“To live is not to learn but to apply” –Ernest Legouve
This week:
Talking ‘Bout My Education
At the end of the day or month, or year, my passion and purpose is education.
Here are a few items to keep the Life is for Learning mindset cranking as we turn the dial from 2015 to 2016.
End-of-life research reveals that people who embrace this life theory are most satisfied. This mindset allows for life’s undeserved ups and downs as a means to personally grow into a better person.
At the end of our lives what most happy people have wished for is that they have become wiser and more loving.
This is my wish for you…
Funny:
Parenting And Education: 15 Hilarious Parenting Comics that are Almost TOO Real
Let’s create the space for us to all laugh about the common experiences all parents share.
Let’s teach compassion and kindness. Compassion and kindness are my religion…
Education History: Photos of our True History
Worker replacing chalkboards, finds 98 year old drawings and lessons hidden behind them
When contractors began work on four classrooms of Emerson High School in Oklahoma, they knew their remodel would improve education — but they never expected it would impact local history.
What do you STAND for as an educator? What are you most passionate about improving at your school? What can you do about it? Stand with other administrators, superintendents, directors and teachers who are making a difference in the classroom, school, and community.
Click hereto watch the video, 5 Ways to Stand for Greatness in Education.
Education Satire
This one will make you think and keep us from getting too complacent…
“We have all failed at something. We all still fail at things. It’s not that you fail, it’s that you keep going.”
OC Pathways Showcase demonstrates the sky is not the limit for Orange County students
“Love is the best medicine, and there is more than enough to go around once you open your heart.”
– Julie Marie
The Winter Solstice:
This is the beginning of the season of Winter.
On this day the longest night of the year is followed by the renewal of the sun.
It is a pivot point from which the light will grow stronger and brighter.
Solstice means…standing-still-sun.
This name comes from the fact that the sun at its noontime elevation appears to be in the same place for several days before and after the solstice.
On this day the sun appears at its lowest point in the sky.
On this day in the northern hemisphere the Sun is farthest south on the horizon and the time between Sunrise and Sunset is the shortest of the year.
The days begin to grow longer, we are happy when the light begins to return after the long nights of winter.
Creating a meaningful celebration of winter solstice, can help us cultivate a deeper connection with nature, family, friends and community.
Celebrating the solstice can be a beautiful reminder that our lives are part of a larger order, always changing always renewing.
A way to bring warmth, light and cheerfulness into the dark time of the year.
A way humans for many millenniums have marked this sacred time in the yearly cycle of life. The solstice can serve as a touchstone to help us cultivate an attitude of receptiveness and appreciation that will carry us through the holiday season.
Reflect on the stillness of the day by cultivating stillness in yourself.
Maybe spend more time listening, watching and honoring the slower, quieter rhythm of the season.
Darkness and night are times of rest, dreaming, healing and growth.
Seeds must be put into the dark earth in order to send out roots and push up new shoots.
Native plants bloom now so that their seeds will be formed and fall to the ground early enough in spring to take advantage of the rains.
Plant a seed for a more intuitive, simpler and natural holiday season.
If you want to change something in your life or something about yourself the solstice is a good time to work on it.
This longest night can be a time of journeying deep into our inner dreamtime to bring forth a dream that can help us in the new year.
A new year with fresh possibilities reborn in us all.
The Winter Solstice is a chance to clean house both inner and outer, so what would you like to get rid of or leave behind?
This is:
A time for reflection, rest and renewal.
A time for feeding the spirit and nurturing the soul.
A Christmas Perspective: Heaven or Hell:
We live in an age of extremes. Most of us are a bit hypnotized by our smart phones overflowing with the stream of urgent trivia as well as vital information that impacts our work, our families and our lives. Our brains and emotions were not designed for this constant onslaught of stimulation.
At the same time personal meditation has gone mainstream. More and more business organizations are teaching their employees the disciplines of mindfulness and encouraging them to meditate, even at work. Yoga has never been so popular.
