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“The worst thing about falling to pieces is that humans can do it so quietly.”

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“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Well.

Stark.

That is what I felt when I put these two quotes together for the first time.

Starkly absent of cynicism, pessimism or optimism.

Just stark.

Stripped of any hues of Life.

That’s what I felt.

Shit.

I then sat back and said “whew, if I felt that … imagine how someone feels who actually writes these things.”

And maybe that is my point.

Most of us can only imagine how this starkness feels.

Most of us, at our worst, get only a glimpse of this starkness.

And, even then our stark is most likely not this stark.

Now, this kind of starkness doesn’t usually ‘just appear.’ In fact I would suggest this type of stark is an outcome of humans falling to pieces incredibly quietly.

I do know that starkness is difficult to express to someone who has never seen starkness.

I do know that there are most likely more people who, on the outside, are holding their shit together so well that most of us don’t even think to offer a ‘are you doing okay’ question.

I do know there are far more people who so quietly are falling apart than we believe.

So here’s the deal.

Falling apart is falling apart. What I mean by that is everything, and I mean everything, that falls apart makes some sound. You just have to listen closely enough to hear it.

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No, now you’ve got me interested, I want to know

exactly what seems wrong to you, how something could

seem wrong to you. In what way do things get to be wrong?

John Ashbery

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Yeah. But. You have to listen closely for the sound one makes when they fall to pieces quietly.

It may be just a whisper of a sound. You may even confuse it for the rustle of falling leaves.

But.

Quietly or not, as the pieces fall apart, they make a sound.

You just have to listen closely.

This gets even trickier. Let me go back to my ‘stark’ opening. If you have never truly experienced stark, it is difficult to see this kind of starkness.

Sure.

You may get a sense of ‘something wrong’, but far too often we skate along the superficial surface of ‘something wrong’ assuming lack of depth or “not any starker than we have ever seen” and … well … we miss the true starkness.

My point?

What may sound like the rustle of some dead leaves on the ground may actually be the sound of some starkness we cannot even imagine.

The recognition of the true sound demands you take an interest in what is happening in the people’s lives around you. I am not suggesting empathy or compassion, just interest. By the way, what differentiates humans from other species isn’t opposable thumbs or the size of our brains, but rather compassion and an interest in humans – interest as in doing better, being better and just having a better life <and helping people be better if they are not>.

While, of course, we want it to be better for ourselves, we also don’t want it to suck for others. And we certainly don’t want anyone to have such a stark existence that their Life retains no color or, worse, no hope.

The difficulty in fulfilling this inner innate characteristic of ‘interest in others’ is the outer irate characteristic of Life. The outer is always angrily demanding you to focus on it and not the other humans occupying Life. This may not be selfishness, but it is often more self interest in a zero sum game world <where you bolt on a belief everyone is accountable for themselves and how they think>.

Look.

I am not suggesting running around listening to everyone’s whispers looking to save everyone.

I would suggest that the two quotes I used reminded me that saving a human, even just one, can sometimes be enough.

Just listen closely. The world can be really, really, noisy and falling apart can be really, really, quiet.

Yeah.

Humans can fall to pieces so quietly. And no human, even someone we really do not like much, deserves to have such a stark existence that, well, they can only stare blankly at their Life falling apart.

Ponder.

Today, August 1st, is the anniversary of when MTV was ‘born. In 1981 it shared its first video and the VJs (video jockeys) became a thing. It seems like only yesterday that I was in graduate school glued to the TV late at night watching MTV videos while trying to figure out the solution to the next random B-school case study. For its first 10 to 15 years I was an avid MTV watcher (I started slipping away as they played less and less music videos).

Whew (again.) Hasn’t MTV come a long way from the days of hour-long video marathons to hardly playing a music video anymore? (said slightly wistfully)

But. Criticize MTV all you want. You will still find it difficult to deny its powerful influence on pop culture and music.

Martha Quinn, Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter, Mark Goodman & J.J. Jackson were the original VJs. Each with a distinct character and style. They gave us the stories and introduced us to the bands as well as the videos.

And Yo! MTV Raps. The original show showcased a balance of hip hop and an introduction to rap. It was truly interesting because original hosts Fab 5 Freddy, Doctor Dré and Ed Lover didn’t yet have quite enough content to populate the show’s segments so videos from other “black” genres like reggae, funk, R&B and soul were peppered-in to help hip hop’s development in culture and expand its scope. That meant you could see Digital Underground’s silly (but awesomely danceable) “Humpty Dance” beside Public Enemy’s political anthem “Fight The Power” to DJ Jazzy Jeff Fresh Prince slick teen rap/hip hop as well as the funky style of A Tribe Called Quest.

Rock blocks.

Bon Jovi’s hair.

Madonna rolling around the stage during the original MTV awards show singing “Like a Virgin.”

