==========

“Life, too, is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward.”

Abraham Verghese

====================

“It’s the one thing we never quite get over: that we contain our own future.”

Barbara Kingsolver

=================

Thinking about what legacy you want to leave behind can make you start thinking a little bit about what you may want to stubbornly stand for and demand of Life and what you may decide to compromise with Life to insure you have something, i.e., some progress to show at the end. A significant part of this grand bargain we negotiate with Life is how we decide to compromise with those around us and those who affect the arc of our lives.

Ah.

That word “compromise.”

Therein lies maybe one of the most difficult topics of the current generation.

The topic is that the concept of compromise, meeting someone half way, giving something up and getting something back, is now a nebulous concept.

Why? Because I am not sure I know where the hell half way is.

And I tend to believe a shitload of people are standing with me, on one side or the other, not really sure where the hell half way is.

And if you cannot even see the middle ground how the hell can you figure out how to make a stand on it?

This gets compounded by a massive online communal world in which we all live side by side where even the marginalized people <real or perceived>, nutjobs & experts, now have a place to gather into likeminded groups and share as much a space as mainstream views. For good, or for bad, online any group of people can organize & mobilize & challenge the status quo … or pick & choose which status quo fits their view. The internet amplifies discourses critical of, well, any status quo you can think of.  And, as anyone could expect, all the critical discourse triggers a corresponding equal backlash from those who fear an uprooting of their beliefs <and the self identities that are inevitably attached to these beliefs>. Needless to say much of that backlash is a bit unhealthy and a lot unmoored to accepted reality.

It just becomes one huge mosh pit of criticism and cocooning of likeminded people.

Likeminded people – all who are angry.

Within all of this situation & anger civil discourse tends to be tossed in the trashheap. And maybe worse is the fact there is this ‘digging in’ aspect where we refuse to see any merit in other people’s opinions. Sadly, I can only conclude that we have lost the ability to converse, discuss, debate and have a dialogue with one another.

It seems obvious <at least to me>, but if we could figure out how to come together and compromise, that we could go a long way toward not only creating a better version of society in general, but it may give me, and all of us, at least a fighting chance with regard to where we make our own personal stand and where we compromise and how we attain the future that we contain.

As long as people cling to unbending attitudes & beliefs, the divides between us will not deepen, but will remain an unbridgeable divide.

I tend to believe most of us want better that that.

I tend to believe most of us would be willing to work to make this a better and more civil world to live in.

And if you do not embrace this thinking?

I would remind everyone that America is representative of a great compromise. The U.S. Constitution is possibly the greatest Compromise ever negotiated <it created a nation>.

But as a first step to bettering this entire situation we need to figure out how to better define Compromise.

Far too many loudmouthed people have ripped the meaning out of the word, twisted the value of the word making it seem valueless, and ultimately created an environment in which  we demonize the entire process of trying to reach compromise.

Compromise no longer means understanding your differences and working together toward a common goal, but now it seems to represent weakness, losing and not being strong enough to get what you want. This attitude and unwillingness to work together creates a dysfinctional society where the unwavering stance seems to be “don’t compromise, stick to your guns, don’t give in to the other side”.

Sigh.

Look.

I find it hard to believe that the majority of America is really that selfish and that stubborn. Sure. I know the people most passionate about any issue tend to be the ones less willing to compromise on them. And, yeah, I would guess most of us are fairly passionate about ourselves – what we decide to stand for … as well as what we will decide to sacrifice within compromise to attain some progress. But within this wacky world where no one seems to want to compromise anything on anything … well … shit … some of us are trying to think a little bit about what you may want to stubbornly stand for and demand of Life, and what you may decide to compromise with Life, to insure you have something – some progress to show at the end.

It seems like the situation we are in has arisen because we have permitted the stubborn voices of the radical marginalized <real and perceived> to drown out the pragmatic voices, the majority, of realistic positive compromise. If we want society to start working again we need to embrace compromise — and let it retain the positive definition which has served it well through time.

To end this I will go back to the beginning.

The “I” aspect.

I tend to believe all of us, with the intent of finding the best version of ourselves from which our ultimate legacy will be defined, will seek to find the balance of being stubborn and demand that Life bend to us and our principles and compromise where we make a grand bargain with Life in order to continue progressing.

Uhm.

If we believe this, then why wouldn’t we want this in Life and in business and in politics and in … well … everything.

There was a book that discussed this. In The Spirit of Compromise <Amy Gutsman and Dennis Thomson> they note that Americans support general compromise as an idea and like the idea of ‘other people’ working together to get stuff done <statistics support this in a variety of studies & polls>.

However. The authors then note that support for compromise breaks down when it addresses specific issues <Americans are much less likely to support a compromise on a specific issue>. What this means is that, as with most things in Life, we enthusiastically embrace the conceptual behavior and balk at the actual behavior.

I shared that to say compromise is complex and simple.

What I do know is that we contain our own future and building that future demands that we will have to make some compromises.  That is simple.

Making the specific choices is complex.

And while I am mostly interested in my own future and making my own compromise choices, I tend to believe we would all find the better version of ourself contained within if the society as a whole were more willing to refind the value in compromise. Yeah. I just suggested our best version is not an “I” thing but rather when we are part of the weave of societal fabric, i.e., “We” thing. Ponder.

Earlier today I reshared my thoughts on the lack of civility in political rhetoric and how that fosters an environment of violence – either unacted upon violent thoughts or actual violent actions. I even wrote ‘the politics of resentment’. Which leads me to Trump. Violence has always bubbled below the surface in America, but where I lay a large burden of the blame on Trump is for using it as a tool of “America Greatness”, i.e., the violence is done by patriots passionate about their great America. It really was not that long ago that in 2015 and 2016 the Trump cult was being shaped with violence.

It seemed like just another day and another violent Trump rally. The incidents kept piling up.

Chicago protest fights. A Black Lives Matters protester was sucker-punched by a white bystander at a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. A young black woman was surrounded and shoved aggressively by a number of individuals at a rally in Louisville, Kentucky. A black protester was tackled, then punched and kicked by a group of men as he curled up on the ground in Birmingham, Alabama. Immigration activists were shoved and stripped of their signs by a crowd in Richmond, Virginia. A Latino protester was knocked down and kicked by a Trump supporter in Miami.

At that time I said this version of America is not the America I know, the America I want nor is it America anywhere near great. While I remain steadfast on the latter two, on the first I was wrong. I now know the Trump America and it is violent.

It makes me angry.

It disturbs me.