Extremes also dominate our inner life of meaning. Religions struggle to resolve their old doctrines that create tribal beliefs while the world culture simplifies spirituality into universal love.
Humans are designed to wrestle with the big questions. We seek certainty in an uncertain world. We want the light of unchanging truth as we try to make good decisions in the dark.
There are many big thinkers who believe that we are transitioning from a religious age through a secular age to a spiritual age. Time will tell. But I believe what really matters is that each of us wrestle with our theory of life until we arrive at a world that helps us to be the best person we can imagine becoming.
There is nothing more personal than our inner theory of the meaning of life. Even in the most ‘doctrinaire’ religions each individual creates their own personal theology.
It is inescapable. According to Gallup surveys a large percentage of avowed atheists sincerely pursue humanitarian ideals because they believe in a vague but real source of empathy-based morality…”The Golden Rule.”
So what is your theory of life? How do you derive meaning? Research suggests that there are three main theories:
I can control the events of my life through perfect obedience to moral rules. (This is the common belief that if you say your prayers and eat your Wheaties that bad things won’t happen.) Although this mindset is obviously flawed, millions of people hang onto it as their only strategy to control things that evidently can’t be controlled. This is very stressful and creates a crisis of faith. After all, when a loving God allows really bad things to happen to really good people it makes you wonder, “What the hell is going on?” Psychological research tells us that this theory of life creates a lot of inner fears and anxiety.
Life happens…deal with it. This theory suggests that life is ultimately meaningless and random. Seeking pleasure and avoiding pain is the only rational approach. The problem with this theory is that seeking pleasure does not fill the hole in our hearts that can only be filled with deeper meaning. Most often when we see people who have lived their lives on the pleasure maximization principle, those like Hugh Hefner, and we feel sad for them or disgusted.
Life is for learning. End-of-life research reveals that people who have this life theory are most satisfied. This mindset allows for life’s undeserved ups and downs as a means to personally grow into a better person. Again, at the end of our lives what most happy people have wished for is that they have become wiser and more loving. (Not richer or more famous.) This theory of life is very optimistic and robust because it trains our inner voice to tell us that we can learn something beneficial from everything that happens to us. It infuses meaning into everyday life. It makes our setbacks sacred. And it makes us grateful for our successes. When people say everything happens for a reason what they are acknowledging is that we can benefit from all of life’s experiences… if we choose to. That’s the inner story that will make you the most stress resilient and satisfied.
So now some thoughts on the meaning of Christmas. For a minute let me separate the message of Christ from Christian religions. But before I do, let me give you a few thoughts on religion. Contrary to popular belief most wars have been fought over land and money not religious ideology. Much, much good has been done by both individuals who are devoutly religious and by religions themselves.
However, when hard power, competitive people, who are almost always men, claim to have an exclusive relationship with God it brings out the worst in them. It legitimizes mind control, bigotry, slavery, holy war and terrorism. So, its also true that lots of very terrible things happen in the name of religion.
Religion can also serve a great human purpose by helping people gain impulse control and self-discipline, which are vital tools on the path to personal fulfillment. And it also turns out that people who worship together are psychologically happier and live longer. This is true even if they don’t believe exactly the same things. There is something potent about communal celebration of a belief that life has purpose, love is the supreme value, and that our choices and actions matter.
Today there are thousands of Christian sects so Christianity is more of a tapestry of beliefs with thousands of individual threads. Some Christians try to strip away the centuries of added dogmas and doctrines that obscure the message of Jesus. Sometimes these are called “Red LetterChristians” because in many New Testaments the words that are attributed to Christ are printed in red. These folks tend to downplay the words of Paul in his epistles as well as theologians, founders of religions and others who claim a special power to speak in the name of God. (Or for that matter to speak for the universe… or the force…)
The reason that Red Letter Christians like to focus on the words of Christ is because they are almost universally words of inclusion, non-judgment and forgiveness, even for big whopping moral flaws. Instead of commandments Christ gives us the Beatitudes. In fact he says the whole moral law can be reduced to one big idea. We need to actively love each other. Complicating things more than that destroys the power of universal compassion.
