Windward

Tuesday, 21 May 2013
Musing, Where to begin
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With skill and experience you can sail into an opposing wind. There’s even more that one technique to defy its resistance.

In life, as in sailing, we can craft maneuvers to spite the prevailing forces – be they systems, social barriers, opinions, or doubts. It’s an achievement of courage and resiliency to do so.

However, what we almost always resign ourselves to is that we can’t change the direction of the wind itself. It’s out of influence and therefore we must bear with it. This may be true in the meteorological sense, but in almost all others, despite the size of the obstacle, the gift humanity has is its ability to change the winds of our time.

Whether it’s civil rights, economic prosperity, famine or disease.

The direction our future blows in is up to us. Considering how we treat each other, how we are treated, and how we treat the world are parts of leading the change. Though just remember that there’s no point being able to change the wind if you don’t bring people along with you.

So go ahead and define what the next movement is. It starts with deciding which direction you yourself want to go in.

Beyond Raw Material

Monday, 20 May 2013
Musing
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What makes us humans distinct?

Our individuality.

Our curiosity.

Our imaginations.

The unique combination of these things is core to what makes each person who they are. The diversity of the how these facets come together is an awesome thing to stop, recognise and admire.

However, the most important aspect of that makes one person unique from another is not so much the raw ingredients and how much talent was bestow through your genetics. Regardless of any thing else, what matters most is your ability to choose how your individuality, curiosity and imagination plays out.

We are not slaves to instinct and primal urges. What really defines us is our will act on the things that create the most meaning.

For ourselves.

For the people that matter to us.

So what are choosing to do with all you have?

Use Me Up

Thursday, 16 May 2013
Challenge
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In a material-driven world, the emphasis is placed on producing things that can quickly occupy our attention and meet an immediate need. What’s diminished in this world is the instinct to participate in the creation process itself.

Think of it as the difference between ready-to-eat meals and making dinner from scratch. The distinction marks the battle between the law of diminishing returns and the opportunity for unbounded satisfaction.

With the former, the value of the thing produced reduces overtime as the experience of it is repeated. With each repetition, the audience’s satisfaction wanes in the light of the sameness factor and so they move on to the next thing. With the latter, the more a person engages in creating something, the more their capacity to create grows as a result. Consequently, the satisfaction that comes with applying oneself to a creative process expands as the creator expands.

In the world where people largely base their choices on things that are easily used up, this empowerment of creativity is seldom experienced and far fewer things are created as a result. However, this is only in a material-driven world and we live in something else right.

Right?

The Winner Takes All?

Wednesday, 15 May 2013
Challenge
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Sometimes, only first matters and being second means being tied with last. Though there might be 2 other spots on the podium, to the victor go all the spoils.

This is the catch with unique opportunities – they’re the prizes we all want but are extremely limited. If it were another way – if there wasn’t some ultimate outcome we deeply valued – we probably wouldn’t put ourselves into the fray in the first place.

Committing to succeed at a winner-takes-all goal can be an incredible journey and an immensely important character forming experience. The cautionary tale is, however, that success is never individual even if you’re the one doing it all. Behind you will be your friends, your family, the teacher who invested in you at high school, the boss who gave you a kind break when you weren’t looking, the blog writer who inspired your next move…

It’s important to know the game you’re playing and understand the stakes – make sure you can live with the cost of losing. More importantly though, when you win, just remember that you didn’t get there alone, even if it feels like it, even if that’s what others tell you.

You’re always connected in someway to someone else –  you might just have to stand a little further back to see it. More to the point, just because your victory means your competitors miss out, you’re supporters don’t have to.

To all of us for you, go the spoils. Now that’s a real challenge.

Making It Last When It Counts

Tuesday, 14 May 2013
Challenge, Musing
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Nothing is more certain to awaken us to our priorities than a brush with life or death.

A new baby.

A serious health scare.

When pressure points like these are pushed, our framework for what matters abruptly exposes itself even if we think we have never consciously formed it.

This is perhaps because living is something we’re all hardwired to understand. It’s in our DNA to want to thrive – when this part of our code is not firing, it’s tragic, and we know something is very wrong. So though we can often be oblivious to the question of our priorities, the event of a life or death encounter can quickly rectify that.

On reflection, it seems in some ways we – those of enjoying the comfort of developed economies – are the poorer for this awareness being something we are not more cognisant of. Many of us almost have to rely on a sudden jolt in order to ever have the chance to appreciate just how delicate and beautiful the balance between life and death really is (and the priorities they bring for each of us).

Fear and dread are the likely culprits that hinder any real going contemplation of it. However, if we were able to move past these barriers, even embrace the reality of life coming to an end, then thinking of our mortality more (and that of those we care about) could actually make us stronger. Rather than diminish our options, it stands to grow our resolve to make better decisions for our lives.

Consider, for a second, the following:

If the next interaction were to be my last engagement with a person, how would I want it to go?

This would be an exhausting question to put in front of ourselves for every person we meet. However, perhaps thinking on it – and questions like it – more frequently than never, will grow our understanding that while our connections in life may be momentary, the impressions we make don’t have to be.

If we challenged ourselves a little more with the thought of our greatest limitation – our mortality – it may just serve as the inspiration we need to drop the erroneous and embrace the vital instead. At its best, living in a more aware state will allow us to better define who we are and capture the best of what we have to give.