Just to remind everyone, one of the most disturbing moments, one which truly made me angry, was angry as I watched a protest in Chicago devolve into what could only look like a riot to the entire world.

Another reminder. A Republican, at that time, said: “Tonight the seeds of division that Donald Trump has been sowing this whole campaign finally bore fruit, and it was ugly.”

I am angry because Mr. Trump knew what he is doing. He was playing with fire. Playing it as close to the fire as he could without getting burned <or burning down the house> because in his own pea like mind he has decided that this warped version of passion will energize change and ‘winning.’

Just as he has shown a complete disdain for a ‘good win’ versus a ‘bad win’ he also shows no signs that he understands the difference between ‘bad passion’ and ‘good passion.’

That is the sign of an incompetent ignorant lazy leader.

I am angry.

I am not angry at America or its people or even most of Trump’s followers; I am angry at a person who wants to be the emperor who has no clothes. He offers only platitudes of ‘deals & wins’ as solutions to any issue he is asked about and, worse, simplistically twists the “us versus them” narrative into “we good people & they bad/evil people” platitudes.

He skates on the slippery superficial surface of emotion and an enhanced feeling of irrelevance <or being marginalized> from a minority of the populace who has now found a voice.

I remain angry even to this day.

And I get even angrier because Trump, to this day, assumes no, none, nada, whatever version of “zero” you want to apply here … responsibility for anything.

It is never his problem. It is never his issue. It is never anything but ‘the bad people’ <media, people who do not agree, Muslims/Islam, Mexicans, immigrants, stupid elite, etc.>. It is never him.

This despite the fact he is the common denominator.

And this also means, to Mr. Tump, he is never responsible for his words.

We are all responsible for the words we say. Everyone.

That said.

It most likely took me far too long to understand this, but while freedom of speech is an equal freedom for all & everyone, the responsibility tied to that freedom is not equal. Responsibility increases upwards. The larger the forum, the more impact as a leader I have, the larger the actual managerial/actionable responsibility the leader has AND the larger the responsibility to the speech portion of my freedom I have.

Trump acts, and has always acted, like he has no more responsibility with regard to what he says than the guy sitting at the end of the bar after a 10 hour day drinking his 5th draft beer with his buddies bitching about the world.

======== Trump supporter ==========

A leader has a responsibility to listen to his/her people but any good leader knows you don’t incite latent negative emotion within an organization … you show you listen, unite and give specifics on how the organization will progress from that point on.

Lastly.

I am angry because I have run across these faux business leaders in business and they are the worst of the worst. They are hollow of anything. And blanket their hollowness with superficiality or faux emotion. And, most importantly, they make nothing great.

Trump is particularly skilled at manipulating his version of the public to his own ends. And, in that, he doesn’t even recognize his divisiveness <which is frightening for someone who was leader of the free world>. I believe he doesn’t recognize the divisiveness because he lives in an alternative universe in which everyone else is wrong and the problem and protestors never have a valid reason and anyone not in ‘his crowd’ must be unpatriotic.

Mr. Trump, assuming he actually desired to be a president, never understood all citizens are his crowd. You either decide to try and unite by listening and convincing them of your path to ‘greatness’ or I imagine you just let them rot somewhere as you, and your followers, shun them. And, well, that’s what he did. And by shunning them, while fostering a violent attitude, he gave implicit permission to be violent as long as it was targeted to those he shunned.

I cannot remember in my 60something lifetime anything like this.

And, yeah, I am still angry.

And, if I am honest, a little nervous certainly unsettled and, well, maybe a little scared.

This feeling did not come easily.

And I know exactly when it happened. It was a March morning in 2016 when I discussed my anger at Trump’s lack of assuming responsibility after the Chicago rally incident and it happened as I said “I have never seen this before in my lifetime.”

Because I do know where I have seen it before. This is the divisiveness of dictators and autocrats. I hesitated to use examples from the past, but the names came very very close to crossing my lips. It was an uncomfortable feeling to be that close to comparing Trump to some of the worst of the worst leaders from past history. And what got me that close to uttering the examples is that instead of making a call for discussion and debate he insists on calling for silence and authoritarianism <absurdly under the guise of ‘freedom of speech’>. To be clear, I no longer hesitate to draw these comparisons. To be clear, as he harkens back to the ‘good ole days’ he even seems to encourages violence <under the guise of “we are so weak and need to be strong again”>.

This is bully logic.

Trump disavows violence and yet encourages it. He encourages a consistent ‘strong message’ <however you, the followers, would like to deliver that message to ‘them’> of silencing dissent, silencing debate, silencing real solutions, silencing critics and silencing competitors. And he fills their silent space with bombastic platitudes of deals & wins and divisive rhetoric.

While he’s narcissistic, self-absorbed, power hungry/crazy and driven by either greed or ‘winning by any measure” I almost think we are seeing a public case study example of the Dunning–Kruger effect.

This is a cognitive bias in which a relatively unskilled person suffers illusory superiority. This translates into mistakenly assessing their ability and believing their skills, and themselves, to be significantly better than what it actually is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their own ineptitude and evaluate their own ability accurately. When Trump looks in the mirror he sees only something superior to everyone else … maybe even superior to America itself.

Anyway.

I am not a huge follower of politics but it seems to me that consistent violence at the scale of 2016 was rare in American politics, but now it has almost become the norm.

And I am still angry at Mr. Trump.

Angry at his overall lack or personal responsibility. Angry at his disdain for the power of words. Angry at his lack of understanding of freedom of speech as it pertains to leadership. Angry at his lack of desire to try and convert dissenters, but rather silence or eject/reject dissenters.

Angry at his hollowness <because I want a leader who is full of a robust vision beyond deals & wins>.

And, mostly, I am angry at what he has done to America.

He never had any interest in making America great, he simply encouraged us to hate.

And hate is the foundation for violence. Ponder because this is important.

====

“So the universe is not quite as you thought it was.


You’d better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can’t rearrange the universe.”

Isaac Asimov

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We talk about changing the world and ‘rocking the universe’ not only when young, but in discussions where we are thinking about maximizing our potential or maybe we do it simply to convince ourselves we can do something that matters.

In other words …

We have a plan.

Ok. Maybe its not a specific step-by-step plan, but we have a general schematic of a plan which showcases key lines and dimensions of what, where and how.

It is kind of a rough blueprint sketched out on a cocktail napkin.

Uhm.

But then some stranger randomly puts their drink on your napkin and the ink runs a little and there is an obnoxious ring cutting thru a key line or two. In other words, things get a bit fuzzy.