Oh.

And all the music video memories the show created for an entire music loving generation.

Here are some of my favorite MTV memories:

• Duran Duran “The Reflex” watching the wave crash over the stage while men who looked prettier than most women played the awesome song.
• Me out on a date at Celebrities (a bar/dance club) in Greenville SC where everyone stopped to watch Michael Jackson Thriller on the big screen over the dance floor.
• The haunting voice of a little child followed by the voice of Andy Partridge as XTC sang the quirky “Dear God.”
• The randomness of Men at Work and their  “Down Under” video with a vegemite sandwich and the fact one of the musicians has a stuffed koala bear tied to his leg the entire video.
• The fact you could only see Rough Trade perform their awesomely rough and dark “All Touch” video late at night. “All Touch”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpraodUSyjA
• Axel Rose doing the snake dance during a very well produced and edited “Sweet Child of Mine” video.
• Peter Gabriel with his wacky claymation videos.
• The artistic and unstoppably catchy “Take on Me” by Ah ha.
• The culturally defining “Addicted to Love” with an impeccably attired Robert Palmer and his female entourage (I had only known Robert Palmer from the song Every Kinda People)
• Alice in Chains unplugged. Spine chilling. ‘nuf said.
• 10,000 Maniacs Unplugged may have been one of the most underrated Unplugged shows of all time.
• How if you got bored with INXS singing “Need you Tonight” you would have missed the INXS version of Bob Dylan’s flip card trick at the tail end of the song with “Mediate.”
• Cindi Lauper having the wacky obnoxious “Girls just want to have Fun” with the poignantly tight thoughtful “Time after Time” (which remains a timeless song on its own) being played in the next block of music videos.
• And, of course, Bon Jovi’s black & white ode to being on the road … “Wanted Dead or Alive.”

So.

Those are my MTV memories. But. Here is the Guardian’s bets 30 moments:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/aug/01/mtv-30-best-moments

I only haggle with the Guardian in that before MTV started not doing music videos they had 30 definable video music moments.  And THAT is how I believe MTV was truly defined.

“I want my MTV” as a catch phrase and before everyone could hum the ESPN sportscenter musical phrase EVERYONE could identify with the MTV music jingle over the weird logos on screen they kept throwing up there.

Now, of course, MTV doesn’t play any music videos.

But that’s okay.  Time moves on and the channel has figured out different ways to impact this generation & culture.

And yet, on their birthday, I will be nostalgic for the music videos.  The cheesy campy ones that you couldn’t tear your eyes from because it was music video and it was all new and watchable and you couldn’t wait to see what came next.

And it was great.

Thanks MTV.

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“Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food.”

Austin O’Malley

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“You remember too much,”

my mother said to me recently. Why hold onto all that?

And I said,

“Where can I put it down?”

Anne Carson

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I am not sure what it is about people and the past, but … whew … the past should come up with a new name because it seems to reside in the present more than it does in the past.

Maybe we should stop referring to past regrets, memories, decisions, moments, whatevers, and simply refer to them as eternal things.

Maybe then we could just accept when they happen, in the moment, that they will be our constant companion from that day on.

Maybe then we could stop with the incredibly silly advice of “you need to let that go” or “what’s in the past is done” <as if these trite-isms will magically make the past disappear>.

I say all that because no matter how much anyone tries to convince us and coach us, and no matter how much we, personally, try to convince ourselves and coach ourselves, we cannot leave a memory, in particular, our memory behind.

Sorry. Harsh truth. We cannot really ‘put it down’ and then keep walking.

And, you know what?

That’s okay if you just frickin’ accept it rather than fight it every step of the way <investing energy every step of the way>. In fact. I could argue that if you take on this mindset, you never really leave anything behind, BUT, you actually learn how to set it aside in the appropriate moments. And, in my pea like brain, that is what matters. I honestly like my memories; even the bad ones. They make up who I am today and represent some aspects of who I was yesterday. I attain more each day and rather than discard some I have found that human memory space, unlike a thumb drive, does not have limited space. It all fits in there.

Good, bad, boring and exciting. They all fit in there.

And I like the fact that when I want to, and when it may be good and helpful to do so, I can trawl through my memory banks and think about a memory or two.

But they don’t overwhelm me nor are they constantly whispering in my ear.

I think by me accepting they are eternal they know I am not trying to kill them off so they are comfortable taking naps and long sleeps in the comfort I am not going to grab a pillow and suffocate them in their sleep.

Sure.

Sometimes they wake up and say “pay attention to me” or “well, I am awake, what are you are doing and what have you been doing while I have been sleeping?” and sometimes, just sometimes, I am glad they wake up when they do and make me pay attention to something that maybe I had stored away and forgotten. And, yeah, sometimes they wake up at inopportune moments & times and demand I pay attention to them when I would much rather prefer they would just shut up.

