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Faith is the key to success

September 11th 2009 10:01

Faith is the pierless bridge supporting what we see unto the scene that we do not.

~ Emily Dickinson, (American lyric poet,1830-1886) ~

As the Crow Flies

The term “as the crow flies” has its origins in maritime lore, when prior to the development of accurate navigational technologies ships would release a caged crow when lost or unsure of their position in coastal waters. The crow would fly straight towards the nearest land thus giving the vessel some sort of a navigational fix. Over time the term evolved into a colloquial expression used to describe the most direct route between two points on the Earth. As an aside, the tallest lookout platform on a ship thus became known as the "crow's nest”.

Of course sighting land at night, let alone a safe port, posed a far more difficult challenge, and using a crow to assist you would have been next to impossible. Fortunately, ancient peoples had long made a practice of banking fires on hills and mountainsides to bring their sailors home from the sea. A concept that underwent further development by the Egyptians in 280 B.C. with the building of the Pharos Tower, history's first, and also tallest, lighthouse. Its light, produced by a fire kept blazing on its roof, could probably be seen from up to forty-six kilometres out in the Mediterranean. The light from these ancient lighthouses produced a halo or arc of light that would silhouette the horizon thereby providing point to which those still at sea could navigate to.

Faith Underpins Success

Faith allows us to expand our horizons!

The adventurous nature of ancient seafarers was such that they would step beyond their comfort zone, into the vast emptiness of the ocean, and placing their trust for a safe return home in God, one another, crude navigational technologies, and a crow that held no loyalties to its captors. Such expressions of faith were paramount to the success of sailor explorers in opening our world and filling in the blank edges of the map.

Faith helps us to deal with ‘life out of context’ and confront those defining moments that test the depth and breadth of our character, challenge us to reflect meta-cognitively, and without exception leads us to a greater understanding of ourselves, our gifts, strengths, weaknesses and needs as well as those of others. Without faith our individual character is held in a kind of limbo. For it is when understanding fails us, and we are at the edge between the known and the unknown, that faith helps bridge the gap until our understanding has grown to the necessary point. At which time faith all but disappears, its work done, and insight is born. Faith also provides us with the optimism that leads to achievement, for nothing is ever fully realised without some degree of hope or confidence.

I believe that all things are possible for those who are able to maintain a healthy perspective between their core and dispositional beliefs, and in so doing are able to maintain equilibrium between the three key dimensions of faith …

Faith in one’s self ~
Based on a belief in the truth and strength of one’s core values; a trust in one’s integrity; and confidence in one’s ability to act in wisdom and with compassion.

Faith in others ~
Encompassing a fundamental belief in the oneness of all peoples which transcends cultural, economic, national and social boundaries; a trust in the good character of another; and confidence that we may live and relate to others in a Christ-like manner.

Spiritual Faith ~
Comprised of a belief in our spiritual heritage, trust in the morality espoused through our spiritual values, confidence that we are part of a greater whole.

It is through our sense of Faith that makes it possible for to successfully apply those habits of mind that enable us to …

venture out by trying new things constantly and taking responsible risks. It may be that this requires living on the edge of one’s competence for a time but that is what being adventuresome is about;

create, imagine, and innovate by trying things a different way thereby generating new and novel ideas with fluency and originality;

apply past knowledge to new situations by accessing prior knowledge; and transferring that knowledge beyond the situation in which it was learned.

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

~ Saint Augustine ~

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Posted By: Richard Cramp - Category: parents, education, teaching, mentoring, personal development, growing up, success, tips

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Somewhere Something Incredible is Waiting to be Known

September 11th 2009 09:58

In reference to the myriad of incredible things that are waiting to be known, the late American astronomer, writer and scientist, Dr. Carl Sagan once wrote ...

"The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls so!"

This quote alludes to the wondrous possibilities that rest at our finger tips. Throughout history the pool of knowledge that we all share has evolved through a combination of chance discovery, exploration of possibilities, and opportunism driven by the wonderment and awe of what is to be known about the world in which we are immersed. This is the way that it has been for the countless generations that have preceded us, and will be for those that follow.