In other words, basically the universe you had planned against has conspired against you in a seemingly random way.

Yeah.

The universe is as it is. Despite all your wishes and dreams and desires to disturb or disrupt the universe you, well, you cannot. The universe arranges itself without consulting you or your plans.

That doesn’t mean you don’t have any control of what happens to you nor does it mean you shouldn’t attempt to shape things so you may achieve what you desire, it is just that sometimes you need to rearrange your beliefs.

Now. I write a shitload about maintaining you character and the core of who and what you are as well as maintaining a focus on the more important things <because a shitload of unimportant things are gonna be bright shiny objects that can easily distract you>.

To be clear. The universe is not something that is distracting; it is a consistently inconsistent environment in which distractions appear. Despite that, you need to stay the course of who & what you are and all the while rearranging some of your beliefs with regard to … well … what I will call ‘strategy & tactics.’

Simplistically, in my mind, you reside in this consistent inconsistent universe maintaining your individual ‘brand essence’ <distinctly different than personal branding> and grounded in a sense of purpose, i.e., what you want to contribute and maybe an idea of what matters to you, and rearranging your strategy & tactics to accommodate the universe.

This may sound intellectually challenging and mentally tiring and … well … a lot of work <when you were kind of hoping Life would be a little simpler>.

Well.

It is kind of tiring.

But that is kind of the price of living a full Life, well, okay, maybe at least some kind of ‘non-stagnant’ life.

I imagine everyone has a choice.

Try and stand still and weather the universe as it rearranges itself or attempt to move <forward, sideways, diagonally, or whatever direction you can  – because progress is not always ‘forward’>.

Most of us?

We just go on.

We step forward, backwards, diagonally and sideways, all with an eye on whatever version of progress we may have in our heads.

We do so because … well … what is the alternative?

====

“You just do it. You force yourself to get up. You force yourself to put one foot before the other, and God damn it, you refuse to let it get to you.  You fight. You cry. You curse. Then you go about the business of living. That’s how I’ve done it. There’s no other way. “

Elizabeth Taylor

Anyway.

It is quite possible that the business of living is grounded in the thought of ‘rearranging your beliefs’ because the universe is certainly not going to rearrange its beliefs.

Ponder <but do some rearranging while doing so>.

==========

“I’ve been injected with false hope so many fucking times I’ve lost count”

via concealthefeeling

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“We all suffer from dreams.”

Bernard Cornwell

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Well. I am unequivocally a hope guy.

I believe leaders should be dealers of hope.

I believe hope is stronger than … well … pretty much anything.

I believe no one should be empty of hope.

I believe everyone deserves someone to give them hope when hopelessness seems the only thing available.

That said.

While, technically, false hope is a simple definition, realistically, there are a couple kinds of false hope.

Ok. Actually a shitload of derivatives of false hope.

In my words there would be, on one end of the spectrum, the more heinous version of ‘offering a fantasy unrealistic thought’ all the way over to the other bookend of ‘grasping for some glimmer of a semi-impossible reality.”

And then everything in between.

Hope, in even a false way, has many dimensions. And within any and all dimensions I would suggest even a sliver of hope has an exponential value beyond its mere size. It is quite possible that is where false hope becomes a little dangerous – that exponential value beyond its actual size.

Even with a glimmer, hope can shine so bright it can blind you to the relentless onslaught of truths and realities. The truths which are more likely to showcase the horizon you are not only gonna be stuck looking at, but visiting at some point <which is not the horizon you had actually hoped for>. But false hope is maybe even slightly more dangerous than that <if anything could be more dangerous than be blinded by reality>.

It actually is more likely to blind you on the important little shit than the meaningless bigger shit. False hope inevitably drives someone to focus on the bigger more audacious, and less likely, objective. This translates into the fact that same someone is more likely to overlook the smaller more important shit that would actually have increased the odds of attaining the hopeful objective.

How does that most often happen?

You are more likely to make some smaller, more impactful, poor choices and decisions hanging on to the sliver of false hope like it is a security blanket from the dangers of the reality you know must be out there.

By the way. That is the main difference between real hope and false hope – in the nuts & bolts aspects.

Real hope. Real hope, which truly has aspects of reality embedded within, actually permits you to navigate reality’s obstacles as you pursue the real hope of something. The real truth is that real hope does not blind, it actually opens your eyes. That said. Contrary to belief the most dangerous false hope is not the one which is complete fantasy it is the type that actually has some reality embedded.

Yeah. False hope is not always some fantasy.

Yeah. False hope is not always something with “no knowable chance of coming to fruition.”

Yeah. As I stated in the beginning someone who purposefully propagates a true fantasy, something so unrealistic, well, that really isn’t false hope that is propagating a lie. And exploiting a lie is a heinous act <but that is NOT false hope>.

So, to be clear, false hope can be propagated not as some false promise or lie, but rather in a weird ‘well intended way.’ Say, for example, someone has been elevated to a position who is unqualified and untested … but has some tested competency. They sit down at their new desk with all the intentions to succeed and all the words to suggest everyone should believe they will figure it out and succeed.

Well. Let’s say they have strong well intended hope that they will do the job and deliver what they promise.

That is a trickier version of false hope. It is propagated from someone who quite possibly has some false beliefs with regard to their own capabilities, but true belief in a good objective.

Uhm. But what if they do figure it out?

Well. They have delivered on hopes therefore, in some weird equation of Life, a false hope has becomes a real hope delivered.

Look. My point is hope is hope.

And unless someone is lying just to get everyone’s unrealistic hopes up, any hope is better than no hope. You can either not have hope, or have false hope, or real hope <albeit ‘real’ and ‘hope’ is a tenuous relationship>.

To be clear … all actions should be determined by reason, logic and practicality within a construct of strategic hope. That is the main Hope equation.

But hope is, well, hope. And it is hope for a reason. You want something better and at exactly the same time you are not omniscient nor a future prognosticator therefore any and all hoe is fraught with some potential falseness an some potential truth.

Hope, in and of itself, is and has always been an abstract concept.

Fortune, luck, hard work & preparation can guide someone toward hope or away from hope.  Hope is never, and I mean NEVER, representative of certainty. Therefore to accept any hope, false of true, you have to accept the existence of possibilities – good and bad.

To me, in my pea like brain, all false hope implies is that the odds are against you and success is slim, yet, people believe they can overcome any and all obstacles. And, in that point, is where I could argue that false hope is as good as any hope out there.

For in that statement if that is what makes someone get out of bed in the morning and go out and try to do something good or even just try, well, that’s not false that is real.

