[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/12/kemna-semua-konten-yang-ada.html[/postlink]kemna semua konten yang ada
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/10/join-me-at-bar.html[/postlink]Join Me at The Bar
Join Me at The Bar
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/bringing-motivation-from-newcastle.html[/postlink]
One summer I taught a master class at a festival in Newcastle, which was filmed by the BBC. One of the students in the class was a young tenor who had just landed a job at the prestigious La Scala Opera Company in Milan and everything about his demeanor said that we were to take his recent success very seriously indeed.
He was to sing: "Spring Dream" ("Frullingstraum"), from Schubert's Die Winterreise, a song cycle that describes the yearning depressive journey of a jilted love through the cold days of the soul. In this song, the hero is dreaming of the flowers and meadows of a springtime past when he delighted in the warm embraces of his beloved. The gently lilting music conjures up blissful joy, blissful fulfillment. Suddenly a crow screams from the rooftops-he awakens and discovers it is dark and cold. Half in a dream, he mistakes the frost patterns on the windows for flowers and asks," Who painted those flowers there-when will they turn to green?" The answer comes to him: "When I have my loved one in my arms again." But, despite the major key, we know from the dynamic markings and the shape of the phrasing that he will never get her back.
The music is some of the most intimate, soft, subtle, and delicate in the repertoire. It depends for expressions on an understanding of the nuances of sadness, vulnerability, and never-ending loss. But when Jeffrey began to sing, there was no trace of melancholy. Out poured a glorious stream of rich, resonant, Italiante sound. Pure Jeffrey, taking himself very seriously. How could I induce him to look past himself in order to become a conduit for the expressive passion of the music?
I began by asking him if he was willing to be coached. "Oh, I love to be coached," he said breezily, though I doubt he had any idea of what was to follow. For forty-minutes, I engaged in a battle royal, not with Jeffrey but with his pride, his vocal training, his need to look good, and the years of applause he had received for his extraordinary voice. As each layer was peeled away and he got closer to the raw vulnerability of Schubert's distraught lover, his voice lost its patina and began te reveal the human soul beneath. His body, too, began to take on a softened and rounded turn. At the final words, "When will I have my lover in my arms again?" Jeffrey's voice, now almost inaudible, seemed to reach us through some other, channel than sound. Nobody stirred-the audience, the players, the BBC crew-all of us were unified in silence. Then, finally, tremendous applause.
I thanked Jeffrey publicly for his willingness to give up his pride, his training, and his vocal accomplishment, and explained that our applause was for the sacrifice he had made to bring us to a place of understanding. "Whenever somebody gives up their pride to reveal a truth to others, " I told him," we find incredibly moving; in fact, we are all so moved that even the cameraman is crying." I hadn't actually my conviction that no one in the room could be left unmoved.
Later that evening, in the pub, cameraman came up to me and asked how I had known he had been crying. He confessed that he hadn't been able to see through his lens for his tears. "When I was sent on his job from London," he said, shaking his head,"I had no idea that this music shift was about my life."
One summer I taught a master class at a festival in Newcastle, which was filmed by the BBC. One of the students in the class was a young tenor who had just landed a job at the prestigious La Scala Opera Company in Milan and everything about his demeanor said that we were to take his recent success very seriously indeed.
He was to sing: "Spring Dream" ("Frullingstraum"), from Schubert's Die Winterreise, a song cycle that describes the yearning depressive journey of a jilted love through the cold days of the soul. In this song, the hero is dreaming of the flowers and meadows of a springtime past when he delighted in the warm embraces of his beloved. The gently lilting music conjures up blissful joy, blissful fulfillment. Suddenly a crow screams from the rooftops-he awakens and discovers it is dark and cold. Half in a dream, he mistakes the frost patterns on the windows for flowers and asks," Who painted those flowers there-when will they turn to green?" The answer comes to him: "When I have my loved one in my arms again." But, despite the major key, we know from the dynamic markings and the shape of the phrasing that he will never get her back.
The music is some of the most intimate, soft, subtle, and delicate in the repertoire. It depends for expressions on an understanding of the nuances of sadness, vulnerability, and never-ending loss. But when Jeffrey began to sing, there was no trace of melancholy. Out poured a glorious stream of rich, resonant, Italiante sound. Pure Jeffrey, taking himself very seriously. How could I induce him to look past himself in order to become a conduit for the expressive passion of the music?
I began by asking him if he was willing to be coached. "Oh, I love to be coached," he said breezily, though I doubt he had any idea of what was to follow. For forty-minutes, I engaged in a battle royal, not with Jeffrey but with his pride, his vocal training, his need to look good, and the years of applause he had received for his extraordinary voice. As each layer was peeled away and he got closer to the raw vulnerability of Schubert's distraught lover, his voice lost its patina and began te reveal the human soul beneath. His body, too, began to take on a softened and rounded turn. At the final words, "When will I have my lover in my arms again?" Jeffrey's voice, now almost inaudible, seemed to reach us through some other, channel than sound. Nobody stirred-the audience, the players, the BBC crew-all of us were unified in silence. Then, finally, tremendous applause.
I thanked Jeffrey publicly for his willingness to give up his pride, his training, and his vocal accomplishment, and explained that our applause was for the sacrifice he had made to bring us to a place of understanding. "Whenever somebody gives up their pride to reveal a truth to others, " I told him," we find incredibly moving; in fact, we are all so moved that even the cameraman is crying." I hadn't actually my conviction that no one in the room could be left unmoved.
Later that evening, in the pub, cameraman came up to me and asked how I had known he had been crying. He confessed that he hadn't been able to see through his lens for his tears. "When I was sent on his job from London," he said, shaking his head,"I had no idea that this music shift was about my life."
Bringing Motivation from Newcastle
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/truth-and-reconsilialiton-motivation.html[/postlink]
Mandela's post-apartheid, fully representational South African government confronted the dilemma that faces every nation emerging from a long period of savage violence. What attitude do you take toward the perpetrators, the people whose very existence intensifies bitterness and hatred in an already wounded society? What policies do you adopt to heal the nation?
To address this question, the South African government put into place a framework for the possibility of the integration of all aspects of society, and appointed Archbishop Desmon Tutu as its chairman. The Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) offered amnesty to individuals who were prepared to tell the whole truth, publicity, and could prove that their violent deeds had been politically motivated. If an individual close not to appear before the Commission, he or she agreed to be tried in conventional ways. Written into the South African contribution was the vision of the TRC: "a need for understanding, but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu (brotherhood) but not for victimization."
It might seen that Mandela's government took a huge risk by instituting the Truth Commission. After all the atrocities, wouldn't justice have to be served? Might not people otherwise take the law in their own hands? But the TRC appears to have been founded on another story, the story that we really are our central selves longing to connect, seeking a structure that supports us to dissolve the barriers. It seems, too, to have been predicted on the idea that when the all of all of us is out in the open, and our capacity to be with the way things are expands, communities will naturally evolve toward integration. The Truth Commission served as a framework for possibility whose results, as is always the case, were unpredictable.
More "truth" was revealed than anyone had imagined was hidden, coming to light by degrees throughout the proceedings of the TRC. As one story after another emerged, the dualistic definitions of victims and perpetrators shifted and new patterns were formed, deeper understandings, and perhaps the fundamental sense of connection that we were seeing on our visit. It was not uncommon, apparently, to see the perpetrators break down in tears as they described their actions to the very families they had violated.
As a young woman realized, having just heard a policeman tell how he had killed her mother: "The TRC was never supposed to be about justice; it's about the truth truth." The all of all of us. Designed to put the impulse for revenge at one remove and to bring forward the enemy as a human being, a part of US, it was a framework for the possibility of social transformation.
And, as Mandela said, the Truth Commission "helped us to move away from the past to concentrate on the present and the future." It left the society free to take the next step.
Mandela's post-apartheid, fully representational South African government confronted the dilemma that faces every nation emerging from a long period of savage violence. What attitude do you take toward the perpetrators, the people whose very existence intensifies bitterness and hatred in an already wounded society? What policies do you adopt to heal the nation?
To address this question, the South African government put into place a framework for the possibility of the integration of all aspects of society, and appointed Archbishop Desmon Tutu as its chairman. The Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) offered amnesty to individuals who were prepared to tell the whole truth, publicity, and could prove that their violent deeds had been politically motivated. If an individual close not to appear before the Commission, he or she agreed to be tried in conventional ways. Written into the South African contribution was the vision of the TRC: "a need for understanding, but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu (brotherhood) but not for victimization."
It might seen that Mandela's government took a huge risk by instituting the Truth Commission. After all the atrocities, wouldn't justice have to be served? Might not people otherwise take the law in their own hands? But the TRC appears to have been founded on another story, the story that we really are our central selves longing to connect, seeking a structure that supports us to dissolve the barriers. It seems, too, to have been predicted on the idea that when the all of all of us is out in the open, and our capacity to be with the way things are expands, communities will naturally evolve toward integration. The Truth Commission served as a framework for possibility whose results, as is always the case, were unpredictable.
More "truth" was revealed than anyone had imagined was hidden, coming to light by degrees throughout the proceedings of the TRC. As one story after another emerged, the dualistic definitions of victims and perpetrators shifted and new patterns were formed, deeper understandings, and perhaps the fundamental sense of connection that we were seeing on our visit. It was not uncommon, apparently, to see the perpetrators break down in tears as they described their actions to the very families they had violated.
As a young woman realized, having just heard a policeman tell how he had killed her mother: "The TRC was never supposed to be about justice; it's about the truth truth." The all of all of us. Designed to put the impulse for revenge at one remove and to bring forward the enemy as a human being, a part of US, it was a framework for the possibility of social transformation.
And, as Mandela said, the Truth Commission "helped us to move away from the past to concentrate on the present and the future." It left the society free to take the next step.
Truth and Reconciliation: A Motivation from Mandela's Story
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/no-human-enemy-motivation-for-peace.html[/postlink]
Just such a device was forged out of an unusual interaction with a couple in my psychotherapy practice, a couple on the verge of separation. The husband, who had resisted coming to the session in the first place, had retreated to the farthest corner of the office, albeit only a few away. His wife was in a rage at him for his habit of withdrawing, just as he was doing, and for leaving her alone too often. As the tension built,she pleaded with him and accused him and then she literally howled at him: "YOU DON'T LOVE ME!"
I heard my own voice shouting back at her "Who could love you when you act like this?" and realized that I had hurled myself between them. This was pretty terrifying for me-never mind what they must have felt. I was standing a foot from the woman's face, the face of someone with whom I had worked intimately and whom I knew very well, saying the most untherapeutic thing imaginable. I was truly out of the boat. In a split second of fear I made eye contact with her, and I suddenly caught sight of her central self.
"But it's not you speaking," I blurted out. "It is something else: Revenge. Revenge is speaking in your voice. It's a creature, sitting on your shoulder, and it's going to get him no matter what, even if it has to destroy you in the process." And the creature appeared, right there on her shoulder, in front of our collective mind's eye.
Suddenly and miraculously I wasn't angry and I wasn't trapped,and our sense of connection was completely restored. Moreover a whole new set of phenomena appeared. I saw how much harder it was on the woman to have to manage this Thing than it was on the rest of us. I saw vicious circle in which she would have to blame her husband for her outrageous behavior just to keep her sanity, while the Revenge Creature celebrated its victory. It was clear to me that It had come into being and split off from her at some early age and had not evolved since then by an inch or an ounce. And, I knew it was all a metaphor.
The man moved out of his corner and stood by his wife. Things came into view, one after another. "It's not going to enjoy being discovered, "I said. " It's scheming right now to find new hiding places so it can make use of you again to get him." The woman turned to her husband: "What she is saying is true. I hate being this way!" And he grasped it completely by the tone in her voice. She plaintively asked me how she could get rid of the Thing.