Of course we need to love each other wisely. Love does not mean co-dependence or allowing selfish, evil-acting people to cause suffering for the rest of us. Real love is not weak… it is strong. Christ did not hesitate to condemn the religious establishment of his time as being power-mad, greedy and mean.
My point in all this is that it doesn’t matter if someone says Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or nothing at all. The spiritof Christ’s message is that loving-kindness really matters. When our personal characters are drenched in loving-kindness guided by wisdom we are becoming the best person we can imagine.
I have one last Christmas time thought. Some of you might find it disturbing but I find it exciting. The Christian mystic and scientist Emanuel Swedenborg writes that heaven and hell are really states of mind. The states of mind are so powerful they literally create our experience. And we actually create either heaven or hell right now through our conscious awareness.
Although Swedenborg does not actually seem to say this, the implication of his mystical experiences is that we are currently living in hell. That’s why bad things happen. That’s why life is so uncertain, so often unfair. That’s why when people relate near death experiences they often say they don’t want to return to a world full of undeserved pain and sorrow.
This point of view gives rise to the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds. If there could be any less suffering or uncertainty, there would be. What I find comforting about this possibility is that instead of being frustrated and angry with all the injustice we experience and see innocent others’ experiences I can be grateful that my higher self has an opportunity to make things just a little bit better. It also helps me relish all that is good in my life. It makes me want to strive to bring the conditions of heaven into my life and the lives of others in any way that I can.
Maybe I’m goofy. I don’t pretend to know what I don’t know. And I don’t know a lot of things. But what I do know is that loving others wisely is my path to meaningful happiness. Loving makes me a better person.
I like to think about that Christmas time. Be happy.
Will
The Holiday of Miracles Campaign: It is easy to be a miracle maker!
Here we are on the air supporting this important cause over the holidays with the Matching Pledge hour from Mission Fed
The Holiday of Miracles radiothon which I helped name some moons ago, this year raised $265,000 for Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego!
Fundraising for Rady Children’s means that kids have the best possible care. That means that us parents that walk through the doors know their child is in good hands. It means that our local hospital has the resources to take care of any baby, kid or teen that comes in and the families doesn’t need to go somewhere else for great care. It means that this hospital has the resources, the talent and the technology to not only care for these kids, but to revolutionize the way we care for them and all kids globally. Some examples are the Genomics institute, new treatments, breakthrough surgeries, cancer research – anything that means a child has a better chance at life and quality of life. Fundraising goes to patient care, technology and equipment, research, advocacy and unfunded patient care. With 214,000 individual kids who came through the doors last year – it is good to provide this support to the hospital. Without philanthropy, Rady Children’s would be just another hospital.
A Bridge for Santa:
Some seasonal joy, even though it is in a sugary container 🙂
Why People Winter in Florida:
Thanks this week go to Bill S, Will M, the Holiday of Miracles team and Larry H.
Season’s Greetings to you and yours!
Pay it forward…
Love,
Neville
“Love is the best medicine, and there is more than enough to go around once you open your heart.”
This weekly bastion of positivity and good energy for years, today, takes a sobering look at gun deaths, violence and terrorism, putting them in perspective rather than laced in inflammatory rhetoric.
Rest assured we still have good “mojo in the dojo”, and will be back to focusing on the positive and best nature of humanKIND, but this context is important if we are to retain our soul as a nation and unwilling to let paranoia destroy ya…
Let’s choose pronoia over paranoia while remaining vigilant and hopeful!
Trust in God but tie your camel (mid-east saying)
Pray like everything depends on God but work like everything depends on you (mid-west saying)
“You have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.”- Sam Levenson
This week:
Giving in to Your Vulnerability and That of Others ( A Soul-Filled Story)
Giving in to Helping Others is not the Enemy of Productivity, it is the Mother Lode Motivator (A NY Times Article that Totally Captures My Philosophy of Life)
Giving up Control Just Might in Improve your Mood and Wellbeing (Research That Suggests Letting Go Can Be Liberating!)