Having led people I do not use hope flippantly even though I believe in hope as a leadership responsibility.

I do believe people want truth.

I do believe people want to feel safe.

I do believe people want someone to accept some of the burden of the bigger more visionary aspects of Life.

I do believe people want to contribute, personally, within progress toward a specific hope for something better.

I do believe Hope, false or true, is hope.

And we all deserve hope.

===========

“People aren’t interested in the truth.

They’re interested in what keeps them safe.

They’re interested in being looked after. They’re interested in a tale being spun… Mighty men have moments of great despair that common people do not want to know about.”

Melina Marchetta

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originally published December 2016

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“You’ll have to help yourself.”

Lemony Snicket

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“It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine.”

Mark Z. Danielewski

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“More than anything, to me, he was dad. And what a dad. He loved us with the passion and the devotion that encompassed his life. He taught us to believe in ourselves, to stand up for ourselves, to know ourselves and to accept responsibility for ourselves.

Justin Trudeau at his father’s funeral

=============

Personal responsibility is hard. Much much harder than conceptually it sounds like it should be.

I do not have any research today to show how people who have a strong sense of personal responsibility attained that character trait <although if you google it there are gobs of people with an opinion on it>.

For everyone who had great parents who taught them, I can give you a dozen examples of people with crappy parents who have a strong sense of personal responsibility.

For every victim mentality person, I can show different contextual situations that got them into that state of mind and, just as well, the path to a strong sense of personal responsibility is numerous and rarely a straight path.

But, even without research I will suggest a couple of things:

1. Personal acceptance.

To have personal responsibility you almost have to have a strong foundation of personal acceptance.

I imagine I could suggest that if it doesn’t than you are simply ‘posing’ in an attempt to look like you are responsible <and that rarely can stand the test of time>.

Regardless. Somehow, someway people with a strong sense of personal responsibility have developed a strong sense of self. Not necessarily confidence, just self. They recognize ‘they is what they is’ and accept the flaws <and try to improve in some way> and accept their strengths <but never take them for granted>.

In their personal acceptance we, around them, see ‘solid.’ We love these people on our business teams and friend teams, as peers or as leaders, because regardless of their IQ or leadership skills or professional skills they are lighthouse people in their own right.

These people can also be baffling to the perfectionists in the world because part of ‘personal acceptance’ is understanding, if not embracing, imperfections. Ponder.

2. Lucky to be here but many others are just as deserving.

Let me suggest that people with an incredibly strong sense of personal responsibility will also most likely be the people who suggest they had a little luck along the way – lucky in life situations, lucky with mentors, lucky in opportunities – and, even though they had worked hard with integrity, they had done nothing to actually deserve the luck.

As a corollary to this thinking, they would also believe, as part of the luck aspect, that there are many others just as deserving. This attitude creates a sense of responsibility for actions, behavior and attitudes. Mistakes are owned and successes are shared.

Some people may suggest that personal responsibility and accountability is a reflection of integrity or humility.

Well.

It may be.

But I rather believe it is more a sense of understanding that successes are more often than not a reflection of just hard work, but also circumstances. And, to that point, inherently someone with a strong sense of accountability balances success with the understanding that a portion of success is luck – luck of circumstance & luck of being the one where many were just as deserving if provided the opportunity. Ponder.

Like I said in the beginning. This is not based on research and you can toss this into your ‘Bruce bullshit bin’ if you want. But I do not need research to state that personal responsibility and personal acceptance takes work. Lots of work and lots of fortitude.

It is the kind of thing you spend your entire life working hard to not only ‘be’, but to live up to the character standard you have set for yourself. A standard which you will never measure others against because, well, it is personal. You are accountable to your own standard and responsible to meet it. And everyone not only has the ability to set their own, but they also have an unequivocal right to do so without anyone else telling them “how to be accountable.”

————

“It was instead something that we would have to spend the rest of our lives to work very hard to live up to.”

Spike Lee

————-

Personal responsibility is actually one of Life’s lightest burdens if you choose to accept it. That is why I am so often surprised by how many people actually do not accept this burden.

But, in the end, personal responsibility is a personal choice. No one can convince you to do it or be that way. You have to help yourself on this one because no one else can.

====

“I suppose in the end it’s almost too easy to look back and say what you should have done, how you might have changed things.

What’s harder – what’s much, much harder – is to accept what you actually did do.”

Peter Hook

====

Well. Suffice it to say 99.9% of us have a nasty habit of going back over ground we have tread before. Again and again.

We retrace our steps as if we could not only have actually chosen a different path or stopped and smelled the roses or hurried past something a little faster, but also if we had done all those things, well, things would be different in the here & now.

We all do it. It’s kind of natural.

Why? Because it is easy <in a hard way>.

While it is hard, as in ruefully painful at times, to think about the ‘shoulds’; it is easy to see the ‘shoulds.’ And we convince ourselves in that going back and revisiting these things we will be better in the future <because we convince ourselves it will make us smarter>.

In many ways this revisiting of decisions is a version of not really accepting what we did.

That said. Here is some truth. Some real, but unfortunate, truth.

99% of these things you should have done were done with best intentions, best viewing of the situation at hand and, most likely, in the range of best decisions available.

99% of these things you should have done are most likely viewed through a lens which incorporates the contextual ripples that surrounded it at that time <which are almost impossible to see within any moment as it happens> as well as the ripples of time since that moment <which are difficult to envision within any moment>.

99% of these things you should have done only appear to be ‘should have dones’ because you assume the path from that choice & decision would have remained the same as current history.

Oh. And that last 99% is 100% wrong.

Each pebble you drop in a pond is slightly different sized, dropped ever so slightly differently and hits the pond ever so slightly in a different way … all of which sends out a different ripple effect than the original.

Suffice it to say that Time & Life is neither linear nor impervious to other actions.

Oh. The other thing to remember is that 99% of the time you do not really have to retrace your steps to know what you should have done. Whether you realize it or not, in our heads our memory does a pretty fantastic job of taking a picture of moments like that and stores them in your mental photo library.

99% of us see crossroad moments exactly as cross road moments and recognize they have the potential for should haves and store them away. We need not revisit or retrace, we know them subconsciously and reassess them should we cross another similar crossroad moment. You need not examine and tear apart and have angst over the moment viewing it thread by thread in the tapestry of the moment.

Suffice it to say 99% of everything you will need is already stored away in your pea like brain and will naturally arise 99% of the time it should.