I felt confident in telling her she would not be able to do away with it, as though I were an expert on Revenge Creature; but in fact, once it was distinguished, I knew exactly how it would behave. I knew that if she resisted, it would gain in strength, and if she brought it to the light day, it would lose its power. "Just keep calling it by name," I told her,"assume it's lurking somewhere." Ask yourself," What's the Creature doing now?"
Here was an apparition-part invention and part discovery-that removed the barriers between us and allowed for a flow of compassion, no matter how badly we had behaved. It meant that wholeheartedness between people was always possible. I saw that if we describe revenge, greed, pride, fear, and righteousness as the villains-and people as the hope-we will come together to create possibility. We don't have to restrict ourselves, and we don't have to compromise. With our inventive powers, we can be passionately for each other and for the whole living world around us. We need never name a human being as the enemy.
Just such a device was forged out of an unusual interaction with a couple in my psychotherapy practice, a couple on the verge of separation. The husband, who had resisted coming to the session in the first place, had retreated to the farthest corner of the office, albeit only a few away. His wife was in a rage at him for his habit of withdrawing, just as he was doing, and for leaving her alone too often. As the tension built,she pleaded with him and accused him and then she literally howled at him: "YOU DON'T LOVE ME!"
I heard my own voice shouting back at her "Who could love you when you act like this?" and realized that I had hurled myself between them. This was pretty terrifying for me-never mind what they must have felt. I was standing a foot from the woman's face, the face of someone with whom I had worked intimately and whom I knew very well, saying the most untherapeutic thing imaginable. I was truly out of the boat. In a split second of fear I made eye contact with her, and I suddenly caught sight of her central self.
"But it's not you speaking," I blurted out. "It is something else: Revenge. Revenge is speaking in your voice. It's a creature, sitting on your shoulder, and it's going to get him no matter what, even if it has to destroy you in the process." And the creature appeared, right there on her shoulder, in front of our collective mind's eye.
Suddenly and miraculously I wasn't angry and I wasn't trapped,and our sense of connection was completely restored. Moreover a whole new set of phenomena appeared. I saw how much harder it was on the woman to have to manage this Thing than it was on the rest of us. I saw vicious circle in which she would have to blame her husband for her outrageous behavior just to keep her sanity, while the Revenge Creature celebrated its victory. It was clear to me that It had come into being and split off from her at some early age and had not evolved since then by an inch or an ounce. And, I knew it was all a metaphor.
The man moved out of his corner and stood by his wife. Things came into view, one after another. "It's not going to enjoy being discovered, "I said. " It's scheming right now to find new hiding places so it can make use of you again to get him." The woman turned to her husband: "What she is saying is true. I hate being this way!" And he grasped it completely by the tone in her voice. She plaintively asked me how she could get rid of the Thing.
I felt confident in telling her she would not be able to do away with it, as though I were an expert on Revenge Creature; but in fact, once it was distinguished, I knew exactly how it would behave. I knew that if she resisted, it would gain in strength, and if she brought it to the light day, it would lose its power. "Just keep calling it by name," I told her,"assume it's lurking somewhere." Ask yourself," What's the Creature doing now?"
Here was an apparition-part invention and part discovery-that removed the barriers between us and allowed for a flow of compassion, no matter how badly we had behaved. It meant that wholeheartedness between people was always possible. I saw that if we describe revenge, greed, pride, fear, and righteousness as the villains-and people as the hope-we will come together to create possibility. We don't have to restrict ourselves, and we don't have to compromise. With our inventive powers, we can be passionately for each other and for the whole living world around us. We need never name a human being as the enemy.
No Human Enemy: A Motivation For Peace
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/best-motivation-article-downward-spiral_20.html[/postlink]
In the other chapter, we set up model distinguishing two selves: the calculating self and the central self.When we are our calculating selves, we struggle onward and upward like contestants in an obstacle course, riveting our attention on the "barriers" we see in our way. Strengthening the concept of obstacles with metaphors, we talk about "walls" and "roadblocks", their height and prevalence, and what it will take to overcome them. This is downward spiral talk, and it is part and parcel of the effort to climb the ladder and arrive at the top.
The catchphrase downward spiral talk stands for a resigned way of speaking that excludes possibility. "The little old ladies who support classical music are all dying out," the conversation goes in downward spiral mode."Our culture has become totally commercialized, and no one wants to fund the arts". "nowadays school children are only interested in popular music--audiences for classical music are rapidly diminishing; clearly it is a a dying art."
Downward spiral talk is based on the fear that we will be stopped in our tracks and full short in the race, and it is wholly reactive to circumstances, circumstances that appear to be wrong, problematic, and in need of fixing. Every industry of profession has its own version of downward spiral talk, as does every relationship and motivation system. Focusing on the abstraction of scarcity, downward spiral talk creates an unassailable story about the limits to what is possible and tells us compellingly how things are going from bad to worse.
Why does it spiral downward,why do things tend to look more and more hopeless? For the same reason that red Dodge pickups seem to proliferate on the highways as soon as you buy one and that pregnant women appear out of nowhere approximately eight months before your baby is due. the more attention your shine on a particular subject, the more evidence of it will grow. Attention is like light and air and water. Shine attention on obstacles and problems and they multiply lavishly.
The practice of the way things are is a reality check on the run-away imagination of the calculating self. It's like the world-weary policeman saying, "just the facts. Ma'am, just the facts." Radiating possibility begins with things as they are and highlights open spaces, the pathways leading out from here.
Then the obstacles are simply present conditions--they are merely what has happened or is happening (motivated or motivating). The father in our story might say, "I have not inquired about my son's life,and he is not volunteering any information,"and he would be describing present conditions in the family.He might add: "I am afraid I don't know the right questions to ask, and it irritates me that he doesn't come to me to talk," and he would still be describing the way things are. The father would then be able to see the obvious: that sharing something of himself with his son, or asking some interested questions, would be likely next step toward greater rapport.
So, too, the chairman of the orchestra board might be satisfied with the description," There were 800 people in attendance for the March 14th concert and 700 for the program on April 10th," without going on to create a trend. For "diminishing audiences," like bogeymen, are never anywhere to be found except in someone's story. You can shake hands, however, with the 700 people who attended the April concert, and while you're at it, pass out fliers and say," Can't wait to see you at the next event!" the way
In the other chapter, we set up model distinguishing two selves: the calculating self and the central self.When we are our calculating selves, we struggle onward and upward like contestants in an obstacle course, riveting our attention on the "barriers" we see in our way. Strengthening the concept of obstacles with metaphors, we talk about "walls" and "roadblocks", their height and prevalence, and what it will take to overcome them. This is downward spiral talk, and it is part and parcel of the effort to climb the ladder and arrive at the top.
The catchphrase downward spiral talk stands for a resigned way of speaking that excludes possibility. "The little old ladies who support classical music are all dying out," the conversation goes in downward spiral mode."Our culture has become totally commercialized, and no one wants to fund the arts". "nowadays school children are only interested in popular music--audiences for classical music are rapidly diminishing; clearly it is a a dying art."
Downward spiral talk is based on the fear that we will be stopped in our tracks and full short in the race, and it is wholly reactive to circumstances, circumstances that appear to be wrong, problematic, and in need of fixing. Every industry of profession has its own version of downward spiral talk, as does every relationship and motivation system. Focusing on the abstraction of scarcity, downward spiral talk creates an unassailable story about the limits to what is possible and tells us compellingly how things are going from bad to worse.
Why does it spiral downward,why do things tend to look more and more hopeless? For the same reason that red Dodge pickups seem to proliferate on the highways as soon as you buy one and that pregnant women appear out of nowhere approximately eight months before your baby is due. the more attention your shine on a particular subject, the more evidence of it will grow. Attention is like light and air and water. Shine attention on obstacles and problems and they multiply lavishly.
The practice of the way things are is a reality check on the run-away imagination of the calculating self. It's like the world-weary policeman saying, "just the facts. Ma'am, just the facts." Radiating possibility begins with things as they are and highlights open spaces, the pathways leading out from here.
Then the obstacles are simply present conditions--they are merely what has happened or is happening (motivated or motivating). The father in our story might say, "I have not inquired about my son's life,and he is not volunteering any information,"and he would be describing present conditions in the family.He might add: "I am afraid I don't know the right questions to ask, and it irritates me that he doesn't come to me to talk," and he would still be describing the way things are. The father would then be able to see the obvious: that sharing something of himself with his son, or asking some interested questions, would be likely next step toward greater rapport.
So, too, the chairman of the orchestra board might be satisfied with the description," There were 800 people in attendance for the March 14th concert and 700 for the program on April 10th," without going on to create a trend. For "diminishing audiences," like bogeymen, are never anywhere to be found except in someone's story. You can shake hands, however, with the 700 people who attended the April concert, and while you're at it, pass out fliers and say," Can't wait to see you at the next event!" the way
Best Motivation Article: Downward Spiral Talk
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/gaining-control-versus-making.html[/postlink]
Because, in the world of measurement, we live in the illusion that we have only ourselves to rely on, our need for control is amplified. So, when mistakes are made, and the boat gets off course, we try to get back in control by assigning blame. The "shoulds" and "oughts" from the blame game give us the illusion that we can gain control over what just went wrong, and that's an illusion of language again. Of course we can't change it or control it--is has already happened!
The practice of being the board, is about making a difference. If,for instance, after hearing all your good ideas, your boss makes one mistake after another that you warned him about, you may think to yourself,"He never listens, he's competitive with me--he just wants to be right." And you feel once again like a prophet unsung in his own time or like Cassandra watching the towers of Illium fall. This is a time you can use the practice of being the board to make a difference. Here is how you might proceed.
"How did it get on the board that my boss is not listening to me?", you ask yourself. Soon you notice that "not being listened to" has become an abstraction for you, with meanings attached,like: he doesn't want to listen tome, or he is competitive or closed-minded. You know full well that you have had many such experiences in your life or you would not have recognized this one coming down the road. So you say,"How would I describe what is happening if I were to take away those extra elements of my story?" And when you point to real things instead of abstractions, you boil it down to: "I told my boss what thought and he did not take my advice." Now you can draw a conclusion that gives you leverage. You can sat without fear of contradiction,"My boss did not take my advice because he was not enrolled in it. It is up to me to light the spark of possibility. So if I want to make a difference, I had better design a conversation that matters to him, one that addresses what and how he is thinking."
Whereas "should haves" are commonplace in the fault game, apologies are frequent when you name yourself as the board. That is because when you look deeply enough into the question, "How did that thing that I am having trouble with get on the board that I am?" you will find that at some point, in order to give yourself a feeling of control or equilibrium, you have sacrificed a relationship. Whether you got into silent combat with your boss because he did not take your advice, or you failed to speak truthfully to your daughter because you did not want to upset her, or you just did not recognize how important you are to an old friend: at some point, a relationship broke down or is in the process of breaking down. And your effectiveness has deteriorated with it. In these case, an apology often serves as a restorative balm.
But in the model of fault and blame you cannot authentically apologize if you do not believe you are wrong, according to a shared measure of responsibility. It would be foolish for the pawn in the game of chess to apologize to the bishop for not having captured a piece five diagonal squares away, in a location where the rules prohibit him from moving. But when you, as the pawn, name yourself as the board, you can easily say to the bishop, "I think I sensed that you did not have a thorough knowledge of the rules, yet I failed to enlighten you. For that I apologize."
In the fault game your attention is focused on actions--what was done or not done by you or others. When you name yourself as the board your attention turns to repairing a breakdown in relationship. That is why apologies come so easily.
YOU MAY ASKING, "Why should I put so much emphasis on relationship when it will inevitably slow me down? Sometimes I just need to get a job done, and people have to understand that." Well, the answer is either they will or they won't. Sometimes you can enroll people in the necessity for short-term results, and sometimes your being heedless of the long line of relationship will slow down the overall "tempo" and run you into time-consuming difficulties.
Because, in the world of measurement, we live in the illusion that we have only ourselves to rely on, our need for control is amplified. So, when mistakes are made, and the boat gets off course, we try to get back in control by assigning blame. The "shoulds" and "oughts" from the blame game give us the illusion that we can gain control over what just went wrong, and that's an illusion of language again. Of course we can't change it or control it--is has already happened!