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“The past is never where you think you left it.”

Katherine Anne Porter

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I am fairly sure you really cannot leave a memory, or the past behind. I do know for sure that if you do try and leave it, uhm, it will never stay exactly where you put it.

Huh?

Think “context.”

I may place a memory in some drawer labeled ”sad regret” only to go back at some point and find that drawer empty and open the drawer that says “empowering self-enlightenment” only to find that memory tucked in there now. Yeah. Time, context & experiences can actually move the past into different slots than where you may have left them.  I imagine in some way you are actually reinterpreting the past because of all the experiences since then.

Anyway. Here is the weird thing about ‘the past’ that maybe should make you sit & ponder a bit. The past is not some stone placed somewhere on your Life path. It actually exhibits characteristics more like a loyal pet. It will follow along sometimes slowly, sometimes fast, sometimes behind, and sometimes beside.

Look. I am not a psychologist nor am I some Life coach just an everyday schmuck who has had a shitload of experiences in Life and figured out trying to ‘leave behind’ some past memory & experience truly has a snowball’s chance in hell of working. So I figured I would try just bringing the along for the ride as I accumulate them to see how that went.

And it has worked out pretty well.

Regardless. What I do know is that your past is never where you think you have left it so you may as well bring it along. ponder.

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“And the dangerous thing about excuses is that if we recite them enough times, we actually come to believe they are true.”

Robin Sharma

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“There are moments when one can neither think nor feel, she thought, and if one can neither feel nor think, where’s one?”

Virginia Woolf

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Well. Making excuses is natural.

We all do it.

Sometime big excuses and sometimes the little shrug of shoulders type excuses. And, regardless of the shape & size of the excuse, we all hate it afterwards <at least those people who accept responsibility>. I sometimes think of excuses like I do the slippery slope of mediocrity.

What do I mean?

Once you step on to the ‘excuse slope’ it is a slippery one. It is tough to get off. And while most of us make an excuse with good intentions of ‘just this once’, excuses are quite tasty in the mouth once we have tasted one that worked.

Okay. Maybe I didn’t get that right.

Maybe what makes excuses so horrible is that the more time you chew on one the less taste is has … getting to a point where you taste nothing, think nothing of it and feel nothing. What that means is you start popping them like breath fresheners. All the while in your mind you are taking personal responsibility, but in reality … over time … the common theme in your Life becomes something outside of your control is always being blamed.

I actually did some research on this and you can go back several thousand years to get some insight. It was Aristotle who identified the seven reasons people do things <4 are voluntary, and have moral implications, and 3 of them are involuntary, and do not>.

‘Thus every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite.’

Aristotle further stated that all actions are due either to emotion or reason and either seek pleasure or act to reduce pain as compulsion for our actions.  Well. You may not buy everything in the model, but, our “excuse muscle” fits right into this decision framework. That said. While you may not be able to control circumstances and control what other people do, or not do, and you may claim you actually have no control over your own actions <yeah, sometimes we can be manipulated> you have control over something big — you can certainly control your attitude.

And that is where excuses have gone a little off the rails.

The thing about excuses in today’s world is how we have this nasty tendency to mitigate the excuses themselves <not just our actions>. Yeah. We make excuses for our excuses.

This is a change from the past. In the past we all pretty much knew that we should assume personal responsibility for our actions and results of our actions <or non-actions> and we battled against the recognition that much of what happens is based on extenuating circumstances and things beyond our control. That is reality. We see it, understand it … and yet suck it up and say we are responsible.

No excuses.

We apologize. We move on and try the best we can to say it will not happen again, sometimes even promising <albeit knowing that promising some shit is silly because … well … the reality truly is that we are the victim of  shitload of circumstances we have no control over>.

Regardless. We assumed responsibility because that is what the honorable thing to do is and you just do the best you can moving forward.

But today? Today the excuse part of our brains seem to be dipping into a different segment of ‘mitigating circumstances’ – addiction, childhood, physical urges that cannot be controlled and crap like that. Our excuses get tinged with an aspect of ‘things we just cannot control’ versus ‘things out of my control.’

This is bad. Really bad.

So bad it permits me to circle back to both of my opening quotes. If you say these excuses enough, it becomes reality — whether it is reality or not. If it becomes reality to you, then it makes it extremely difficult for someone on the outside to point out that it is not reality. And finally … this means you really do not think or feel anything because you have ‘excused yourself’ into a place in which you have no responsibility for not only what you did, but how you may truly feel and think about it.

In this scenario you have purposefully placed yourself outside of not only what happened but, uhm, you.

Yeah. The ‘you’ who did whatever is not the real ‘you’ who would have wanted to do something else if permitted. That’s kind of screwed up.