In the great scheme of things it doesn’t matter whether you make the finding yourself or are the last person on Earth to see the light; in taking the first steps toward finding those incredible things that are just waiting to be known there are two things required of us. The first is an attitude that involves opening our minds to possibility, and being opportunistic enough to seize a chance presented. Being open to possibilities and opportunities prepares our mind to think flexibly and thus be more alert to, and receptive of, those incredible things to be learned.

The second requires the application of perceptive thought processes – the ability to look at things another way through the ability to change perspectives, generate alternatives, explore possibilities and consider options. For the most part we tend to do this by hypothesising (creating tentative theories) about as yet unverified ideas, concepts or knowledge concerning the world around us. If, through the various processes of testing, our hypothesising proves to be true, we reconfigure those ideas and concepts already held. However, in this regard we tend to be limited by the inflexibility of traditional thinking processes that tie us to a ‘this’ or ‘that’ scenario.

‘Rock’ or ‘Water’ Thinking
Edward de Bono , who has built a reputation on providing thinking tools that are very simple to use and yet powerful in their effect, contends that traditional modes of thinking are static and unproductive, as they are based on the solid and inflexible foundations of 'is' and identity. In contrast to the traditional 'rock’ thinking, he proposes the notion of 'water’ or perceptive thinking which is based on 'to' and the flow of the mind (ie. 'What does this lead to?' as opposed to 'What is...?')

De Bono argues that in traditional (rock) thinking we tend to make judgements based upon right/wrong. Whereas when we are in a perceptive (water) thinking mode our judgements are made around the concepts of 'fit' and 'flow'. Where we apply the concept of 'fit' by asking questions like: 'Does this fit the circumstances and conditions?' Then, after acknowledging the possibility of fit we then move on to the notion of ‘flow’ and questions such as: 'Is the terrain suitable for flow to take place in this direction?’ Hence, fit covers the static situation, flow covers the dynamic situation.

For instance, in a conflict situation both sides will argue that they are right I which they can invariably argue logically. Traditional (rock) thinking would seek to discover which party was really 'right'. On the other hand, water logic would acknowledge that both parties were right but that each conclusion was based on a particular aspect of the situation, particular circumstances, and a particular point of view.

The point is that water logic is highly dependent on defined circumstances or conditions, whereas the very essence of traditional rock logic is that it is circumstance-independent. However, we tend to be so immersed in a rock-like thinking mode that water thinking often seems so pragmatic that 'anything goes' and there is no way of making judgements, or getting a decision. As a consequence, it is likely that many of those incredible things that are waiting to be known will pass us by unnoticed.

There is wonderment and awe to be found just about everywhere!

Helping children to recognise those incredible things that are waiting to be known.
Children have the most amazing imaginations, they view the world with wonderment and awe, are open to possibilities, and are unwavering opportunists. We see this in their play and curiosity about life and the world in which they live. There are a couple of simple little things as parents, mentors or teachers that we can do to assist our children to explore possibilities well beyond their imaginative play years. These include:

encouraging them to continue to view their world with wonderment and awe.

encouraging them to remain open to new ideas.

redirecting their thoughts when they start falling into the trap of traditional ‘rock’ thinking.

This may be done by asking simple questions such as:

Where does this [idea or thought] lead to?

Does this fit the circumstances and conditions [of the situations]?

However, it is not always easy to change perspectives, generate alternatives, consider other options or come up with the right sort of probing questions. It takes time and patience, and a good deal of effective role modelling on our behalf as parents. But as Alexander Graham Bell, once said ...

"The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion. It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider - and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation."

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Posted By: Richard Cramp - Category: parents, education, teaching, mentoring, personal development, growing up, adolescence, toddlers, success, tips

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The Power of a Single Word

September 11th 2009 09:56

There is a story in the Buddhist teachings entitled “Eight Earthly Winds” , which is retold below...

There was a well-known scholar who befriended a Buddhist Chan master. Thinking that he had made great a stride in his cultivation, he wrote a poem and asked his attendant to deliver it to the master who lived across the river.

The master opened the letter and read the short poem aloud:

"Unmoved by the eight worldly winds,
Serenely I sit on the purplish gold terrace."

A smile broke up on the lips of the master. Picking up an ink brush, he scribbled the word "fart" across the letter and asked that it be delivered back to the scholar.

The scholar was upset and went across the river right away to reprimand the master for being rude. The master laughed as he said, "You said you are no longer moved by the eight worldly winds and yet with just one 'belch', you ran across the river like a rat!"