The practice of being the board, is about making a difference. If,for instance, after hearing all your good ideas, your boss makes one mistake after another that you warned him about, you may think to yourself,"He never listens, he's competitive with me--he just wants to be right." And you feel once again like a prophet unsung in his own time or like Cassandra watching the towers of Illium fall. This is a time you can use the practice of being the board to make a difference. Here is how you might proceed.
"How did it get on the board that my boss is not listening to me?", you ask yourself. Soon you notice that "not being listened to" has become an abstraction for you, with meanings attached,like: he doesn't want to listen tome, or he is competitive or closed-minded. You know full well that you have had many such experiences in your life or you would not have recognized this one coming down the road. So you say,"How would I describe what is happening if I were to take away those extra elements of my story?" And when you point to real things instead of abstractions, you boil it down to: "I told my boss what thought and he did not take my advice." Now you can draw a conclusion that gives you leverage. You can sat without fear of contradiction,"My boss did not take my advice because he was not enrolled in it. It is up to me to light the spark of possibility. So if I want to make a difference, I had better design a conversation that matters to him, one that addresses what and how he is thinking."
Whereas "should haves" are commonplace in the fault game, apologies are frequent when you name yourself as the board. That is because when you look deeply enough into the question, "How did that thing that I am having trouble with get on the board that I am?" you will find that at some point, in order to give yourself a feeling of control or equilibrium, you have sacrificed a relationship. Whether you got into silent combat with your boss because he did not take your advice, or you failed to speak truthfully to your daughter because you did not want to upset her, or you just did not recognize how important you are to an old friend: at some point, a relationship broke down or is in the process of breaking down. And your effectiveness has deteriorated with it. In these case, an apology often serves as a restorative balm.
But in the model of fault and blame you cannot authentically apologize if you do not believe you are wrong, according to a shared measure of responsibility. It would be foolish for the pawn in the game of chess to apologize to the bishop for not having captured a piece five diagonal squares away, in a location where the rules prohibit him from moving. But when you, as the pawn, name yourself as the board, you can easily say to the bishop, "I think I sensed that you did not have a thorough knowledge of the rules, yet I failed to enlighten you. For that I apologize."
In the fault game your attention is focused on actions--what was done or not done by you or others. When you name yourself as the board your attention turns to repairing a breakdown in relationship. That is why apologies come so easily.
YOU MAY ASKING, "Why should I put so much emphasis on relationship when it will inevitably slow me down? Sometimes I just need to get a job done, and people have to understand that." Well, the answer is either they will or they won't. Sometimes you can enroll people in the necessity for short-term results, and sometimes your being heedless of the long line of relationship will slow down the overall "tempo" and run you into time-consuming difficulties.
Gaining Control Versus Making A Difference: Best Motivation and Inspiration
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/best-motivation-for-you-being-with-way_18.html[/postlink]
The rain in Florida may be bad for us and good for the citrus crop. A canceled flight may wreck our schedule and bring us surface to face with our future spouse in the airport lounge. A forest fire may seem to destroy an ecosystem in the short term, yet renew it with vigor for the long term. When a splendid osprey eats a beautiful fish, it is neither good nor bad. Or, it's good for the osprey and bad for the fish. Nature makes no judgment. Human do. And while our willingness to distinguish good and evil may be one of our most enhancing attributes, it is important to realize that "good" and "bad" are categories we impose on the world --they are not of the world itself.
" A man goes to see his rabbi. "Rabbi", he asks, "you told us a story --something to do with praise?" The rabbi responds, "Yes, it is thus: when you get some good news, you thank the Lord, and when you get some bad news, you praise the Lord." "Of course," replies the man. " I should have remembered. But Rabbi, how do you actually know which is the good news and which is the bad news?" The rabbi smiles. "You are wise, my son. So just to be on the safe side, always thank the Lord."
The rain in Florida may be bad for us and good for the citrus crop. A canceled flight may wreck our schedule and bring us surface to face with our future spouse in the airport lounge. A forest fire may seem to destroy an ecosystem in the short term, yet renew it with vigor for the long term. When a splendid osprey eats a beautiful fish, it is neither good nor bad. Or, it's good for the osprey and bad for the fish. Nature makes no judgment. Human do. And while our willingness to distinguish good and evil may be one of our most enhancing attributes, it is important to realize that "good" and "bad" are categories we impose on the world --they are not of the world itself.
" A man goes to see his rabbi. "Rabbi", he asks, "you told us a story --something to do with praise?" The rabbi responds, "Yes, it is thus: when you get some good news, you thank the Lord, and when you get some bad news, you praise the Lord." "Of course," replies the man. " I should have remembered. But Rabbi, how do you actually know which is the good news and which is the bad news?" The rabbi smiles. "You are wise, my son. So just to be on the safe side, always thank the Lord."
A Best Motivation for You: Being With The Way Things Are By Clearing Judgments
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/game-of-chess-best-motivation-and.html[/postlink]
We might use the metaphor of a game like chess to describe the difference between the usual measured approach to responsibility and the perspective of the new practice. Normally if you were asked to identify yourself with an aspect of the game, you might point to one of the pieces on the board: you might choose to see yourself as the important king, the wily knight, or the humble pawn. As any one of the pieces, you would understand that your job is to achieve your objective, do well by your team, and help conquer the enemy. Or, you might see yourself as the mastermind, the strategist controlling the movements of your forces in the field.
In our practice, however, you define yourself not as a piece, nor as the strategist, but as the board itself, the framework for the game of life around you. Notice we said that you define yourself that way, not that you are that. If you had the illusion that you really were the cause of the sun rising or of all human suffering, your friends would soon have you carted off in a white van or at least prescribed a large dose of Rule Number 6 as an interim measure. The purpose of naming yourself as the board, or as the context in which life occurs to you, is to give yourself the power to transform your experience of any unwanted condition into one with which you care to live. We said your experience, not the condition itself. But of course once you do transform your experience and see things differently, other changes occur.
When you identify yourself as a single chess piece--and by analogy, as an individual in a particular role--you can only react to, complain about, or resist the moves that interrupted your plans. But if you name yourself as the board itself you can turn all your attention to what you want to see happen, with none paid to what you need to win or fight or fix.
The action in this graceful game is ongoing integration. One by one, you bring everything you have been resisting into the fold. You, as the board, make room for all the moves, for the capture of the knight and the sacrifice of your bishop, for your good driving and the accident, for your miserable childhood and the circumstances of your parent's lives, for your need and another's refusal. Why? Because that is what is there. It is the way things are.
We might use the metaphor of a game like chess to describe the difference between the usual measured approach to responsibility and the perspective of the new practice. Normally if you were asked to identify yourself with an aspect of the game, you might point to one of the pieces on the board: you might choose to see yourself as the important king, the wily knight, or the humble pawn. As any one of the pieces, you would understand that your job is to achieve your objective, do well by your team, and help conquer the enemy. Or, you might see yourself as the mastermind, the strategist controlling the movements of your forces in the field.
In our practice, however, you define yourself not as a piece, nor as the strategist, but as the board itself, the framework for the game of life around you. Notice we said that you define yourself that way, not that you are that. If you had the illusion that you really were the cause of the sun rising or of all human suffering, your friends would soon have you carted off in a white van or at least prescribed a large dose of Rule Number 6 as an interim measure. The purpose of naming yourself as the board, or as the context in which life occurs to you, is to give yourself the power to transform your experience of any unwanted condition into one with which you care to live. We said your experience, not the condition itself. But of course once you do transform your experience and see things differently, other changes occur.
When you identify yourself as a single chess piece--and by analogy, as an individual in a particular role--you can only react to, complain about, or resist the moves that interrupted your plans. But if you name yourself as the board itself you can turn all your attention to what you want to see happen, with none paid to what you need to win or fight or fix.
The action in this graceful game is ongoing integration. One by one, you bring everything you have been resisting into the fold. You, as the board, make room for all the moves, for the capture of the knight and the sacrifice of your bishop, for your good driving and the accident, for your miserable childhood and the circumstances of your parent's lives, for your need and another's refusal. Why? Because that is what is there. It is the way things are.
A Game of Chess: A Best Motivation and Inspiration
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/downhill-challenge-best-motivation.html[/postlink]
One year I went alone on a three-day ski trip, with a plan to concentrate entirely on improving my skiing. On my first run down the mountain, I slipped and fell on a patch of ice. From then on I became vigilant, tensing up in resistance whenever I spotted ice, and, unfortunately there was plenty of it. I was about to abandon the project and come back some other time when real skiing was to be had, when suddenly it occurred to me that I had been operating under the assumption that real skiing is skiing on snow. I laughed with what Ben often refers to as "cosmic laughter," the laughter that comes from the surprise and delight of seeing the obvious. If I was going to be a New England skier, I had better include ice in my definition of skiing I redrew the box in my mind, so that now I had it that skiing is skiing on snow and ice. As I started down the next run, my physical self coordinated easily with my new way of thinking. I welcomed the ice. As every skier knows, resistance to ice can take you on quite a painful downward slide, whereas traversing ice as thought it is a friendly surface will usually deliver you gracefully to the other side.
Mistake can be like ice.If we resist them, we may keep on slipping into a posture of defeat. If we include mistakes in our definition of performance, we are likely to glide through them and appreciate the beauty of the longer run.
One year I went alone on a three-day ski trip, with a plan to concentrate entirely on improving my skiing. On my first run down the mountain, I slipped and fell on a patch of ice. From then on I became vigilant, tensing up in resistance whenever I spotted ice, and, unfortunately there was plenty of it. I was about to abandon the project and come back some other time when real skiing was to be had, when suddenly it occurred to me that I had been operating under the assumption that real skiing is skiing on snow. I laughed with what Ben often refers to as "cosmic laughter," the laughter that comes from the surprise and delight of seeing the obvious. If I was going to be a New England skier, I had better include ice in my definition of skiing I redrew the box in my mind, so that now I had it that skiing is skiing on snow and ice. As I started down the next run, my physical self coordinated easily with my new way of thinking. I welcomed the ice. As every skier knows, resistance to ice can take you on quite a painful downward slide, whereas traversing ice as thought it is a friendly surface will usually deliver you gracefully to the other side.
Mistake can be like ice.If we resist them, we may keep on slipping into a posture of defeat. If we include mistakes in our definition of performance, we are likely to glide through them and appreciate the beauty of the longer run.
A Downhill Challenge: A Best Motivation
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/william-james-best-words.html[/postlink]
I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big successes. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which, if given time,will rend the hardest monuments of human pride.
I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big successes. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which, if given time,will rend the hardest monuments of human pride.
WILLIAM JAMES BEST WORDS
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/vision.html[/postlink]
A vision has the impelling force of a long line of music. Mozart's soaring duet from The Marriage of Figaro lifted the prisoner's spirits high over prison walls in the film The Shawshank Redemption.
" I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about.Truth is I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray places dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away. And for the briefest of moments, every last man at Shawshank felt free."
In this way, a vision release us from the weight and confusion of local problems and concerns, and allows us to see the long clear line.
A vision becomes a framework for possibility when it meets certain criteria that distinguish it from the objectives of the downward spiral. Here are the criteria that enable a vision to stand in the universe of possibility:
- A vision articulates a possibility.
- A vision fulfills a desire fundamental to humankind, a desire with which any human being can resonate. It is an idea to which no one could logically respond, "What about me?"
- A vision makes no reference to morality or ethics, it is not about a right way of doing things. It cannot imply that anyone is wrong.
- A vision is stated as a picture for all time, using no numbers, measure, or comparatives. It contains no specifics of time, place, audience, or product.
- A vision is free-standing--it points neither to a rosier future, nor to a past in need of improvement. It gives over its bounty now. If the vision is "peace on earth," peace comes with its utterance. When "the possibility of ideas making a difference" is spoken, at that moment ideas do make a difference.