The mind then warps Aristotle’s thoughts into a universe in which there are no real rational choices. In this universe almost anything can be excused as a ‘non rational choice’ because, well, it is driven by some subconscious irrational ‘thing’ inside you.

Maybe worse?

This also puts people in a really dangerous spot. Dangerous in that you can also attribute ‘rational thought’ to only the good things and not the bad things.

Look.

We all make excuses. It is unfortunate attribute of humanness. In addition. We all live in an ‘excuse enabled world”. One in which so much shit is truly out of our control that there is a readymade excuse within reach at any time – and many of these excuses are truly viable ones.

But that said we all need to stay off the slippery excuse slope and purposefully, rationally, accept responsibility if not all the time — 99% of the time. And we need to hold people accountable for their actions and not accept excuses.

Yeah.

That last part, other people, can be tough in today’s world because that demands you discern between a real rational excuse <real addiction, real psychological challenges, etc.> and a made up excuse.

Even with that said. I do believe we need a good strong injection of personal responsibility into how we all live our lives these days. The past “did something wrong or not right” – “assume responsibility” – apologize <unequivocally> – “promise to do better/not do again” formula doesn’t really seem to be used as often today. And it should.

We use too many excuses — even the valid ones.

In the end.

Why does it matter? If we completely abandon this formula we may not only start believing our excuses, the real and non-real, but worse: and if one can neither feel nor think, where’s one?”

One ends up making so many excuses you lose touch with life. You simply become a balloon being blown here & there by Life accepting that is just the way it is. Well. That sounds horrible to me and it should to you. Stop making excuses and seize Life by the throat <Beethoven>. Ponder.

“I am a strong person. But every once in a while I would like someone to hold my hand and tell me things are going to be OK. “

Unknown

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Well. We so often talk about ‘strong people’ as being these pillars of granite, solid and seamless in moments of need or challenge, unflinching in the face of whatever it is they face. But more often strength is not a solid piece of granite. Shit. Many times its not even anything solid. It may be a shield or a shell or it may be that the person has the ability to put a strong hand forward and stop what needs to be stopped. But in all these cases strength is neither a complete solid wall nor does it not have some weakness or maybe some fragile aspects in which to balance everything. 

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“It is one thing to be brave in front of others, perhaps for fear of being branded a coward and becoming diminished in their eyes, but another entirely to be brave when there is nobody to witness your courage.

The latter is an elemental bravery, a strength of spirit and character.”

John Connolly

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Oddly strength is, well, a paradox <or in some sense a contradiction>. It is about setting unequivocal limits and yet having no limits. It’s about adapting, yet unwavering.

So. Let me discuss this limit thing for a moment.

Emotionally strong people do not really need constant action and excitement or even a crisis to define themselves and their lives. This suggests they naturally just put some limits on things. This is not to suggest that they don’t enjoy excitement in their lives, but they aren’t ‘doing’ junkies. This means their ‘strength’ is usually defined by some self awareness. Awareness with regard to some character type things <which are embodied in actions and behavior decisions>.

Let’s call these our ‘limits’:

–           just don’t do some things

Suffice it to say we all do things that we don’t enjoy doing, but we should never do things that we don’t want to do. There is a nuance in that, but an important nuance. The strong self aware understand that nuance and almost always manage to figure out what they need to do — not at the expense of ‘what they don’t want to do.’ This translates into that when it comes to character defining decisions there is always a line. The line isn’t about what you enjoy doing or what you like or dislike … it is about … well … character. And being able to live with yourself and look in the mirror.

–        saying “no”

Suffice it to say … if you can’t say “no,” you will get taken advantage of. I will not suggest you won’t be taken seriously, but I will suggest that if you cannot say no you will forever live on the slippery slope of credibility and trust.

Saying “no” reminds people that they cannot control you. Only you control you.

–             it’s really about plateaus … not limits

Face it. There are only plateaus, and they are not meant for you to stay there, but only resting places for someplace beyond. Please note I did not say ‘someplace higher.’

“Up” is overrated.

It is more important to move anywhere <mentally, physically, career, Life> than it is to move ‘upwards.’ I’ve always believed in pushing yourself further and taking on new challenges. I believe this because I tend to believe there is no such thing as that infamous trite cliché ‘being the best you can be.’ “Best” is a relevant thing … at least to the moment. Maybe it is better said that ‘best’ is contextual.

There is always room for growth and change and new possibilities of being the best you can be.

Anyway.

Strength is tricky. It is partially inbred as an attitude, but it is also forged thru the furnace of Life.

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“Sometimes you don’t realise your own strength until you come face to face with your greatest weakness”

Susan Gale

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And maybe that is why strength is never solid. Because strength is often about weakness. The chinks in your armor define your strength … uhm … not your theoretically solid seamless armor.

Which leads me to my final thoughts.