There are many ways in which to interpret this story but I like its simplest and possibly deeper message ... the power that can be held within a single word!

There can be tyranny and genius in words …
A recent research paper out of the United States, reporting on how people process words that express emotions, claimed that half of all the words that people produce from their working vocabulary are used to express negative emotions, compared to a mere 30 percent which are used to express positive emotions and 20 percent that have a neutral context. Although the magnitude of the statistics may be questionable, the relative proportion of negative to positive words in our working vocabularies should be of concern to all of us because there is a substantial body of research that relates the words we us in our ‘self-talk’ to our emotions, moods and relative levels of achievement.

Positive words seed optimistic thoughts which in turn generate positive actions. While, a single negative word can be like a sharp pin quickly stabbed into a balloon; it can breed pessimism and pull us down. This is because negative words evoke negative thoughts which in turn require greater deliberation as we slow down our processing in order to think more carefully. Whereas, positive words tend to tell us that things are benign or safe or everything is ‘OK’. So processing of those words and subsequent emotions is more script-like, hence we don't do a lot of word processing in these instances.

Within the continuum between positive and negative words there also exist what I refer to as ‘limiting’ words. These are not necessarily positive or negative, they are simply words that act to vale, misdirect or channel our thinking in a way that prevents us from opening our minds to the understanding and wonderment of what we know and discover, as well as the possibility that there may still be something incredible waiting to be known. For instance, it is natural for many of us to think through ‘problem solving’ situations in terms of choices between this, OR that. Yet there is a certain tyranny in the word ‘OR’ because of its tendency to limit our thinking to existing, and probably unworthy, resolutions of the problem with which we are faced and as such can be an unproductive way of looking at the world. Whereas, there is a certain genius about 'AND', that empowers us to expand our horizons and challenge the boundaries that tend to limit our thinking to mere alternatives.

Using self-talk to take control
The bottom line is that words can either be destructive or enriching to our relationships and our achievements. Hence, the ability to think clearly about a situation depends very much on the words we choose to process it with. This in turn affects the degree to which we commit ourselves to resolving the situation, and ultimately the outcome that we settle upon.

There exists within each of us the power to turn the tyranny of negative words into the genius of the positive, as well as the ability to place a new spin on those words that limit our thinking. For the most part, this power emanates from our ‘self-talk’; this is our internal dialogue – the words we say to ourselves as a result of the endless stream of thoughts that run through our heads every day. Harnessing our self-talk in this way is simple although it does take determination, time and practice to stop and evaluate what we are thinking.

The practice of exchanging a negative word for another with a more positive connotation is generally easier for adults than for children because of the relative difference in the size of our working vocabularies. As an aside, one could also argue a strong case for cultural differences between the generations – how often do we hear words such as wicked or sick to describe something positive? We can help our children use their self-talk more effectively by assisting them to broadening their working vocabulary, particularly within the domain of positive words. For instance,

a PROBLEM becomes a SITUATION

A problem seems as though it is stuck to you and will always be there. A situation, on the other hand, seems temporary and solvable.

ALWAYS and NEVER become OFTEN and SELDOM

Used in critical and negative contexts always and never are rarely true and exaggerate a situation.

SHOULD have becomes COULD have

The words, should have, create guilt and shame for something that has already been done and cannot be changed, whereas the words, could have, don't condemn anyone. They let us know we had a choice, and this experience then becomes a lesson for making better choices in the future.

MISTAKES become VALUABLE LESSONS

This is similar to the example above. The first way makes others feel ashamed of what they did, and will probably inhibit them from trying new things in the future. The second way gives others something positive to do – to learn from their actions, thereby encouraging learning and experimentation.

too HARD becomes somewhat CHALLENGING

To say that something is, too hard, implies that the situation is impossible to resolve and that we resign ourselves to failure. On the other hand, to say that a situation is challenging, recognises that there are as yet unrecognised pathways to a solution, we just need to find them.

So, before we allow the words to take control of us without considering what they mean, remember this one very important word - THINK.

Lasting accomplishments come when we change our behaviours as well as our thinking. These are important skills that we also need to model and reinforce with our children.

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Posted By: Richard Cramp - Category: parents, teaching, mentoring, personal development, growing up, adolescence, success, tips

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