- A vision is a long line possibility radiating outward. It invites infinite expression, development, and proliferation within its definitional framework.
- Speaking a vision transforms the speaker. For that moment the "real world" becomes a universe of possibility and the barriers to the realization of the vision disappear.
A vision has the impelling force of a long line of music. Mozart's soaring duet from The Marriage of Figaro lifted the prisoner's spirits high over prison walls in the film The Shawshank Redemption.
" I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about.Truth is I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray places dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away. And for the briefest of moments, every last man at Shawshank felt free."
In this way, a vision release us from the weight and confusion of local problems and concerns, and allows us to see the long clear line.
A vision becomes a framework for possibility when it meets certain criteria that distinguish it from the objectives of the downward spiral. Here are the criteria that enable a vision to stand in the universe of possibility:
- A vision articulates a possibility.
- A vision fulfills a desire fundamental to humankind, a desire with which any human being can resonate. It is an idea to which no one could logically respond, "What about me?"
- A vision makes no reference to morality or ethics, it is not about a right way of doing things. It cannot imply that anyone is wrong.
- A vision is stated as a picture for all time, using no numbers, measure, or comparatives. It contains no specifics of time, place, audience, or product.
- A vision is free-standing--it points neither to a rosier future, nor to a past in need of improvement. It gives over its bounty now. If the vision is "peace on earth," peace comes with its utterance. When "the possibility of ideas making a difference" is spoken, at that moment ideas do make a difference.
- A vision is a long line possibility radiating outward. It invites infinite expression, development, and proliferation within its definitional framework.
- Speaking a vision transforms the speaker. For that moment the "real world" becomes a universe of possibility and the barriers to the realization of the vision disappear.
Vision
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/new-childrens-story.html[/postlink]
A little girls in second grade underwent chemotherapy for leukemia. When she returned to school, she wore a scarf to hide the fact that she had lost all her hair. But some of the children pulled it off, and in their nervousness laughed and made fun of her. The little girl was mortified and that afternoon begged her mother and not to make her go back to school. Her mother tried to encourage her, saying, "The other children will get used to it, and anyway your hair will grow in again soon."
The next morning, when their teacher walked in to class, all the children were sitting in their seats, some still tittering about the girl who had no hair, while she shrank into her chair. "Good morning, children," the teacher said, smiling warmly in her familiar way of greeting them. She took off her coat and scarf. Her head was completely shaved.
After that, a rash of children begged their parents to let them cut their hair. And when a child came to class with short hair, newly robbed, newly bobbed, all the children laughed merrily--not out of fear--but out of the joy of the game. And everybody's hair grew back at the same time.
A little girls in second grade underwent chemotherapy for leukemia. When she returned to school, she wore a scarf to hide the fact that she had lost all her hair. But some of the children pulled it off, and in their nervousness laughed and made fun of her. The little girl was mortified and that afternoon begged her mother and not to make her go back to school. Her mother tried to encourage her, saying, "The other children will get used to it, and anyway your hair will grow in again soon."
The next morning, when their teacher walked in to class, all the children were sitting in their seats, some still tittering about the girl who had no hair, while she shrank into her chair. "Good morning, children," the teacher said, smiling warmly in her familiar way of greeting them. She took off her coat and scarf. Her head was completely shaved.
After that, a rash of children begged their parents to let them cut their hair. And when a child came to class with short hair, newly robbed, newly bobbed, all the children laughed merrily--not out of fear--but out of the joy of the game. And everybody's hair grew back at the same time.
A New Children's Story
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/long-lines.html[/postlink]
Like the person who forgets he is related to the waves in the sea or loses continuity with the movement of wind through grass, so does the performer lose his connection to the long line of the music when his attention rests solely on perfecting individual notes and harmonies. Like the person who, mindless that she has all of nature in her fingertips, blocks the expression of the life force, so does the musician interrupt the long line of passion when she limits her focus to the expression of personal emotion, local color, or harmonic events. Her narrow emphasis can produce a dull and numbing performance.
Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is an example of a piece whose meaning changes altogether when a pianist emphasizes the triplets in the right hand at the expense the long melodic line in the bass, as so often occurs. The tempo slows down to match the interest in the individual somber notes in the right hand, and the character of the piece shifts from the light and forward-looking fantasy Beethoven intended, to a work rendered by tradition as one of deep nostalgia and regret.
Leon Fleischer, the renowned pianist and teacher, has said that playing a piece of music is an exercise in antigravity. The musician's role is to draw the listener's attention over the bar lines--which are but artificial divisions, having no relevance for the flow of the music--toward a realization of the piece as a whole. In order to make the connections between the larger sections of a piece, the player may find herself moving the tempo at a faster pace than if she were putting her attention on highlighting individual notes or vertical harmonies. This explains how it is that the metronome markings in the works of Beethoven and Schumann appear so fast, indeed too fast to many performers and scholars. These composers were passionate about launching a long line.
Life flows when we put our attention on the larger patterns of which we are a part, just as the music soars when a performer distinguishes the notes whose impulse carries the music's structure from those that are purely decorative. Life takes on shape and meaning when a person is able to transcend the barriers of personal survival and become a unique conduit for its vital energy. So too the long line of the music is revealed when the performer connects the structural notes for the ear, like a bird buoyed on an updraft.
Like the person who forgets he is related to the waves in the sea or loses continuity with the movement of wind through grass, so does the performer lose his connection to the long line of the music when his attention rests solely on perfecting individual notes and harmonies. Like the person who, mindless that she has all of nature in her fingertips, blocks the expression of the life force, so does the musician interrupt the long line of passion when she limits her focus to the expression of personal emotion, local color, or harmonic events. Her narrow emphasis can produce a dull and numbing performance.
Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is an example of a piece whose meaning changes altogether when a pianist emphasizes the triplets in the right hand at the expense the long melodic line in the bass, as so often occurs. The tempo slows down to match the interest in the individual somber notes in the right hand, and the character of the piece shifts from the light and forward-looking fantasy Beethoven intended, to a work rendered by tradition as one of deep nostalgia and regret.
Leon Fleischer, the renowned pianist and teacher, has said that playing a piece of music is an exercise in antigravity. The musician's role is to draw the listener's attention over the bar lines--which are but artificial divisions, having no relevance for the flow of the music--toward a realization of the piece as a whole. In order to make the connections between the larger sections of a piece, the player may find herself moving the tempo at a faster pace than if she were putting her attention on highlighting individual notes or vertical harmonies. This explains how it is that the metronome markings in the works of Beethoven and Schumann appear so fast, indeed too fast to many performers and scholars. These composers were passionate about launching a long line.
Life flows when we put our attention on the larger patterns of which we are a part, just as the music soars when a performer distinguishes the notes whose impulse carries the music's structure from those that are purely decorative. Life takes on shape and meaning when a person is able to transcend the barriers of personal survival and become a unique conduit for its vital energy. So too the long line of the music is revealed when the performer connects the structural notes for the ear, like a bird buoyed on an updraft.
Long Lines
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/life-and-work-of-martha-graham.html[/postlink]
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good itis nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good itis nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
The Life And Work Of Martha Graham
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/soren-kierkegaard-eitheror.html[/postlink]
If I were to wish for anything I should not wish for wealth and power, but for passionate sense of what can be, for the eye, which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating as possibility?
If I were to wish for anything I should not wish for wealth and power, but for passionate sense of what can be, for the eye, which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating as possibility?
SOREN KIERKEGAARD, Either/Or
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/contemplation-from-film-babe.html[/postlink]
The scene: Christmas day on the farm. The pig, cow, hens, and Ferdinand the duck crowd by kitchen window, craning their necks to see which unfortunate one of their kind has been chosen to become the main course at dinner. On the platter is Roseanna the duck, dressed with sauce l'orange.
Duck (Ferdinand) : Why Roseanna? She had such a beautiful nature. I can't take it anymore! It's too much for a duck. It eats away at the soul.......
Cow : The only way to find happiness is to accept that the way things are is the way things are.
Duck : The way things are stinks!
The scene: Christmas day on the farm. The pig, cow, hens, and Ferdinand the duck crowd by kitchen window, craning their necks to see which unfortunate one of their kind has been chosen to become the main course at dinner. On the platter is Roseanna the duck, dressed with sauce l'orange.
Duck (Ferdinand) : Why Roseanna? She had such a beautiful nature. I can't take it anymore! It's too much for a duck. It eats away at the soul.......
Cow : The only way to find happiness is to accept that the way things are is the way things are.
Duck : The way things are stinks!
Contemplation from the Film Babe
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/07/central-self.html[/postlink]
Inscribed on five of the six pillars in the Holocaust Memorial at Quincy Market in Boston are stories that speak of the cruelty and suffering in the camps. The sixth pillar presents a tale of a different sort, about a little named Ilse, a childhood friend of Guerda Weissman Kline, in Auschwitz. Guerda remembers that Ilse, who was about six years old at the time, found one morning a single raspberry somewhere in the camp. Ilse carried it all day long in a protected place in her pocket, and in the evening, her eyes shining with happiness, she presented it to her friend Guerda on a leaf. "Imagine a world," writes Guerda, "in which your entire possession is one raspberry, and you give it to your friend."
Such is the nature of the central self, a term we use to embrace the remarkably generative, prolific, and creative nature of ourselves and the world.
If we were to design a new voyage to carry us from our endless childhood into the bright realm of possibility, we might want to steer away from a hierarchical environment and aim for the openness and reciprocity of a level playing field--away from a mind-set of scarcity and deficiency and toward an attitude of wholeness and sufficiency. We might even describe human development as the ongoing reconstruction of the calculating self toward the rich, free, compassionate, and expressive world of the central self.
Inscribed on five of the six pillars in the Holocaust Memorial at Quincy Market in Boston are stories that speak of the cruelty and suffering in the camps. The sixth pillar presents a tale of a different sort, about a little named Ilse, a childhood friend of Guerda Weissman Kline, in Auschwitz. Guerda remembers that Ilse, who was about six years old at the time, found one morning a single raspberry somewhere in the camp. Ilse carried it all day long in a protected place in her pocket, and in the evening, her eyes shining with happiness, she presented it to her friend Guerda on a leaf. "Imagine a world," writes Guerda, "in which your entire possession is one raspberry, and you give it to your friend."
Such is the nature of the central self, a term we use to embrace the remarkably generative, prolific, and creative nature of ourselves and the world.
If we were to design a new voyage to carry us from our endless childhood into the bright realm of possibility, we might want to steer away from a hierarchical environment and aim for the openness and reciprocity of a level playing field--away from a mind-set of scarcity and deficiency and toward an attitude of wholeness and sufficiency. We might even describe human development as the ongoing reconstruction of the calculating self toward the rich, free, compassionate, and expressive world of the central self.
The Central Self
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/inspirational-story-of-rule-number-6.html[/postlink]
Two prime ministers are sitting in a room discussing affairs of state. Suddenly a man bursts in, apoplectic with fury, shouting and stamping and banging his fist on the desk.The resident prime minister admonishes him: "Peter," he says, "kindly remember Rule Number 6," where upon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologizes, and withdraws. The politicians return to their conversation,only to be interrupted yet again twenty minutes later by an hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying. Again the intruder is greeted with the words: "Marie, please remember Rule Number 6." Complete calm descends once more, and she too withdraws with a bow and a apology. When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague: "My dear friend, I've seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of Rule Number 6? " "Very simple," replies the resident prime minister. "Rule Number 6 is 'Don't take yourself so goddamn seriously.'" "Ah," says his visitor, "that is a finale rule." After a moment of pondering, he inquires, "And what, may I ask, are the other rules?"
"There aren't any."