Strength is nothing more than doing what it takes — with character. In order to be strong we will inevitably embrace some different variations of our self. This naturally happens as we encounter knew things and new ‘weaknesses’ we never knew we had. Within those variations are some aspects of solidness, but other aspects are adaptable and resilient in their ability to morph to the situation.

And, in the end, I imagine strength in a person can be defined one way:

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“I endure.”

E. Lockhart 

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Ponder.

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“There’s nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head.”

Thornton Wilder

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Well. There are a couple of things to think about with this quote.

–      What we think is not always what everyone thinks

This sounds basic. But, boy oh boy, we forget this – all the frickin’ time. In fact not only do we forget it we actually do so while remembering it.

Huh? What do I mean?

Well, c’mon, how often have you sat there and said ‘no one has been thru what I have been thru and can understand this’ or ‘no one understands how I think’ and, yet, when we look around and assess what people are doing <and thinking> we sit back and go ‘whew, I bet they’re thinking this …’

It’s kind of crazy.

It’s kind of hypocritical.

Suffice it to say whether you think you are normal or think you are abnormal what is happening inside your head is very often different than what is happening in the outside world. In other words … it is very very likely what you think is not what everyone thinks.

Next.

–      We should listen more

In business, in personal life, does not matter; we should just listen <without preconceived filters> more often.

I am fairly sure that it was Henry Miller who said “the street howls with the truth.”

Smart man.

Listen to the howls.

So let me share some observations for business.

I am an avid trend watcher, people watcher and behavior studier. I listen by watching. People give you massive cues <clues?> as to what they are thinking and why they do the things they do. You just have to listen to the music of their Life and find the beat of their individual drum. I say that because far <far> too many business people say “we need to do consumer research and hear what people say.”

Well.

You may.

But you may not have to.

In fact. Even if you do the research, if you are not a good listener, every dollar you spend on that research is wasted.

Regardless. Listening isn’t just with your ears, it is also with your nose and eyes and all your feelings.

People’s lives talk.

You may not understand the language immediately, but if you listen closely … really closely … you will understand.

Why is it so hard? Why do you have to listen so closely?

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“I do not think I’m easy to define. I have a wandering mind.

And I’m not anything that you think I am. “

Syd Barrett

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People are not easy to define. Most people are difficult to ‘slot.’

Yup.

Sorry about that.

I feel especially sorry for the people who think they are good at assessing people. The majority of them are, well, not. At best they are simply good judges of their own bias.

Anyway. We desperately WANT to slot and segment and cluster people because it makes it easier for us. But as soon as you do you stop listening. Yeah. That bias filter thing again.

Shit.

All I really know is that we need to listen more. There is nothing better for you than eavesdropping on the world on occasion. Ponder.

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“We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.”

Rumi

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When I started on this piece I wasn’t sure if it was about self, life, dreams or maybe even starting a business. Then I realized, in some weird way, it was kind of about all. How? Think “connection.” Or maybe connecting with something in a multi-dimensional way <emotionally, physically, experientially> which not only grounds us to us <our self>, but has a commonality to ground us to other “us’es” as well as to, well, everything <hopes, dreams, aspirations>. To me this has two aspects: stars & nothingness.

I like the thought that maybe each of us is really a star <shining brightly for something good or hopeful within ourselves as well as possibly for someone else>.

I like the thought we spin out of nothingness as people, as careers, as thinkers and as doers, scattering to find our place in the expansiveness ahead.

I like the thought that maybe, because we really are stars, we seek them to find whatever secrets they could share about us.

I like the thought that stars can be seen by anyone, anywhere if you only look up on occasion.

I like the thought that stars connect people and thoughts and dreams and wishes and … well … anything hopeful.

I like the thought that while stars are about space they are actually more about managing space by circumventing distance to activate that which can exist between stars and people.

I like the thought that stars actually embrace the strongest business building concept thru actively engaging people in a physical way … an emotional way … and an experiential way. Stars engage us, connect with us, in a way that businesses and brands should attempt to emulate any authentic way they can <because I am not sure I can find any one person who dislikes stars>.

Regardless.

Whether we truly are stars spinning out nothingness or stars simply represent our sense of ‘nothingness-to-what-could be’ mindset, it is pretty amazing to think that anything spinning out of nothingness can inevitably create one of the greatest connections a person can ever have. Stars represent life moments stitching together all that we are and all that we want to be to form thoughts & attitudes which fuel behavior.

Stars are part of everyday lives and occupy critical space in a person’s grander Life story. They never dictate behavior, but instead inspire behavior. They do so by nudging us toward both emotional and transactional personal investments into ourselves inevitably shaping life patterns, creating behavior, and ultimately encouraging us to make personal identity statements about who we are.

Stars are the beginning, middle and end of Life. They represent life and how we live it.