Give in to the Amazing World S/He has Given Us (Pictures that Make You Go Ahhhh…)
If you are local…
See Indecent at the La Jolla Playhouse!
This play within a play is a “blink in time: that as relevant today as when the first play was written in 1906. Experience the power of art to challenge the status quo with intellectual honesty and heartfelt appeal for issues of racism, sexual liberation and history repeating itself…
An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck.
One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.
At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.
For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.
Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. ‘I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.’ The old woman smiled, ‘Did you notice that there are flowers on your Side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side?’
‘That’s because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them.’ For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.’
Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them. SO, to all of my cracked pot friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path!
Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?
This New York Times magazine article eloquently captures my philosophy of life:
WHAT IF…by letting go of control, you gain.RESEARCH SAYS: New research compared the effects on mood and well-being of two approaches to uncertainty called “primary” and “secondary” control. Primary control is the go-to strategy of control freaks. In this approach you try to beat uncertainty by eliminating it, i.e. you do your best to control everything. Not surprisingly, this approach did not work well in real life leading to negative moods and feelings. In short, the inevitable failure of this approach bummed people out. Those who practiced secondary control, however, were happier and more peaceful. Secondary control is all about exercising control of your expectations and judgment, rather than of events. You can’t control everything in life but you can control your beliefs.
TRY THIS: Think of something you absolutely fear happening. Imagine what you would do if the worst happened. Feel your stress dissolve as you come to terms with how good you make your inner life when your outer life is sucky. What a Wonderful World S/He gifted us with!
You are royalty. A sovereign over the empires of potential within you. The hardships of life may have hypnotized you into forgetfulness of your greatness. The pain of dreams gone bad may have shuttered your passion and smothered your conviction. The arrows of jealous critics may have caused you to imprison the hero within. Please know: this day is a fresh chance. A miracle in waiting. This moment is a vast gift.
This minute presents you with a blank canvas of acute possibility and breathtaking opportunity… …to reclaim the royalty you have been born into. To conquer vast new lands of compassion, creativity, audacity and humanity.
You being alive today is no accident. There is a reason you are reading this. And a readiness deep within you to shed the shackles of past pain to make your rise to a new way of seeing the rest of your life.
Rise up! Own your birthright for your unique form of greatness that we of the world demand from you.
Be a light. Spot the gorgeousness of the future you can make, via the right thinking, speaking, behaving and producing.
One small step–done in a single minute of glory on this gift of a day–will be the beginning of a new way of being, when done consistently and devotedly.
You deserve to remember your highness. To know the privileges of your royal–and finest self. And as you make the leap from your current life to the life that longs for you to know it, I will watch your star blaze.
Because that’s what I do.
And we all will applaud your bravery.
Much love + with boundless belief in the brilliance that you are,
Being Thankful Fosters Happiness with Will Marre:
PONDER THIS… “Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” –William Arthur Ward
RESEARCH SAYS: We have some pretty strange holiday traditions…dressing up in costumes and going from door to door asking for candy, a big bunny hiding colorful eggs, a leprechaun leaving a gold treasure…you get the idea. But the Pilgrims were really onto something with Thanksgiving. Being thankful, after all, fosters happiness. People who are grateful are likely to be happier, hopeful and energetic, and they possess positive emotions more frequently. Individuals also tend to be more spiritual or religious, forgiving, empathetic and helpful, while being less depressed, envious or neurotic. In fact, gratitude can increase your happiness by 25%.
TRY THIS: Don’t forget what Thanksgiving is really all about and try to carry the spirit of Thanksgiving into your life every day.
The Power of Gratitude in Leadership with Peter Barron Stark:
What Makes a Great Leader in the Other 11 months of the year?
Happy Soul Food Friday! 