Two prime ministers are sitting in a room discussing affairs of state. Suddenly a man bursts in, apoplectic with fury, shouting and stamping and banging his fist on the desk.The resident prime minister admonishes him: "Peter," he says, "kindly remember Rule Number 6," where upon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologizes, and withdraws. The politicians return to their conversation,only to be interrupted yet again twenty minutes later by an hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying. Again the intruder is greeted with the words: "Marie, please remember Rule Number 6." Complete calm descends once more, and she too withdraws with a bow and a apology. When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague: "My dear friend, I've seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of Rule Number 6? " "Very simple," replies the resident prime minister. "Rule Number 6 is 'Don't take yourself so goddamn seriously.'" "Ah," says his visitor, "that is a finale rule." After a moment of pondering, he inquires, "And what, may I ask, are the other rules?"
"There aren't any."
Inspirational Story of Rule Number 6
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/final-story-of-eugene-lehner.html[/postlink]
The Legendary Kolisch Quartet had the singular distinction of playing its entire repertoire from memory, including the impossibly complex modern works of Schoenberg, Webern, Bartok, and Berg. Eugene Lehner was the violist for the quartet in the 1930. Lehner's stories about their remarkable performances often included a hair-raising moment when one player or another had a memory slip. Although he relished the rapport that developed between them without the encumbrance of a music stand, he admits there was hardly a concert in which some mistake did not mar the performance. The alertness, presence, and attention required of the players in every performance is hard to fathom, but in one concert an event occurred that surpassed their ordinary brinkmanship.
In the middle of the slow movement of Beethoven's String Quartet op.95, just before his big solo, Lehener suddenly had an inexplicable memory lapse, in a place where his memory had never failed him before. He literally blacked out. But the audience heard Opus 95 as it was meant to be played, the viola solo sounding in all its richness. Event the first violinist, Rudolph Kolisch, and cellist, Bennar Heifetz, both with their eyes closed and deeply absorbed in the music, were unaware that Lehner had dropped out. The second violinist, Felix Khuner, was playing Lehner's melody, coming in without missing a beat at the viola's designated entrance, the notes perfectly in tune and voiced like a viola on a instrument tuned a fifth higher. Lehner was stunned, and offstage after the performance asked Khuner how he could have possibly known to play. Khuner answered with a shrug:"I could see that your third finger was poised over the wrong string, so I knew you must have forgotten what came next."
The Legendary Kolisch Quartet had the singular distinction of playing its entire repertoire from memory, including the impossibly complex modern works of Schoenberg, Webern, Bartok, and Berg. Eugene Lehner was the violist for the quartet in the 1930. Lehner's stories about their remarkable performances often included a hair-raising moment when one player or another had a memory slip. Although he relished the rapport that developed between them without the encumbrance of a music stand, he admits there was hardly a concert in which some mistake did not mar the performance. The alertness, presence, and attention required of the players in every performance is hard to fathom, but in one concert an event occurred that surpassed their ordinary brinkmanship.
In the middle of the slow movement of Beethoven's String Quartet op.95, just before his big solo, Lehener suddenly had an inexplicable memory lapse, in a place where his memory had never failed him before. He literally blacked out. But the audience heard Opus 95 as it was meant to be played, the viola solo sounding in all its richness. Event the first violinist, Rudolph Kolisch, and cellist, Bennar Heifetz, both with their eyes closed and deeply absorbed in the music, were unaware that Lehner had dropped out. The second violinist, Felix Khuner, was playing Lehner's melody, coming in without missing a beat at the viola's designated entrance, the notes perfectly in tune and voiced like a viola on a instrument tuned a fifth higher. Lehner was stunned, and offstage after the performance asked Khuner how he could have possibly known to play. Khuner answered with a shrug:"I could see that your third finger was poised over the wrong string, so I knew you must have forgotten what came next."
The Final Story of Eugene Lehner
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-they-are-not-smiling-by-seymour.html[/postlink]
One of (us) once heard the principal clarinetist of a major American orchestra ask the conductor whether he wanted the notes with dots over them".....short, or like the brass were playing them?" [A dot over a not indicates that it is to be played short.] This rather complex statement, masquerading as a question, conveyed both the musician's lack of respect for the brass players in question, and scorn for the conductor's failure to notice the problem. But to fit the myth of the omniscient conductor, the comment had to be phrased as a question, for how could a musician possibly inform an omniscient being? The myth dictates that a musician can only tap into that well of knowledge, not add to it.
One of (us) once heard the principal clarinetist of a major American orchestra ask the conductor whether he wanted the notes with dots over them".....short, or like the brass were playing them?" [A dot over a not indicates that it is to be played short.] This rather complex statement, masquerading as a question, conveyed both the musician's lack of respect for the brass players in question, and scorn for the conductor's failure to notice the problem. But to fit the myth of the omniscient conductor, the comment had to be phrased as a question, for how could a musician possibly inform an omniscient being? The myth dictates that a musician can only tap into that well of knowledge, not add to it.
Why They Are Not Smiling by Seymour Levine and Robert Levine
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/best-contemplation.html[/postlink]
Four young men sit by the beside of their dying father. The old man, with his last breath, tells them there is a huge treasure buried in the family fields. The sons crowd around him crying, "Where, where?" but is too late. The day after the funeral and for many days to come, the young men go out with their picks and shovels and turn the soil, digging deeply into the ground from one end of each field to the other. They find nothing and, bitterly disappointed, abandon the search.
The next season the farm has its best harvest ever.
Four young men sit by the beside of their dying father. The old man, with his last breath, tells them there is a huge treasure buried in the family fields. The sons crowd around him crying, "Where, where?" but is too late. The day after the funeral and for many days to come, the young men go out with their picks and shovels and turn the soil, digging deeply into the ground from one end of each field to the other. They find nothing and, bitterly disappointed, abandon the search.
The next season the farm has its best harvest ever.
Best Contemplation
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/short-story-for-contemplation.html[/postlink]
Strolling along the edge of the sea, a man catches sight of a young woman, who appears to be engaged in a ritual dance. She stoops down, then straightens to her full height, casting her arm out in an arc. Drawing closer, he sees that the beach around her is littered with starfish, and she is throwing them one by one into the sea. He lightly mocks her: "There are stranded starfish as far as the eye can see, for miles up the beach. What difference can saving a few of them possibly make?" Smiling, she bends down and once more tosses a starfish out over the water, saying serenely," It certainly makes a difference to this one."
Strolling along the edge of the sea, a man catches sight of a young woman, who appears to be engaged in a ritual dance. She stoops down, then straightens to her full height, casting her arm out in an arc. Drawing closer, he sees that the beach around her is littered with starfish, and she is throwing them one by one into the sea. He lightly mocks her: "There are stranded starfish as far as the eye can see, for miles up the beach. What difference can saving a few of them possibly make?" Smiling, she bends down and once more tosses a starfish out over the water, saying serenely," It certainly makes a difference to this one."
Short Story for Contemplation
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/tucker-dulin-poetry.html[/postlink]
the mask and skin
that I had constructed
to hide within,
by improvising on my own melody as an
encore--unaccompanied. What followed is
something of a blur.I forgot technique,
pretension, tradition, schooling, history--
truly even the audience.
What came from my trombone
I wholly believe, was my own
Voice.
Laughter, smiles,
a frown, weeping
Tuckerspirit
did sing
the mask and skin
that I had constructed
to hide within,
by improvising on my own melody as an
encore--unaccompanied. What followed is
something of a blur.I forgot technique,
pretension, tradition, schooling, history--
truly even the audience.
What came from my trombone
I wholly believe, was my own
Voice.
Laughter, smiles,
a frown, weeping
Tuckerspirit
did sing
Tucker Dulin Poetry
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/survival-and-survival-thinking.html[/postlink]
Many people's lives are daily jeopardy, and they must and do concentrate on staying alive, as any one of us would if held up on the street or lost at sea. That is not the same as survival-thinking, which is the undiscriminating, ongoing attitude that life is dangerous and that one must put one's energy into looking out for Number One.
True scarcity and scarcity-thinking are different phenomena as well. There are regions of the world where resources are locally scarce, where people lack for their most fundamental needs. However, scarcity-thinking is an attitude as prevalent among the well-heeled as among the down-at-heel, and remains unaltered by a change in circumstances. It is a fatalistic outlook, as profiled by the English economist Thomas Malthus in his 1798 "Essay on the Principle of Population"that predicts that supplies--which appear fixed and limited--will eventually run out. This attitude prompts us to seek to acquire more for ourselves no matter how much we have and to treat others as competitors no matter how little they have. Scarcity-thinking and real scarcity are interactive in thee simple sense that the frenzied accumulation of resources by some leaves others without enough, in a world that has the means to supply the basic needs everyone. They are correlated in that the indiscriminate use of the earth's resources, at a rate faster than the earth can regenerate, leaves the next generation with shrinking reserves.
Many people's lives are daily jeopardy, and they must and do concentrate on staying alive, as any one of us would if held up on the street or lost at sea. That is not the same as survival-thinking, which is the undiscriminating, ongoing attitude that life is dangerous and that one must put one's energy into looking out for Number One.
True scarcity and scarcity-thinking are different phenomena as well. There are regions of the world where resources are locally scarce, where people lack for their most fundamental needs. However, scarcity-thinking is an attitude as prevalent among the well-heeled as among the down-at-heel, and remains unaltered by a change in circumstances. It is a fatalistic outlook, as profiled by the English economist Thomas Malthus in his 1798 "Essay on the Principle of Population"that predicts that supplies--which appear fixed and limited--will eventually run out. This attitude prompts us to seek to acquire more for ourselves no matter how much we have and to treat others as competitors no matter how little they have. Scarcity-thinking and real scarcity are interactive in thee simple sense that the frenzied accumulation of resources by some leaves others without enough, in a world that has the means to supply the basic needs everyone. They are correlated in that the indiscriminate use of the earth's resources, at a rate faster than the earth can regenerate, leaves the next generation with shrinking reserves.
Survival and Survival-Thinking
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/its-all-invented.html[/postlink]
A shoe factory sends two marketing scouts to a region of Africa to study the prospects for expanding business. One sends back a telegram saying.
SITUATION HOPELESS STOP NO ONE WEARS SHOES
The other writes back triumphantly,
GLORIOUS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY STOP THEY HAVE NO SHOES
A shoe factory sends two marketing scouts to a region of Africa to study the prospects for expanding business. One sends back a telegram saying.
SITUATION HOPELESS STOP NO ONE WEARS SHOES
The other writes back triumphantly,
GLORIOUS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY STOP THEY HAVE NO SHOES
It's All Invented
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/emily-dickinson-motivation-poetry.html[/postlink]
I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--
Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof--
The Gambrels of the Sky--
Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands--
To gather Paradise
I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--
Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof--
The Gambrels of the Sky--
Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands--
To gather Paradise
Emily Dickinson Motivation Poetry
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/return-to-love-by-marianne-williamson.html[/postlink]
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure,
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous--
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people
Won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some of us: it is in everyone,
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
Give other people permission to the same.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure,
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous--
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people
Won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some of us: it is in everyone,
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
Give other people permission to the same.
A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/monks-story.html[/postlink]
A monastery has fallen on hard time. It was once part of a great order which, as a result of religious persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, lost all it branches. It was decimated to the extent that were only five monks left in the mother house: the Abbot and four others, all of whom were over seventy. Clearly it was a dying order.
Deep in the woods surrounding the monastery was a little hut that the rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used fora hermitage. One day, it occurred to the Abbot to visit the hermitage to see if the rabbi could offer any advice that might save the monastery. The rabbi welcomed the Abbot and commiserated. "I know how it is," he said,"the spirit has gone out of people.Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore." So the old Rabbi and the old Abbot wept together, and they read parts of the Torah and spoke quietly of deep things.
The time came when the Abbot had to leave. They embraced. "It has been wonderful being with you," said the Abbot,"but I have failed in my purpose for coming. Have you no piece of advice that might save the monastery?" No, I am sorry," the Rabbi responded,"I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you."