They are the small cornerstones to our Life stories. Somehow they transcend the transactions we make with ourselves by resonating with something inside as well as outside the moment of ‘transaction’ with the star. And maybe most importantly? This multi-dimensional transaction we make with a star perpetuates a bond which unites, influences, inspires and scatters us out of nothingness toward, well, somethingness.

I imagine that means stars ultimately represent a connection with ‘what could, or can, be.” Stars help us answer the ultimate life question: “how do people fulfill their potential and figure out who they are and what they’re capable of?”  They seem to give people a nice simple focus point which doesn’t sit there and lecture or even offer any advice, simply a feeling of possibilities.

Shit. Maybe that is all ‘Bruce-babble.’ Maybe I am giving stars too much power and too much definition.

Here is what I know for sure. We should all look at stars every once in a while:

Some of us may find hope.

Some of us may find clarity.

Some of us may find ourselves shrinking before the immensity of Life.

Some of us may see possibilities.

And some of us may find that they take the moment and make a Life transaction.

But all of us WILL find something. If we look up at all that nothingness, we will see something. Ponder.

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“The modern spirit is a hesitant one.  Spontaneity has given way to cautious legalisms, and the age of heroes has been superseded by a cult of specialization.

We have no more giants; only obedient ants.”

Roger Lowenstein

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Doing the right thing is a basic innate instinct.

We are all born with it.

We all embrace it.

We all actually enjoy doing it.

And, yet, it seems like more and more we are hesitating to do it. Where it once was a spontaneous unthinking everyday behavior, it is now becoming a more conscious decision making process.

Society has created this situation.

This is not an individual behavior driven situation <although the individual can certainly make a choice to go against society>. As I said upfront, left to our own devices most people will do the right thing.

How can I be sure of this?

Well. Attitudes with regard to desire to do the right thing have not changed. The attitude today remains the same as it did yesterday and the day before. In other words the spirit of goodness remains, but something is making the spirit hesitate.

Now.

To be clear. Today I am discussing ‘hesitation.’

This isn’t about not knowing what the right thing to do is nor is it about the choice itself. This is all about the moment before the moment. The moment in which your instinct kicks in, you can almost feel yourself moving or getting ready to speak and, yet, you hesitate.

Why do I think we hesitate <when our instincts tell us otherwise>?

Suffice it to say we have become a maniacally litigious society combined with a relentlessly unforgiving society.

Individual words, a slip of the tongue as it were, can lead to a law suit, being fired or even having your entire character destroyed online. In other words, society is screwing us up.

Shit.

Who wouldn’t hesitate knowing that?

This hesitation costs us, as individuals and as a culture, an exorbitant cost. It diminishes not only the random act of kindness but, in the business workplace, diminishes ethical behavior. And it diminishes in a slightly insidious way.

Insidious?

Yeah.

It’s not that in our hesitation we decide to do the wrong thing, but rather in our silence the ‘less than the right things’ steps in and assumes control.

Oh.

Please note that I purposefully say ‘diminish.’

I am certainly not going to suggest that this societal driven hesitation eliminates doing the right thing. That would be silly.

That would suggest the spirit to do the right thing, to be good, can actually be extinguished. I do not believe that is possible.

Spirit can be dampened, it can be smothered, it can be diminished, but it cannot be expunged from who and what we are as humans.

Now. Maybe even worse than the diminishing effect?

It creates ants … not giants.

Ok.

Maybe worse?

It creates situations in which deserving giants receive undeserved criticism and are cut down in the attempt to make them ant sized so the ants can assume more power than they deserve.

My point today?

We should all be giants.

All of us.

Giants of the spirit of what is right and doing what is right and kindness and generosity and integrity. And we should be giants every day, every hour and every minute. And we should have the right to feel like a giant when doing so.

Society is stealing our opportunity to our rightful place as a giant.

I believe we are in an age of heroes where society encourages less than heroic everyday behavior.

I believe we are in an age of giants where society encourages us to be ants.

I believe the modern spirit is not naturally a hesitant one.

I believe we are in an age where doing the right thing should be demanded … in Life & in business.

I believe we are in an age where we should be seeking to eliminate divisiveness, eliminate restrictions on ‘right behavior’ and eliminate the … well … hesitation of the spirit to do the right things.

Ponder.