Now. It is hard to accept all of which I have written. And maybe 99% of us will chafe at it, maybe ridicule it, possibly oppose it and, yet, will eventually, finally, find it self evident.

===========

“All truth passes through three stages.

First, it is ridiculed.

Second, it is violently opposed.

Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

Arthur Schopenhauer

=====

Truth, in Life and in decision and choices, is, well, truth. And just as truth is sometimes not self-evident in the moment, as with most things in Life, truth always resides as simply ‘it is so’ with the things you have done.

This is the ‘truth’ that 99% of the time is the … well … the just ‘it is so’ aspect:

You do your best.

You make the best decisions you can.

You accept what you did as neither stupid nor smart, but rather the best in that time and place.

That last, my friends, is a simple definition for ‘acceptance.’

And because of what I just said 99% of the time you should just accept what you actually did and not invest time going back over ‘should haves’ and instead invest that 99% of your time moving forward or making some progress.

Well. That last thought is hard. It is difficult.

Accepting what you have done, the bad and the good, is difficult. Accepting that you have learned that lesson in the moment and do not have to retrace steps to ‘really learn’ is difficult.

All I can really say is accepting what you have done, the bad and the good, is actually a lighter burden than carrying along a shitload of ‘should haves.’

Acceptance is a light load and makes you nimbler for the future. And if that isn’t the ultimate argument for acceptance I don’t know what is because in today’s world having some agility to adapt may be the single most survival skill anyone can have. And maybe that is my point. Accepting what you actually did do comes back to one simple phrase: “I survived.” Retracing steps can never change that fact. And I would bet 99% of us have stored away everything to do with our survival. Ponder.

Note:

I did not research this so the 99% is made up.

But I have 90% confidence that it is within the realm of factual truth — in business as well as in Life.

Remember. I am a cynical optimist.

——–

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“I desire the things which will destroy me in the end.”

Sylvia Plath 

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“All sins are attempts to fill voids.”

Simone Weil 

===============

Well. We all know at least one person who is always trying too hard. Or maybe they always seem to be overcompensating for something. Or even that they know they are ‘not as good as’ and spend far too much time trying to convince everyone they are at least better than maybe we know they are at something.

We like these people because we like the overall sense that someone is dissatisfied with the present person and seeking a better person.

We don’t like these people because we don’t like the overall sense of desperation and the trappings that often come with it.

We look at these people and … well … we think about ourselves and the crazy shit we do.

Let’s face it. Life makes us do a lot of crazy shit.

Okay. It doesn’t actually “make” us. It just full-throatedly encourages us to do some crazy shit.

It does so because it makes us desire  a shitload of things that can chip away at the better version of ourselves. And by better version I don’t mean external stuff but internal stuff … soul, integrity & character. But life has a nasty habit of encouraging us to think more about external stuff than internal stuff.

The size of your bank account.

How you look and what you wear and whether you sport Gap or Brooks Brothers.

The size of your house and whether you have gold drapes or Pier1 window hangings.

This kind of crap can screw you up let alone destroy you. You can get so caught up in what Life is whispering in your ear as what is important over time that is all you can hear and see.

Life becomes almost a parody of itself.

‘Less is more’ becomes the mantra of everything but to you, personally, where ‘more’ just seems to look less & less. Life can twist you into a pretzel trying to match up with all the external trappings of what it suggests you should desire. And as you get twisted all it really does is squeeze out character & integrity & principles drop by drop as Life twists harder and harder.

And as you get this squeezed out of you, well, you will naturally get thirsty.  Therein lies the big Life choice: what do you drink?

What do I mean?

Remember that kid you knew growing up who was always the bully, always the exaggerator, always the one trying so hard to show everyone how great they were? Well. At some point they realize that they are thirsty. Either thirsty for more or thirsty for what is getting squeezed out of them.

Now. That said. Don’t think Life is standing by silently.  All the while Life will whisper sweet nothings in that kid’s ear telling them what to drink to stay on their path to a ‘better person’ <and it is most likely the sweetest, least healthy alternative>.

Look. At some point we all get thirsty, even that young bully, and your Life gets energized by what you choose to drink <and I could suggest you get addicted to what you drink at a fairly early age>.

That said.

What I do know is that almost all of us end up being constantly nudged to believe we neither have enough nor are we enough.

And it is within those ‘not enough’ spaces, the voids if you wish to call them, in which we commit our gravest sins.

We commit our sins most often as we overreach.

Okay. We are tempted to overreach — in our words, our resumes, our successes, even our recaps of our ‘what we did today’ lists.

Some overreach more than others, but, we all get tempted. And, just as I noted above, it is explainable and understandable. When Life is trying to constantly tell you ‘not enough’ you will constantly be trying to showcase ‘more than enough.’ That is a natural response.

And this is where people separate themselves into two basic generalized groups:

those who define how they matter <enough> by an internal balance sheet

versus

those who define how they matter <enough> by an external balance sheet.

I am not suggesting it has to be 100%, internal or external, because most of us figure out how to commit as few ‘sins’ as possible and try and manage what they desire in a way they don’t ultimately get destroyed by their desires. Most of us figure out our ‘best version’ is pretty good; maybe less than some but more than others.

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“And so we all matter – maybe less than a lot, but always more than some.”

John Green

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But some people truly do end up in the 100% column.

It is quite possible someone like the Pope is close to the internal 100% judgement, but I imagine a lot of people actually slide close to this Life self-framing. It comes with some external expenses, but a shitload of people are willing to sacrifice those things because they know the gold curtains fade, the money can be lost and the houses can burn down.  External trappings can only provide so much comfort.

On the other end of the spectrum are the hollow people. They look glitzy. They sound confident <if not arrogant or blowhards>. They have all the trappings of success. But their sacrifice is whatever internal compass that can guide goodness or true fairness as well as empathy & compassion. They have sacrificed counting internal cues because external cues are all that count.  All the while they are trying too hard, seem to be overcompensating for something and spending a shitload of time trying to convince everyone they are at least better than maybe we know they are at something. They fill their spaces with sins and laud them as virtues.

All that said. We all know at least one person who is always trying too hard.

This is the person who desires the things which will destroy me in the end.

This is the person whose sins are attempts to fill voids.

This is the person we know, & often wish we could change, but is quite possibly the most unchangeable person we know.

We all have voids.

We just need to be very very careful that what we fill that void with doesn’t destroy us in the end.

Ponder.

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“It was the in-between time, before day leaves and night comes, a time I’ve never been partial to because of the sadness that lingers in the space between going and coming.”