When the other monks heard the Rabbi's words, they wondered what possible significance they might have. "The Messiah is one of us? One of us, here, at the monastery? Do you suppose he meant the Abbot? Of course--it must be the Abbot, who has been our leader for so long. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas, who is certainly a holy man. Or could he have meant Brother Elrod, who is so crotchery? But then Elrod is very wise. Surely, he could not have meant Brother Philip--he's too passive. But then, magically, he's always there when you need him. Of course he didn't mean me--yet supposing he did? Oh Lord, not met! I couldn't mean that much to you, could I ?"
As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect, on the off chance that one of them might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.
Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful,people occasionally came to visit the monastery, to picnic or to wander along the old paths, most of which led to the dilapidated chapel. They sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that surrounded the five old monks, permeating the atmosphere. They began to come more frequently, bringing their friends, and their friends brought friends. Some of the younger men who come to visit began to engage in conversation with the monks. After a while, one asked if he might join. Then another, and another. Within a few years, the monastery became once again a thriving order, and--thanks to the Rabbi's gift--a vibrant, authentic community of light and love for the whole realm.
A monastery has fallen on hard time. It was once part of a great order which, as a result of religious persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, lost all it branches. It was decimated to the extent that were only five monks left in the mother house: the Abbot and four others, all of whom were over seventy. Clearly it was a dying order.
Deep in the woods surrounding the monastery was a little hut that the rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used fora hermitage. One day, it occurred to the Abbot to visit the hermitage to see if the rabbi could offer any advice that might save the monastery. The rabbi welcomed the Abbot and commiserated. "I know how it is," he said,"the spirit has gone out of people.Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore." So the old Rabbi and the old Abbot wept together, and they read parts of the Torah and spoke quietly of deep things.
The time came when the Abbot had to leave. They embraced. "It has been wonderful being with you," said the Abbot,"but I have failed in my purpose for coming. Have you no piece of advice that might save the monastery?" No, I am sorry," the Rabbi responded,"I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you."
When the other monks heard the Rabbi's words, they wondered what possible significance they might have. "The Messiah is one of us? One of us, here, at the monastery? Do you suppose he meant the Abbot? Of course--it must be the Abbot, who has been our leader for so long. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas, who is certainly a holy man. Or could he have meant Brother Elrod, who is so crotchery? But then Elrod is very wise. Surely, he could not have meant Brother Philip--he's too passive. But then, magically, he's always there when you need him. Of course he didn't mean me--yet supposing he did? Oh Lord, not met! I couldn't mean that much to you, could I ?"
As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect, on the off chance that one of them might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.
Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful,people occasionally came to visit the monastery, to picnic or to wander along the old paths, most of which led to the dilapidated chapel. They sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that surrounded the five old monks, permeating the atmosphere. They began to come more frequently, bringing their friends, and their friends brought friends. Some of the younger men who come to visit began to engage in conversation with the monks. After a while, one asked if he might join. Then another, and another. Within a few years, the monastery became once again a thriving order, and--thanks to the Rabbi's gift--a vibrant, authentic community of light and love for the whole realm.
The Monks' Story
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/high-spirits-in-sao-paolo.html[/postlink]
On our 1997 tour to Brazil, the New England Conservatory Youth Philharmonic gave its first big public concert in the Teatro Municipal in Sao Paolo after three exhausting days of rehearsing, sightseeing, and touring. The house was filed to capacity. The enthusiasm of the warm-hearted, passionate Brazilian audience was overwhelming. Brazilian national television filmed the event and, afterward, projected it on a ten-foot screen in the forever so the kids could see themselves. They were high as kites. Now the problem was to calm them so they could get to sleep and be fresh for the concert the following day. It was after midnight when we returned to the hotel.
The next morning I received an angry note from a guest saying he had been woken by a group of noisy musicians. Several other guests had been disturbed as well, the hotel staff informed us. Four students were found on the roof after 3 A.M., and four others were picked up in an unsavory part of town in the early hours of the morning by the security squad of our sponsor, BankBoston.
The next day, the orchestra was to play not one but two concerts, an outdoor event at 6 P.M. in front of fifteen thousand people, and an indoor performance at 9 P.M. of Mahler's technically and emotionally draining Fifth Symphony. The chaperones swung into action and demanded that I read the students the riot act. They wanted me to remind the kids that they had signed a contract prior to setting out on the tour forbidding them the consume alcohol or break curfew.
Roz and I consulted on the telephone, from Brazil to Boston, and addressed the problem, as we always do, with the question, "What distinction shall we make here that will bring possibility to the situation?" A broken contract points to the dualism of good and bad, and leads into the downward spiral, so we looked for another framework in which the consider the young people's behavior. I realized that while the rules for the tour had been carefully set up in contract form, I had never formally discussed with the kids their purpose for being in the Brazil, beyond giving concerts. Purpose, commitment, and vision are distinctions that radiate possibility. We decided that I should hold a conversation about vision with the group, as a framework for addressing the late-night events.
Summoned to the auditorium, the diffident young players sat as far as possible, their teenage bodies in various postures of exhaustion and protest. Every face, innocent or malfeasant, reflected that they were about to receive a well=deserved dressing down. "Last night after the concert," I began, "a woman came to me and told me with absolute honesty that the two hours she spent listening to Mahler's Fifth Symphony had been the most beautiful two hours of her entire life. You gave a great performance last night, and she was not the only one moved and changed by it. "Their faces looked blank for a moment, as though they could not hear these words that were so unexpected. After a pause, I went on, "What else did you come here to offer the Brazilian people?"
One by one, from various parts of the hall, came answers to the question: We came to show them the best of America! That great music is a way of communicating friendship and love. We came to show respect for Brazil! That teenagers can make great music! That music can be fun! That we are happy to be here! By now the answers were coming from all corners, and the faces were lit up with joy.
When Exuberance and ease were palpable throughout the room, I said, "Of course, if you'd given a terrible concert last night,you probably would have all come home and gone straight to bed. It was precisely your exhilaration at having participated with so many people in great music-making the resulted in four kids being in the roof. It's just surprising that they didn't float any higher on sheer energy! But does waking the hotel guests at night represent the gift we wanted to bring the Brazilian people? Obviously not. We got off track. You have to know where the track is to get back on, and you've all just expressed that beautifully."
Two of the kids volunteered to write letters of apology to those who had been disturbed at the hotel, and others thought of additional ways to brighten our image with the people of Sao Paolo. No one felt blamed or made wrong. We left the auditorium with everyone in high spirits, ready to give two invigorating concerts.
Just as I was leaving the hall, one of the chaperones said, "But you didn't punish anybody!" And then he added as an after-thought, "Though, I don't suppose they would be in the mood to give another great Mahler performance if you had, and, really, I don't think we will have to worry about them again."
On our 1997 tour to Brazil, the New England Conservatory Youth Philharmonic gave its first big public concert in the Teatro Municipal in Sao Paolo after three exhausting days of rehearsing, sightseeing, and touring. The house was filed to capacity. The enthusiasm of the warm-hearted, passionate Brazilian audience was overwhelming. Brazilian national television filmed the event and, afterward, projected it on a ten-foot screen in the forever so the kids could see themselves. They were high as kites. Now the problem was to calm them so they could get to sleep and be fresh for the concert the following day. It was after midnight when we returned to the hotel.
The next morning I received an angry note from a guest saying he had been woken by a group of noisy musicians. Several other guests had been disturbed as well, the hotel staff informed us. Four students were found on the roof after 3 A.M., and four others were picked up in an unsavory part of town in the early hours of the morning by the security squad of our sponsor, BankBoston.
The next day, the orchestra was to play not one but two concerts, an outdoor event at 6 P.M. in front of fifteen thousand people, and an indoor performance at 9 P.M. of Mahler's technically and emotionally draining Fifth Symphony. The chaperones swung into action and demanded that I read the students the riot act. They wanted me to remind the kids that they had signed a contract prior to setting out on the tour forbidding them the consume alcohol or break curfew.
Roz and I consulted on the telephone, from Brazil to Boston, and addressed the problem, as we always do, with the question, "What distinction shall we make here that will bring possibility to the situation?" A broken contract points to the dualism of good and bad, and leads into the downward spiral, so we looked for another framework in which the consider the young people's behavior. I realized that while the rules for the tour had been carefully set up in contract form, I had never formally discussed with the kids their purpose for being in the Brazil, beyond giving concerts. Purpose, commitment, and vision are distinctions that radiate possibility. We decided that I should hold a conversation about vision with the group, as a framework for addressing the late-night events.
Summoned to the auditorium, the diffident young players sat as far as possible, their teenage bodies in various postures of exhaustion and protest. Every face, innocent or malfeasant, reflected that they were about to receive a well=deserved dressing down. "Last night after the concert," I began, "a woman came to me and told me with absolute honesty that the two hours she spent listening to Mahler's Fifth Symphony had been the most beautiful two hours of her entire life. You gave a great performance last night, and she was not the only one moved and changed by it. "Their faces looked blank for a moment, as though they could not hear these words that were so unexpected. After a pause, I went on, "What else did you come here to offer the Brazilian people?"
One by one, from various parts of the hall, came answers to the question: We came to show them the best of America! That great music is a way of communicating friendship and love. We came to show respect for Brazil! That teenagers can make great music! That music can be fun! That we are happy to be here! By now the answers were coming from all corners, and the faces were lit up with joy.
When Exuberance and ease were palpable throughout the room, I said, "Of course, if you'd given a terrible concert last night,you probably would have all come home and gone straight to bed. It was precisely your exhilaration at having participated with so many people in great music-making the resulted in four kids being in the roof. It's just surprising that they didn't float any higher on sheer energy! But does waking the hotel guests at night represent the gift we wanted to bring the Brazilian people? Obviously not. We got off track. You have to know where the track is to get back on, and you've all just expressed that beautifully."
Two of the kids volunteered to write letters of apology to those who had been disturbed at the hotel, and others thought of additional ways to brighten our image with the people of Sao Paolo. No one felt blamed or made wrong. We left the auditorium with everyone in high spirits, ready to give two invigorating concerts.
Just as I was leaving the hall, one of the chaperones said, "But you didn't punish anybody!" And then he added as an after-thought, "Though, I don't suppose they would be in the mood to give another great Mahler performance if you had, and, really, I don't think we will have to worry about them again."
High Spirits in Sao Paolo
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-have-dream.html[/postlink]
We are simply seeking to bring into full realization the American dream-a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men no longer argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character, the dream of a land where every man will respect the dignity and worth of human personality.
--DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.,
July 19, 1962
We are simply seeking to bring into full realization the American dream-a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men no longer argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character, the dream of a land where every man will respect the dignity and worth of human personality.
--DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.,
July 19, 1962
I HAVE A DREAM
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/lighting-spark.html[/postlink]
One of my most vivid childhood memories is of my father, dressed in a three-piece suit, leaving on the overnight train to Glasgow. I asked my mother how long he would be gone, and she assured me I would see him the next evening. "Your father has some things he wants to discuss with a gentleman in Glasgow. They will have breakfast in the Glasgow Railway Station, and then he will take the next train back to London."
"Is it a special friend of his?" I asked, but was told that the gentleman was no one I knew, and someone with whom my father had only a brief acquaintance. This puzzled me. I think I was about eight or nine at the time. Later I asked him why he had not used the telephone. Adopting the stance in which he gave life lessons-eyebrows raised, eyes shining, and, I believe, index finger pointing, my father said,"Certain things in life are better done in person."
This train journey and my father's lesson seemed mysterious and wonderful to me as a child, and took hold in my imagination. In 1981, when I was asked to lead a tour of the New England Conservatory Symphony Orchestra to the Evian Festival on Lake Geneva, I finally found and application for this long-held memory.
The organizer of the festival suggested that I try to engage the world's greatest cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich, to play the cello concerto that Henri Dutilleux had written specially for him. As Rostropovich and I were acquaintances, I called his assistant in Washington in October, mentioned the date in April, and asked whether "Slava" would be available. The assistant with markedly disdainful air,said, "Are you referring to this coming April? Mister Rostropovich is booked all the way through 1984. There is no possible chance he could consider this." I then asked if I might call Slava directly, as I thought his deep love of the music of Henri Dutilleux might prompt his interest. Madame's response was no more pleasant than before, but she finally allowed that Mr. Rostropovich would be in on Wednesday morning at ten, if I wished to telephone him.