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“The trick is in what one emphasizes.
We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy.
The amount of work is the same.”
Carlos Castaneda
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“That’s the thing about pain.  It demands to be felt”
John Green
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“Anyway, I wanted to end this on a hopeful, positive note, but, seeing as how my sense of hope and positivity is still shrouded in a thick layer of feeling like hope and positivity are bullshit,
I’ll just say this: Nobody can guarantee that it’s going to be okay, but — and I don’t know if this will be comforting to anyone else — the possibility exists that there’s a piece of corn on a floor somewhere that will make you just as confused about why you are laughing as you have ever been about why you are depressed.
And even if everything still seems like hopeless bullshit, maybe it’s just pointless bullshit or weird bullshit or possibly not even bullshit.
I don’t know.
But when you’re concerned that the miserable, boring wasteland in front of you might stretch all the way into forever, not knowing feels strangely hope-like.”
Allie Brosh
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I have written about attention as currency , how time is elastic (but important & finite), social media distractions and even focus. All of them are partially right and partially wrong when it comes to emphasis and its demands on us. I say partially because all make demands on us at the same time. So, parsing them out one by one is an excellent exercise, but also slightly disingenuous to reality.
Suffice it to say that Life, in & of itself, is demanding.

Well. Suffice it to say that whatever we emphasize has a nasty habit of demanding attention.
And, more often than not, in our analyzing of ourselves and what is around us we emphasize the ‘less than’, the ‘imperfections’ and the pain.

They all demand to be felt.

In other words. Many things in life demand to be felt. And maybe it is because of that we numb ourselves to as many things as possible figuring it is the only way to manage our way thru the onslaught of things demanding and demanding and demanding. Pay enough attention, or give them enough emphasis, and the clamor of their cries for attention seems deafening if you listen too closely.

Regardless. I imagine it depends on what one emphasizes.

Now. Here is where I will leave the beaten path in the discussion.

There is gobs of information and advice on how to selectively focus on the right things at the right time. Smart people, Warren Buffett , Shane Parrish, etc. have weighed in on this topic and they offer some great thoughts. But. Here’s the deal. Life for most of us every day schmucks doesn’t work like ‘selective focus.’ Oh sure, we may try. But the truth is life demands to be felt, even the shit you have elected to not focus on.
So therefore, it comes down to emphasis, not choice.

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“Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and applause of the many, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.”

Longfellow
===============

Personally I believe most of the advice ‘expert’ books/articles give people about focus/emphasis is absurd, if not impractically nuts. I’m not opposed to encouraging focus nor do I dispel the notion that one can improve focus, but, for the most part, most advice ignores how Life demands attention. What I mean by that is most advice isolates a decision/choice and suggests you:

A. Tune out the unnecessary/unhelpful, and
B. Tune in on the specific contextual variables which are necessary/helpful.

Conceptually fabulous. Reality-wise absurd.

Here are 3 reasons why it is absurd:

1. Life never stops. If you stop you inevitably have to catch up and, well, the doom loop of onslaught of the demands increases. In other words, what the experts neglect to share with you is that there is a price to pay for selective focus.
Emphasis is a moving target and you must focus on the move.

2. Life never stops demanding attention. Selective focus is risky. The demands Life will put upon you do not cease simply because you have decided to focus on something or decide what you want to emphasize.
Often emphasis is managing some things while focusing on something else. That’s the gig.

3. Life never stops offering demands OUT OF SEQUENCE. Life is not orderly. It may not be totally random, but its rarely consistent other than through its overall consistency of demands.
Life is like a restaurant with odd little waiters bringing things you don’t always like.

—————————
“Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like.”
Lemony Snicket
————————————

None of what I just shared should suggest you shouldn’t seek to emphasize some things versus others. In fact. I tend to believe if you don’t figure out what to emphasize you will, well, just become numb. This is where life is particularly unforgiving. If you do not choose, Life will choose to bludgeon you day in and day out with things demanding your attention … and pain.

That is unsustainable. For anyone.

Make some choices. Choose things to emphasize over others. You may not always get it right, but my own experience suggests even your poor choices, while painful, are survivable. And maybe that’s my point. Life demand to be felt. If you do not choose what to emphasize and Life emphasizes everything, I fear that is not survivable. Ponder.

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“I don’t think any madman ever said ‘Why, what an ass am I!’ “

BBC discussion on Hamlet

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Well, fortune favors the brave, sir.”

“I think that last night, fortune was merely inclined to favour the least incompetent.”

Richard Woodman

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Ok.

Success can be a, well, a deceitful sonuvabitch.

Winning can be a, well, a deceitful sonuvabitch.

Oh. As a result. Madmen who have had some success or wins can be, well, real sonuvabitches <asses>.

Regardless. Success and winning can be deceitful because it makes madmen not recognize what asses they are or how incompetent the incompetent are. Suffice it to say I have worked in businesses for over 25 years and I have never heard one of the random madmen I have come across admit they were an ass and I have rarely ever heard an incompetent ‘winner’ suggest they were simply the least incompetent that day <or any day that matter>.

Success has that effect on people.

But maybe the most dangerous effect is, for many people, once you have had some any loss seems like a threat to, well, survival. Or, as Clausewitz said:

…victory leads easily to overextension, which leads to defeat.