Sue Monk Kidd

—— 

“Ambiguity of language is philosophy’s main source of problems.

That is why it is of the utmost importance to examine attentively the very words we use.”  

Giuseppe Peano

=============

Fear of being misunderstood. If you type that into google you get about 159,000,000 results in 0.42 seconds and only one, yes, one result is about the version I am talking about. The version today is not being misunderstood as a person, but, literally, not being understood when speaking or communicating something. That said. I did find the term ambiguphobia which is applied to the pathological fear of being misunderstood. It has the same word root as “ambiguous.”

Ambiguity.

If you elect to believe the world is often ambiguous, complex not simple, that cause & effect (98% of the time) is nonexistent, and truth is more often conditional not absolute, you are doomed to have a fear of being misunderstood. This fear may be constant or intermittent or maybe even like a flux capacitor, but it exists in some form or fashion.

I thought about this after listening to a Jason Fox podcast where he kind of flippantly mentioned he had a fear of being misunderstood and read a piece he linked to at Ribbon Farm “The Tragicomic Exasperations of Expertise.”

Here is what I believe.

If you elect to believe the world is complex and simplicity is elusive, you spend a lot of time in the wretched hollow between:

Certainty versus uncertainty

Absolute truths versus contingent truths

Pragmatism versus dreams

Short term versus long term

Safety versus risk

Old beliefs versus new understandings

Fixed versus unfixed

Fluid versus solid

If you reside in the complex universe, you will find your cozy cottage resides in this windswept, stormy grassy hollow. And I would suggest you also spend a lot of time in the kitchen of the cottage mixing ingredients seeking the perfect potion to make the complex understood. I would also suggest this is the wretched hollow – continual experimentation of ingredients.

“<things> get better when exposed to external stressors and change.”

Dr. Jason Fox

That said. If you elect to believe the world is complex, let me suggest two thoughts for you to ponder about this wretched hollow in terms of ‘fear of being misunderstood’:

Wretched hollow version 1: where ideas go to die

If you have decided to reside in the complex universe, suffice it to say you have decided to be in the thinking & ideas business. While your skillset may have some aspects of ‘doing’ and results, you have put a stake in the ground that progress is dependent upon people thinking about shit and in that thinking will better navigate a way toward success.

In other words you have inextricably linked thinking to progress. This is important because in this version of the wretched hollow this is where ideas go to die if you are misunderstood.

In other words. You are in the thinking and ideas business (a version of the ‘Progress Business’) and if you are not understood your thinking and ideas die. Uhm. No more business and certainly no progress (or at least your version of it).

This is a pragmatic fear of being misunderstood. The product you want to sell, not being understood, is not bought.

I will note here this is where I believe business people, experience, has an advantage over academics & thought leaders. In business if you cannot make uncertainty certain enough or the invisible esoteric thinking visible enough, you die. You become a superfluous thinker who doesn’t know how to get things done or, in general, no one knows what to do with what you say & think. You are simply mental masturbation.

Wretched hollow version 2: where ‘self’ goes to die

Doubt, Imposter Syndrome, confidence, even arrogance wander in this wretched hollow. Fear of being misunderstood haunts not just your ideas and thinking, but you. This is the world you have elected to be in. Others have chosen detail, you have chosen definitions.

By choosing the path of definitions, versus details, you have, psychologically, purposefully placed yourself in a constant tug of war between all of the things I just stated. Your only real contribution to the tug of war is to continuously eat up more and more knowledge in the attempt to put more weight on the positive side of the tug of war. Unfortunately, knowledge weighs less, proportionately, than doubt/uncertainty, or even ignorance, so even as you become more smart, wiser, & better at articulating the Sumo wrestler sized doubts (the actual fear of being misunderstood) never lose any weight and keep tugging.

My point here is that electing to reside in the complex universe and making your business the business of thinking & ideas is a non-stop, never-ending tug of war. So. You are in the game or you are not. And if you are worth half a shit you will find that you never lose the tug of war, the other side just tugs a little harder on occasion. But. And this is a big but. The moment you stop pulling the fear of being misunderstood changes to death of the universe you have elected to live in and even the business you have elected to be in. I know that sounds harsh, but ‘self’ has some pretty dark places and if you give up the rope it is really really hard to not only climb back out of the darkness, but also get a new strong grip on the rope in the tug of war. Just ponder because even if you do not agree with me in totality on this point even at a lesser degree it has repercussions to fear of being misunderstood.

Let me end this version of wretched hollow by pointing out that if you have elected to make thinking & ideas your business, and you struggle to make people understand your thinking & ideas, you will inevitably start questioning the value & meaning you provide. Period. Full stop.

“Aiming at brevity, I become obscure.”

Horace

Lastly.

Mixing the formula.

That’s the deal, isn’t it? Finding the right amount of certainty, tangible understanding, to freedom (uncertainty) ratio? It’s the proportionate amount of traction points (I call them lily pads of certainty) to provide structure to hold up the uncertain, freedom and adaptability of thinking, in people’s minds (leading to them actually doing something). I say that because that’s where the fear of being misunderstood centers itself – will I mix the right formula this time?

This is where Life gets tricky.

All people inherently need some successes or, well, you go into some pretty dark places. So your natural instincts arc toward ‘being understood.’ That means offering up simplicity, maybe some tasty soundbites and, often, some fairly vapid generalizations attempting to tap into some common perceptions. That means you incrementally shave away at complexity which, inherently, shaves away truths and impact/effectiveness <you have slipped down the slippery slope of the bastardization of occam>. That means, while you have elected to reside in the universe of complexity, you are selling out the value of that universe (I would argue that diminishes self but that’s not my point today).

I will say (part 1) the people in this space with the most success not only constantly gain knowledge, but use it in a ‘play, pause, rewind, fast forward’ way. What I mean by that is the formula cannot be rushed and neither can complexity understanding be completed in a formulaic way. In other words it not only takes an ability to assemble the right fragments, but do so with pacing to engage cognitively.

“Be still amidst the chaos and active in repose.”

Indira Ghandi

I will say (part 2) that the tricksters, and ignorant, who casually ease round simplistic pegs into uneven hexagon complex holes exponentially outnumber the experts. And you know what? People, in general, like round pegs.  Smooth, simple and easy to grasp. This does not mean people are stupid just that tricksters are masters of the illusion, and delusion, of progress and the doyens of detail. In general, they thrive on detail cloaked in fortune cookie wisdom. It’s simplistic, not simple, and its horrible for us, society and business.