In my mind's eye saw my father, dressed in his three-piece suit, leaving for the train station. Wednesday morning, early, I was at the airport, catching a plane from Boston to Washington. Just before ten o'clock, I walked into Slava's office. His assistant was quite taken aback and visibly irritated, but she announced my presence and showed me into the room were Slava worked. The maestro remembered having given me a cello lesson as part of a master class at Oxford,many years before, and greeted me with his traditional enveloping hug. We settled on the sofa, and began to talk about his beloved friend,the genius composer Henri Dutilleux.
Slava became completely animated, his face shining, as he described the nature of Dutilleux's genius and his unique voice in modern music. Suddenly he asked me when the performance was to take place. I gave him the date. He looked in his diary and said, "I can do it, if it's all right to have just one rehearsal in the afternoon before the concert, though I will have to leave immediately after the concert to make a rehearsal the following morning in Geneva." This was no means a rational or practical decision for Slava; it came from his passion. And it involved a huge risk for even a very fine student orchestra to perform an unfamiliar, wildly difficult concerto after just one rehearsal with the soloist. But at least each of us had accomplice in our folly. I left no more than twenty minutes after I had arrived, murmuring, "He'll do it" to the appalled assistant.
The plane that carried me home from Washington at noon that day was the same one I had taken here, with the same crew in attendance. Recognizing me, a flight attendant asked, "Didn't you just arrive here with us on the eight o'clock?" And I had the pleasure of repeating my father's words: "Certain things in life are better done in person." Because I was so excited that Slava had agreed to performing with us, I told the flight attendant the whole story. And, knowing that Slava was the beloved and famous conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, the steward announced over the loudspeaker that I had come down to the nation's capital for an hour entice Rostropovich to play with our New England Conservatory Orchestra and Rostropovich had agreed.
One of my most vivid childhood memories is of my father, dressed in a three-piece suit, leaving on the overnight train to Glasgow. I asked my mother how long he would be gone, and she assured me I would see him the next evening. "Your father has some things he wants to discuss with a gentleman in Glasgow. They will have breakfast in the Glasgow Railway Station, and then he will take the next train back to London."
"Is it a special friend of his?" I asked, but was told that the gentleman was no one I knew, and someone with whom my father had only a brief acquaintance. This puzzled me. I think I was about eight or nine at the time. Later I asked him why he had not used the telephone. Adopting the stance in which he gave life lessons-eyebrows raised, eyes shining, and, I believe, index finger pointing, my father said,"Certain things in life are better done in person."
This train journey and my father's lesson seemed mysterious and wonderful to me as a child, and took hold in my imagination. In 1981, when I was asked to lead a tour of the New England Conservatory Symphony Orchestra to the Evian Festival on Lake Geneva, I finally found and application for this long-held memory.
The organizer of the festival suggested that I try to engage the world's greatest cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich, to play the cello concerto that Henri Dutilleux had written specially for him. As Rostropovich and I were acquaintances, I called his assistant in Washington in October, mentioned the date in April, and asked whether "Slava" would be available. The assistant with markedly disdainful air,said, "Are you referring to this coming April? Mister Rostropovich is booked all the way through 1984. There is no possible chance he could consider this." I then asked if I might call Slava directly, as I thought his deep love of the music of Henri Dutilleux might prompt his interest. Madame's response was no more pleasant than before, but she finally allowed that Mr. Rostropovich would be in on Wednesday morning at ten, if I wished to telephone him.
In my mind's eye saw my father, dressed in his three-piece suit, leaving for the train station. Wednesday morning, early, I was at the airport, catching a plane from Boston to Washington. Just before ten o'clock, I walked into Slava's office. His assistant was quite taken aback and visibly irritated, but she announced my presence and showed me into the room were Slava worked. The maestro remembered having given me a cello lesson as part of a master class at Oxford,many years before, and greeted me with his traditional enveloping hug. We settled on the sofa, and began to talk about his beloved friend,the genius composer Henri Dutilleux.
Slava became completely animated, his face shining, as he described the nature of Dutilleux's genius and his unique voice in modern music. Suddenly he asked me when the performance was to take place. I gave him the date. He looked in his diary and said, "I can do it, if it's all right to have just one rehearsal in the afternoon before the concert, though I will have to leave immediately after the concert to make a rehearsal the following morning in Geneva." This was no means a rational or practical decision for Slava; it came from his passion. And it involved a huge risk for even a very fine student orchestra to perform an unfamiliar, wildly difficult concerto after just one rehearsal with the soloist. But at least each of us had accomplice in our folly. I left no more than twenty minutes after I had arrived, murmuring, "He'll do it" to the appalled assistant.
The plane that carried me home from Washington at noon that day was the same one I had taken here, with the same crew in attendance. Recognizing me, a flight attendant asked, "Didn't you just arrive here with us on the eight o'clock?" And I had the pleasure of repeating my father's words: "Certain things in life are better done in person." Because I was so excited that Slava had agreed to performing with us, I told the flight attendant the whole story. And, knowing that Slava was the beloved and famous conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, the steward announced over the loudspeaker that I had come down to the nation's capital for an hour entice Rostropovich to play with our New England Conservatory Orchestra and Rostropovich had agreed.
Lighting a Spark
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/streets-of-pearl-and-gold-by-carolyn.html[/postlink]
Within, walls white as canvas stretched to stain;
A tabula rasa clean as a stripped bed.
The painter's order: jars and brushes neat,
Harmoniously fixed, like palette clots.
Here, perilous in this secret nest, he paces,
Naked and fierce, dressed only in his paint;
His place condemned,pinched nearer by the beast,
The lover streaked with motley, seeing white,
Would cuff the ball and hammer with his fist
But hides instead, frowns, grappling with art:
Waves and flames and clouds and wounds and rags.
While I sit careless on the bed; I float
Posing as Venus in a pearly boat.
How wide we dream! His picturing and mine,
As the light glitters, deepening our breath
Until we sink for pearl through profound seas,
Swimming before the funeral of the earth.
Outside, the buildings kneel as if yielding up
To the levelers their infirm confessions:
No rats or roaches in the wainscot
Nor the old staled odors of man's functioning
But that they were chalice of our history,
And this, a pastoral Dutch village. Here
In a black-shuttered tavern, clarks and squires
In linsey-woolsey, plotted revolution!
Yea, the streets were steep with mud and dung
From which we raised ourselves a dwelling-place,
On sober frames affixed a frontispiece.
Later, these first buildings failed in form
When they admitted to their broken cells
Child-sweat and chilblain, women laboring
Hook-shouldered, early deformed by the machine:
A house of light become a cave of pain.
Now cornice, fretwork, sagging pediment,
Outliving purity and sin, each warrant signed,
Tell more than Bowery faces of our fate.
The stain is mortal on their livid meat,
Emptier than this periled wood and stone.
A lover carved here, priding in his skill,
Above the old eye-levels, garland, gargoyle,
In the time of the artisan, when our land was small.
Sun dust. Noon is noiseless. Stink of fish
From Fulton, all the produce gone by ten
Save for squashed jelly, viscid scales
Rusting and iridescent. Seasoning sprinkled
On the cooked street.
A wino crawls onto a briny tray,
Lies down in inches of left-over sea.
Curling, crustacean-red, he dozes
his non-death away.
Nearby, the pier where we watch trawlers:
Mending their nets, men sweat,look up, scowl, smile;
Held still a moment, beetles caught in crystal.
The Rivers is brown jelly in the sun.
Between the air and water flies the Bridge:
The twang of her long azure strings.....
Below us, grass grows over boards and water;
AMERICA, THE DEAD IN CHRIST RISE FIRST
On bulkheads scrawled unevenly, fuzzing chalk
Xs in rows, the childlike mark of love.
Retreat to darkness, two dark flights away!
Tin ceilings, thinly blue: pale rippling.
All afternoon the water undulates..............
The sky is silent. For the wino in the tray.
He has not moved, or died.
We rouse in the opal twilight, open eyes:
Dust, a marble crust ground underfoot;
Splintering sills crumble, frame the street
Laid like a whip across the backs of blasted lots
Near rubble mountains raised by dying men.
Bits of the old town lean on the August air,
Wait blindly for the X of the builder-killers,
Their multitudinous eyes taped out.
Racks of white crosses fenestrate the night,
Before the two hairs cross in the last bomb-sight.
And who are we, for whom our country cares?
America makes crosses of us all.
Each artist in his fortress: boiling oil
A weapon still. Seething across his canvases, a fury
Flung over white, ripped out: the X in paint.
Art is this marveling fury of spurned love.
Caughr in this present, impatient of histories,
Even your own, while you mourn what vanishes.
Who endures, rootless? But our roots are strewn
On every pavement, smashed or drowned in brine.
Observe the world with desperate affection;
Snatch up your brush to catch it, fix it all
On canvases which, stacked against a wall,
Dozen on dozen, are crumbling unseen.
Paint out the day and you will keep the time:
Exhaust fumes, and a building's trembling dist,
Fish entrails, wine-reek, attic waste,
The shapes below the names on billboard signs,
And-what the bums find early-paint the dirt
Which we all come to: paint the old dirt sleep.
So stamp your canvas with the X of loss,
Art mutilated, stained with abuse and rage.
But mark it also as the cross of love
Who hold this woman-flesh, touch it alive,
As I try to keep us, here upon the page.
Within, walls white as canvas stretched to stain;
A tabula rasa clean as a stripped bed.
The painter's order: jars and brushes neat,
Harmoniously fixed, like palette clots.
Here, perilous in this secret nest, he paces,
Naked and fierce, dressed only in his paint;
His place condemned,pinched nearer by the beast,
The lover streaked with motley, seeing white,
Would cuff the ball and hammer with his fist
But hides instead, frowns, grappling with art:
Waves and flames and clouds and wounds and rags.
While I sit careless on the bed; I float
Posing as Venus in a pearly boat.
How wide we dream! His picturing and mine,
As the light glitters, deepening our breath
Until we sink for pearl through profound seas,
Swimming before the funeral of the earth.
Outside, the buildings kneel as if yielding up
To the levelers their infirm confessions:
No rats or roaches in the wainscot
Nor the old staled odors of man's functioning
But that they were chalice of our history,
And this, a pastoral Dutch village. Here
In a black-shuttered tavern, clarks and squires
In linsey-woolsey, plotted revolution!
Yea, the streets were steep with mud and dung
From which we raised ourselves a dwelling-place,
On sober frames affixed a frontispiece.
Later, these first buildings failed in form
When they admitted to their broken cells
Child-sweat and chilblain, women laboring
Hook-shouldered, early deformed by the machine:
A house of light become a cave of pain.
Now cornice, fretwork, sagging pediment,
Outliving purity and sin, each warrant signed,
Tell more than Bowery faces of our fate.
The stain is mortal on their livid meat,
Emptier than this periled wood and stone.
A lover carved here, priding in his skill,
Above the old eye-levels, garland, gargoyle,
In the time of the artisan, when our land was small.
Sun dust. Noon is noiseless. Stink of fish
From Fulton, all the produce gone by ten
Save for squashed jelly, viscid scales
Rusting and iridescent. Seasoning sprinkled
On the cooked street.
A wino crawls onto a briny tray,
Lies down in inches of left-over sea.
Curling, crustacean-red, he dozes
his non-death away.
Nearby, the pier where we watch trawlers:
Mending their nets, men sweat,look up, scowl, smile;
Held still a moment, beetles caught in crystal.
The Rivers is brown jelly in the sun.
Between the air and water flies the Bridge:
The twang of her long azure strings.....
Below us, grass grows over boards and water;
AMERICA, THE DEAD IN CHRIST RISE FIRST
On bulkheads scrawled unevenly, fuzzing chalk
Xs in rows, the childlike mark of love.