Uh oh. Defeat is not an option <to madmen & incompetents>. Business people in survival mode tend to shed themselves of any ability to rationally adapt as well as any ability to navigate the ‘unknowns’ inherent to any business world. Instead, most shift into a more desperate effort to fling themselves into any possible path to the next victory.

Ok. Survival may sound extreme, but I cannot think of a better word. Suffice it to say that winners think it is a life or death scenario and losing is all about a part of them dying. The ‘part of them’ may partially be confidence but, what the hell, that is a pretty significant part.

Anyway. Success or failure I do know one thing. Madmen will never say what an ass they are and incompetent people will always believe fortune favors the brave. Unfortunately, that suggests they are unchangeable.

Look. That alone isn’t so weird <or damning>. In general none of us are particularly good at changing <particularly in their business style & character & skills within business>. And THAT is important because far too many try to change themselves in order to ‘be a winner.’ I am fairly sure it was Peter Drucker who suggested it is significantly more effective to improve upon the way you perform – how you already do what you do <rather than try to fix the bad things you do>.

Uh oh. This means <gulp> madmen become more asshole-ish and the incompetent double down on their incompetence. If the mad and the incompetent seek some solace, I would note that most people do not really know shit about how they actually get things done.

Shit.

Most of us have no clue how other people do their voodoo <get things done>.

Shit. Most of us don’t really know what we are good at.

Shit. Even worse, most of us misjudge our strengths.

Shit. Even worser <I made that word up>, most of us who have had some success are even worse at misjudging their strengths.

Shit. The truth is more people actually know what they suck at <not good at>. Oh shit. But even then most people don’t get that exactly right. Holy shit. Suffice it to say we suck at judging ourselves. With all that self-assessment suckedness what do we do? Well, particularly in today’s world, you go the easy path — you simplistically judge off of outcomes/results <the successes & wins> avoiding any interest in scrutinizing any of the details of how you achieved the outcome.

In fact the details of our success becomes so unimportant in the scheme of things we create a mosh pit of all positive things which COULD have contributed to how good we were in that success. It is a crazy mix of ethics, values & integrity <inextricably tied to the results rather than the process embraced to gain the results> blended with a good amount of curiosity & perseverance & resilience <against the negative tides pushing against our inevitable deserved success> all sprinkled with the necessary “team player” <‘I thrive when I work closely with others’>.

Unfortunately, most of that self-reasoning is bullshit. The truth is this mosh pit simply cloaks incompetence, mistakes, errors in judgement and whatever ‘not-so-good shit’ <being a madman> by painting a positive coat of ‘something’ over them <”we weren’t as efficient because I wanted the team involved” or “we pursued this idea out of planned curiosity only to judge it was not the best path” … crap like that>.

Oh shit. This gets worse. Winning tends to concentrate one on doing more of what they perceived they had done to succeed rather than invest any energy on cultivating any additional skills, needs or improvements.

======================== 

“it takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than  to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.”

Peter Drucker

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

What makes that even worse is that translates into madmen concentrating more on ass–like things and incompetents focusing more whatever bumbling they had done.

Anyway. I have found <without any research> people fall into two buckets on this topic – those who focus on the win and those who focus on improvement. I would suggest the madmen and oblivious incompetent fall in the former bucket and the truly sane business people, with a chance of actually being good, fall into the latter bucket.

I say that because any pivot points in progress tend to become more obvious in reflection than in the actual ‘living’ within the moment.

Therefore, if all I do is focus on the win I will reflect with little true critiquing and most likely remain a madman and incompetent <this is actually called ‘objective blindness’>.

Therefore, if all I do is be slightly perpetually dissatisfied with my performance and critique, in a healthy way, I will most likely increase my competency and have progress.

The former says “fortune favors the brave.” Always.

The latter says “fortune was merely inclined to favor the least incompetent.” At least on occasion.

Lastly. I would suggest that madmen and the incompetent have one thing in common — lack of meaningful convictions <beyond success at any cost>.

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“Convictions are not like gloves; one cannot easily change them.” …

General Petr Grigorevich

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Well. “Convictions are not like gloves.” There is a keeper of a thought. Madmen and incompetents are incredibly good at treating convictions like gloves.

Shit. Their convictions are more like chameleons.

I end there because I wish more of us in the business world would keep all of this in mind. Especially the madmen, who are asses, and the incompetent <who win more often than they would like to admit … despite their incompetence>.

Sometimes you can be an ass and it is <generally> okay if you are aware enough to sit back and say “what an ass am I!”

Sometimes you can be an incompetent and its <generally> okay if you are aware enough to sit back and say “fortune was merely inclined to favour the least incompetent this time.”

Who am I kidding? No madman has ever said “what an ass am I!” and no incompetent has ever said “fortune was merely inclined to favour the least incompetent this time.”

That’s only the kind of things we, the normal business people, do. Ponder.