And maybe that is where I should end. The fear of being misunderstood is really about knowing, in your heart of hearts, you have chosen the rockier path as two roads diverge and, well:

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Fear of being misunderstood is all about fear of choices – have I made the right one, or ones, and in doing so have I made myself clear of why the roads are what the roads are and why as they diverge we should walk on this one today.

Fear of being misunderstood is all about making the choice to making the complex understood.

Fear of being misunderstood is all about the choice that progress is actually made through the complex rather than simplicity.

Fear of being misunderstood is all about fear people do not understand the choice you made.

Regardless. There is a positive side.

Progress is not a linear process. Mastering complexity or at least wrangling complexity insures not only progress, but antifragile progress and progress with value. I will never suggest fear is a good thing, but I will say that when you get it right, when you share the thinking and ideas and it is understood, and your fear of being misunderstood is absolved for at least that moment – it is a great feeling. And it’s a great feeling not because you have been understood, but rather because by being understood energy has been created, or traction provided, for progress to occur. Ponder.

—————————————-

“Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.”

Joseph Heller

—————

“We must overcome the notion that we must be regular…it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre.”

Uta Hagen

——————

Ok. One of the things that consistently amazes me in the business world is mediocrity.

Ok. Maybe better said business’s “comfort in mediocrity.”

I am exponentially amazed because if you were to interview 100 different business leaders about their organization and company vision nowhere within that entire interview would you hear “we seek mediocrity.” In fact I can almost guarantee there will be words like extraordinary, innovative, best, new and bla … bla … bla.

That said … mediocrity is a stellar example that you cannot believe what people say and what people say and what they do are often two completely different things. It makes you wonder a little that if everyone’s attitude is so expansive why is their actual behavior so minimal/restrictive?

One writer suggested the reason is ‘vainglory.’

“Vainglory,” an anachronistic term meaning an unjustified and excessive pride in one’s own achievements or abilities is one of the primary forces animating and shaping contemporary culture.

Yeah. I buy that theory.

Probably because I have seen it run rampant among successful entrepreneurs who now run their own companies.  Well.  Let me qualify that by saying they may represent the biggest ‘vainglory’ offenders (because large companies get mired in mediocrity too).

Ok.

To be fair (to those mired in mediocrity) it is possible the true effect of transparency in the business world is the creation of the ‘being safe’ attitude versus smart risk taking attitude & behavior. To be clear … I am not sure it’s transparency’s fault, but I am trying to be fair.

Regardless.

Companies beware. The truth is that death resides in the zone of mediocrity. Interestingly I think companies do beware.  It’s the leaders who are failing the companies.

So.

Maybe I should say … Leaders beware. Be fearful of mediocrity. And be fearful of playing it safe.

At the root of mediocrity?

Try this on for size. Criticism seems to have replaced oppositional debate as a form of business acumen. Inherent in criticism is diminishing without enhancement. Oppositional debate is contrarianism with the intent to enhance. And, frankly, I don’t have too much to offer here on why that is happening. If it were a generation thing I may have an idea but the people criticizing (leaders) typically grew up in an oppositional debate business world.  So I am not sure what is breeding this attitude & behavior.

But. Regardless. It’s happening.

And leaders are consistently permitting their organizations to get sucked into the world of mediocrity regardless of the criticism/debate thing I brought up. To me .. the worst is when a company with all the potential to succeed gets sucked into the zone mediocrity.  It is frustrating to see. And painful to watch as they continue in a doom loop of mediocrity.  Or maybe call it unfulfilled potential.

I can even identify some key characteristics of a company mired in mediocrity.

1. High churn of leader low-senior people (the ones who ache to not be mediocre and seek to take the calculated risks to break out).

They get frustrated. And they leave for greener grass when frustrated.

2. Low churn of low-senior people with middle age kids.

Oh.  They will bitch. Make some noises.

But they know if they feed the mediocre machine (and get a small win here or there) they will never get fired. So they don’t take the day to day risks it often takes to rise above the zone of mediocrity. Worse? They learn to live within it.

3. High churn of young people. Especially the good ones.

The ones who have some ambition or maybe not a lot of ambition but want to learn stuff.  They max out fast in the zone and hit a level of dissatisfaction quickly. These really hurt an organization because this group dials up the company culture of miserableness in a sneaky way. They aren’t really grumbling.  It’s worse than grumbling. They simply ask questions among themselves. The “why” question.  Why are we this way?  Why aren’t we growing?  Why wasn’t that idea discussed instead of the one that was?  Why, why, why and why again.  They sense that something is off kilter but they don’t know the answer.

They just keep asking the question.

And when all of that has swirled around long enough. When the repetition of mediocrity is solidly in place. After some time all groups and all employees and all people will get lulled into a sense of helplessness. They start believing they cannot fight ‘the man’ (it can be identified specifically as the leader or simply the organization as a whole) and so they lose sight, or the desire to actually sight, for a something better than mediocrity because of complacency.

In the end.

Being in the zone of mediocrity in the workplace is odd. A little strange. Something feels off, some in-office rhythm is missing, something is off kilter, off balance, out of place.

Its something you cannot really quite put a finger on.

And with all that it becomes … well … it becomes easy to get sucked into the zone of mediocrity. So what can you do? (other than bitch & moan & be mediocre).

If you are a leader? Lead. (but most people aren’t in leader positions).

If you are the rest of the world? Well. I cannot guarantee this will get you out of the zone all the time but you will feel better about yourself and more fulfilled as a person (and possibly be better armed to battle mediocrity).

Never stop learning.

The corollary to this is ‘never stop challenging the norm.’ And at this idea’s foundation is something called commitment. Never stop learning takes commitment. Because in the zone of mediocrity life is much much easier if you go with the flow and accept ‘that is the way it is done.’  Be committed to never stop learning.  From anyone.  From any place. At any time.

Develop a interest for something.

There is nothing like interest to create day-to-day energy <**note: I purposefully do not use passion because passion, generally speaking, is not sustainable>. This is much much bigger than ‘overcoming fear of failure’ or learning from mistakes or any kind of crap like that. This is about positively moving toward some unseen objective – fueled by an internal interest.  The best example I found was about Thomas Edison. It stated: Thomas Edison and the lightbulb. He failed more than 10,000 times. When he was asked what kept him going after so many failures, he said that he had not failed at all. What he had done was to find 10,000 ways that did not work.

Now. I will talk about resiliency next … but for now? That is high interest in something. Find something to rally around. It’s easier to fight the good fight if you care.

No quit.

