moving on.
Look at what you want,
Not at what you are
Not at what you'll be ...

"Move On", From Sunday in the Park with George