This is possibly better defined as “character resiliency.”  This has nothing to do with trying and doing and day in and day out grinding it out.  This is bigger picture stuff. This is about not giving up on what you dream or imagine. Mediocrity of almost all things in life takes a boatload of resiliency to face and defeat. I threw in character but at its core this is resiliency.  Mediocrity is relentless and patient and sneaky. You cannot quit, ever, in your battle against mediocrity.

Ok. So. What happens if you don’t attempt the three things I suggest (or anything to get out of the mediocrity zone)?

Well.

If you don’t do this (and reside in the hellish zone of mediocrity), I have one word for you. Regret. Regrets are almost always about missed opportunities – failing to take the risks that could have led to a more fulfilling outcome.

Mediocrity is numbingly subtle.

Company leaders have to believe they are called to something bold and amazing. Even if it is simply engineering the best toilet.  I read somewhere three keys to fighting your way out of this mediocrity malaise:

1. I believe we each hold within us a vast reservoir of courage.
2. I believe in doing something every day that scares the shit out of me.
3. I believe in burning my ships and declaring myself all in.

Love it.

Leaders should have it up on their wall. Breaking out of mediocrity means being courageous, scared shitless sometimes and being “all in” when making a decision.

Ok.

But before anyone thinks this is some wacky uncomfortable hi-risk leadership point of view. Let me say it takes all those things as well as some blending. Yeah. A blend. Blending risk and safety is the key to success. Too much of either is just not good stewardship.  Foolish risk taking is as bad as mediocrity.  Somewhere in the middle is the zone of success.

All that said. I am coming to the close on this topic.

Mediocrity is a simple thing to identify (if you are honest with yourself). Mediocrity is driven by inertia. So, saying that, mediocrity ends up actually being a choice (it doesn’t come naturally).

I will try and end this by explaining the zone of mediocrity and that choice I just mentioned by using Yeats:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre/ The falcon cannot hear the falconer.”

(note: gyre – a vortex, a circular or spiral motion, especially in ocean currents)

Yeats suggests that at any moment forces are raveling and unraveling, forming and disintegrating in polarity (or, as one writer explained, “gyres” superimposed on each other with the apex or narrowest point of one at the center of the other’s base). Therefore moments of opportunity occur when time shifts from the outer to the inner gyre – somewhere within the constantly raveling & unraveling.

Leaders are always a focal point for a company’s constantly spinning gyre of ambition and desires. So that leader has to recognize the possibilities inherent in change and the accompanying risks. No change, or progress, occurs in the face of all this raveling & unraveling only through the choice to be mediocre – and not make change (or worse … not take advantage of the forming opportunities).

Their excuse for mediocrity? (if there is an excuse at all). Mediocrity occurs because the problem is that unraveling/raveling is rarely neat and the leader risks losing what is most important – the center.  Or as

Yeats suggests:

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”

And there in lies the true foundation of the zone of mediocrity.

Those in leadership positions of power and authority who foresee the possibility of ‘things falling part’ remain frozen in models that no longer function, or adapt, in a new environment.  They fear losing what is at the center (which is certainly the closest to their soul & well being &, uhm, their comfort). So they refuse to embrace change and instead embrace mediocrity.

And in that, my friends, we end up in the infamous zone of mediocrity.

Do what you can to avoid it.

Do what you can to break out of it.

Do what you can to find leaders who seek to stay out of it.

Ponder.

“If you don’t think, then you shouldn’t talk.”

– March Hare <Alice in Wonderland>

Well.

Thinking and talking.

This sounds so simple.

But it is actually a little more complicated than it appears.

There is often a significant difference what you think <and saying it> and thinking about what you think <and actually saying it>.

Let’s maybe call this uninformed opinions versus informed opinions.

Let’s maybe call this lazy or shallow thinking versus invested thinking … or enlightened thinking.

This may sound crazy coming from a guy who has consistently been a proponent of thinking, any thinking, as a good thing and a sign of progress and improvement for an individual’s mind <from which we all benefit>.

But.

Maybe I have realized that not all opinions are created equal.

Uh oh.

This is dangerous ground. Very dangerous ground. For what makes someone’s opinion greater than some else’s? <assuming they are both opinions>. More reflectively, what makes my opinion more valuable than yours?

Well.

It’s the thinking.

That’s what differentiates between opinions.

Not critical thinking or adeptness at thinking <although they help>, but rather the depth of the thinking.

And this gets to be REALLY dangerous ground.

Because I can guarantee you that a shallow thinker, or someone who has pegged their opinion upon one, what they view as unequivocal fact or truth, believes they have depth behind their opinion.

Because what can be deeper than truth?

Oh. Let me be clear.

Truth is truth. Neither shallow nor deep. Even in it’s ‘wafer thin being’ it is stronger than anything else in the world. Stronger than the strongest metal in the world. Stronger than any lie <no matter how crafty that lie can be>.

However. Truths are truly hard to find and truths are actually made up of a number of coherent facts <so confusing a fact and a truth within a discussion can create some issues …>.

And herein lies the trouble in dealing with a shallow thinker.

They confuse truth with what they are actually using to support their opinion.

Often they will torture numbers to make them tell the story they want to tell and extract splinters from houses of information to challenge the entire foundation.

Deep thinkers understand that truth is more often found in a compilation of learnings and the consolidation of coherent facts.

A strong opinion is supported really only by one of two things:

–          One of those truly unequivocal truths

–          A solid foundation of a variety of learnings

That said. I believe life would be a shitload better if we just assumed the majority of us just aren’t smart enough to recognize real truths even if they hit us in the face. Therefore, we are required to actually do some thinking … and some real enlightening type work & research to truly offer a ‘deep’ opinion.

Regardless.

I say this in combination with the quote because I believe far too often we offer flippant opinions.

We may not truly be lazy, but we may not be working hard enough before we speak.

And I have written before, this matters because words can be weapons. But what may be worse is that shallow opinions tend to have really sharp jagged edges that can tear apart even the best thoughts.

I say that because have you ever noticed how the really smartest people, those who have actually thought about their opinions, tend to keep them to themselves? I think it’s because they know that often they cannot protect their thoughts from the shallow sharp edged opinions they will inevitably be attacked with.

Yeah. Shallow opinions are really really hard to defend against.

Reason seldom works <which is REALLY aggravating>.

Anyway.

If you really haven’t thought about what you think, don’t speak. The odds are your opinion isn’t equal to someone who has actually thought about what they think.

You may not like to hear that and I bet you certainly don’t like to believe it … but … well … that is a truth.

No.

Don’t say anything.

Just think about what I just said.