Retreat to darkness, two dark flights away!
Tin ceilings, thinly blue: pale rippling.
All afternoon the water undulates..............
The sky is silent. For the wino in the tray.
He has not moved, or died.
We rouse in the opal twilight, open eyes:
Dust, a marble crust ground underfoot;
Splintering sills crumble, frame the street
Laid like a whip across the backs of blasted lots
Near rubble mountains raised by dying men.
Bits of the old town lean on the August air,
Wait blindly for the X of the builder-killers,
Their multitudinous eyes taped out.
Racks of white crosses fenestrate the night,
Before the two hairs cross in the last bomb-sight.
And who are we, for whom our country cares?
America makes crosses of us all.
Each artist in his fortress: boiling oil
A weapon still. Seething across his canvases, a fury
Flung over white, ripped out: the X in paint.
Art is this marveling fury of spurned love.
Caughr in this present, impatient of histories,
Even your own, while you mourn what vanishes.
Who endures, rootless? But our roots are strewn
On every pavement, smashed or drowned in brine.
Observe the world with desperate affection;
Snatch up your brush to catch it, fix it all
On canvases which, stacked against a wall,
Dozen on dozen, are crumbling unseen.
Paint out the day and you will keep the time:
Exhaust fumes, and a building's trembling dist,
Fish entrails, wine-reek, attic waste,
The shapes below the names on billboard signs,
And-what the bums find early-paint the dirt
Which we all come to: paint the old dirt sleep.
So stamp your canvas with the X of loss,
Art mutilated, stained with abuse and rage.
But mark it also as the cross of love
Who hold this woman-flesh, touch it alive,
As I try to keep us, here upon the page.
Streets of Pearl and Gold by Carolyn Kizer
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/you-are-winner.html[/postlink]
Contest are one of the best ways to get people exited and involved. In their best form, they also have a purpose. For example, you might ask people to submit their ideas for improvements, or for a conference theme, or to name the company newsletter. Whatever the purpose, be sure that the more involved a person gets, the more chances he or she has to win. It's pay for performances wrapped in fun. Each entry earns another ticket into the seep stakes, and at a certain point in time (it could be a one-time contest or a recurring one, such as quarterly or monthly) all entries are closed and a winner or winners are dawn.
As in any such effort, the manner in which the winner is selected and announced is as important as the contest itself. Be sure to make it an event (maybe a lunch or at some other all-employee gathering); if that's not possible, at least show chase the winner (s) in some very fun, visible way. You want nonparticipants to feel that they have missed out on something in order to increase the likelihood of their participation in future contest.
The key objectives are employee involvement and enthusiasm. Another advantage to contests is that they can be kept fresh with-out a lot of effort. You can change the theme or thrust as often as you like, which keeps the contests (and your employees) from becoming stale. It could be a reward for cross-selling, upselling, referral of business or recruits, safety records, attendance records, product knowledge, or anything of high importance that is worth emphasizing at the moment.
You can also change the reward. In fact, you should. The more variety in the rewards, the more relevant to individuals and the more desirable they become. Ideally, winners should be able to choose their own award (see "Get the Point [s]"). In any event, if there is a single type of award, be sure that it has universal appeal (like time off, money, etc.)
Contest are one of the best ways to get people exited and involved. In their best form, they also have a purpose. For example, you might ask people to submit their ideas for improvements, or for a conference theme, or to name the company newsletter. Whatever the purpose, be sure that the more involved a person gets, the more chances he or she has to win. It's pay for performances wrapped in fun. Each entry earns another ticket into the seep stakes, and at a certain point in time (it could be a one-time contest or a recurring one, such as quarterly or monthly) all entries are closed and a winner or winners are dawn.
As in any such effort, the manner in which the winner is selected and announced is as important as the contest itself. Be sure to make it an event (maybe a lunch or at some other all-employee gathering); if that's not possible, at least show chase the winner (s) in some very fun, visible way. You want nonparticipants to feel that they have missed out on something in order to increase the likelihood of their participation in future contest.
The key objectives are employee involvement and enthusiasm. Another advantage to contests is that they can be kept fresh with-out a lot of effort. You can change the theme or thrust as often as you like, which keeps the contests (and your employees) from becoming stale. It could be a reward for cross-selling, upselling, referral of business or recruits, safety records, attendance records, product knowledge, or anything of high importance that is worth emphasizing at the moment.
You can also change the reward. In fact, you should. The more variety in the rewards, the more relevant to individuals and the more desirable they become. Ideally, winners should be able to choose their own award (see "Get the Point [s]"). In any event, if there is a single type of award, be sure that it has universal appeal (like time off, money, etc.)
You are a Winner!
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-to-keep-money-financial-planning.html[/postlink]
As compensation and benefits plans get more flexible and more complicated, it becomes more and more difficult for people to make educated decision on matters that effect their financial well-being and that of their families.
Many executives with deferred compensation plans, stock options, and other perks are given free financial planning, and have been for years. With more and more complicated and ever-changing compensation and benefits concepts now reaching almost every level of the organization, and with tax laws and investment vehicles constantly changing, why not help all your people maximize the value of their package by giving everyone professional financial advice?
There are many professional advisers who will provide these consultations at reduced group rates in the hope that they will expand their own client portfolio, generate new business, create goodwill, and get referrals for new business.
This advice idea can extend beyond the company compensation and benefit plan. With more people than ever playing the stock and taking charge of their own investments and retirement planning, these kinds of services are indispensable.
As compensation and benefits plans get more flexible and more complicated, it becomes more and more difficult for people to make educated decision on matters that effect their financial well-being and that of their families.
Many executives with deferred compensation plans, stock options, and other perks are given free financial planning, and have been for years. With more and more complicated and ever-changing compensation and benefits concepts now reaching almost every level of the organization, and with tax laws and investment vehicles constantly changing, why not help all your people maximize the value of their package by giving everyone professional financial advice?
There are many professional advisers who will provide these consultations at reduced group rates in the hope that they will expand their own client portfolio, generate new business, create goodwill, and get referrals for new business.
This advice idea can extend beyond the company compensation and benefit plan. With more people than ever playing the stock and taking charge of their own investments and retirement planning, these kinds of services are indispensable.
How to Keep the Money: A Financial Planning
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/free-consultation-for-free-best.html[/postlink]
TELL US ABOUT YOUR PROBLEM I WILL GIVE YOU A FREE CONSULTATION WITH FREE BEST MOTIVATION FOR YOUR LIFE. SEND YOUR LETTER TO: hangjaya99@gmail.com
Free Consultation for Free Best Motivation for You
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/on-rising-from-dead-by-carolyn-kizer.html[/postlink]
Saturday noon: the morning of the mind
Moves through a mist to breakfast: damp from sleep,
Rustic and rude, the partial self comes down
To face a frozen summer, self-imposed;
Then, as the numb shades lift, becomes aware
Of its other half, buried overhead,
A corpse in twisted sheets, a foggy portrait
Smudged in the bathroom mirror-elegies
Sung on the nerves of a pillow-muffled phone
Nobody's home at home, the house announces.
And the head nods, nobody's home in here.
The bird of dawning silent all day long,
Nobody's home to nobody abroad:
As cars curve past the house, taking themselves
For airings, while the drivers doze within;
Anonymous dogs chivvy the ghosts of cats
Safely locked in the basement. Apples nod
Their hard green heads, lost in a blur of leaves.
Last night, in the hot house, the self sang
Its oneness, in reflection of a love.
Now the cold fragments rise, remembering;
As feudal lieges move for a missing King
Shattered on plains of sleep, they summon armies:
The midget fingers, elbows, eyes and toes,
To patch again the china egg. And horses,
Masculine cavalry og the will, prance, pull
The egg, in cobweb harness, up the hill.
So the self trots upstairs, and reunites
With its lost half, by towelling off the mirror.
Reluctantly, the self confronts the self
Ripped, untimely, from its naked bed,
The winding sheets tossed down the laundry chute.
The room's aroma: whiskey and ripe fruit
Stale with fulfillment, while picked flowers curl
Their lips, like suicides in backish water,
Soiled Ophelias, whom no breath can fulfill.
Still, air the rooms! though fruit and flowers cry,
"leave light, leave air to buds! Beyond bloom,
Who cares?" Get thee to compost heap.
Renew, the self preys to decay. Renew!
And buckles on its shell to meet the day,
Puts off the fantasy these rooms recall,
Of apple-chasing godnesses, a King
Raining his arrows in the laden trees
That, weaponless, drop their pears in sticky grass;
Goes out-of-doors, to its owan daylight domain
Where, pomegranate red, a mole on the lawn
Shriecks to the person from its several parts:
A Dionysus, dismembered by the cats
In a community of sharing: "Here! You keep
The head. I lov a bloody leg!"
They must have sung in harmony, dragging, limbs
About the yard; then left the god unburied,
The raw material of a ritual.
Last night this purring priesthood was caressed
Before the cellar lock-up: smelling gamey,
The smoke from incense-fires in their fun;
Dark-jawed from feasting, they had toyed with Kings'
Tossed organs, skinless as the summer moon!
So self and mole shared midnight, and the twain
Lay sundered on their fields. What rose again
To mend its wounds by fading Saturday?
A solar King, a subterranean mole?
Or both? Did severed parts personify
The Prince of Darkness and the Prince of Light?
Kicking, meanwhile, this body from the lawn,
Interring bits below the apple tree
Where the foot turns loose earth around the roots
And tamps it down. But nostrils of the cats
May raise the dad. So be it. What's a grave
But plunder, to a gardener? Or priest
Rooting up bones of martyrs for display.
The other body takes itself to bed,
Buries itself in sheets as thin as soil,
Dreams of the elevation of the Host:
Mole in a silver chalice; kneels to sup
The blood of the dying, resurrected soul.
But there leaping in the chancel aisle;
Stale altar flowers toss their heads, and burst
In an orgy of bloom: Communion Sunday,
With Dionysus, singing from the Cross!
Saturday noon: the morning of the mind
Moves through a mist to breakfast: damp from sleep,
Rustic and rude, the partial self comes down
To face a frozen summer, self-imposed;
Then, as the numb shades lift, becomes aware
Of its other half, buried overhead,
A corpse in twisted sheets, a foggy portrait
Smudged in the bathroom mirror-elegies
Sung on the nerves of a pillow-muffled phone
Nobody's home at home, the house announces.
And the head nods, nobody's home in here.
The bird of dawning silent all day long,
Nobody's home to nobody abroad:
As cars curve past the house, taking themselves
For airings, while the drivers doze within;
Anonymous dogs chivvy the ghosts of cats
Safely locked in the basement. Apples nod
Their hard green heads, lost in a blur of leaves.
Last night, in the hot house, the self sang
Its oneness, in reflection of a love.
Now the cold fragments rise, remembering;
As feudal lieges move for a missing King
Shattered on plains of sleep, they summon armies:
The midget fingers, elbows, eyes and toes,
To patch again the china egg. And horses,
Masculine cavalry og the will, prance, pull
The egg, in cobweb harness, up the hill.
So the self trots upstairs, and reunites
With its lost half, by towelling off the mirror.
Reluctantly, the self confronts the self
Ripped, untimely, from its naked bed,
The winding sheets tossed down the laundry chute.
The room's aroma: whiskey and ripe fruit
Stale with fulfillment, while picked flowers curl
Their lips, like suicides in backish water,
Soiled Ophelias, whom no breath can fulfill.
Still, air the rooms! though fruit and flowers cry,
"leave light, leave air to buds! Beyond bloom,
Who cares?" Get thee to compost heap.
Renew, the self preys to decay. Renew!
And buckles on its shell to meet the day,
Puts off the fantasy these rooms recall,
Of apple-chasing godnesses, a King
Raining his arrows in the laden trees
That, weaponless, drop their pears in sticky grass;
Goes out-of-doors, to its owan daylight domain
Where, pomegranate red, a mole on the lawn
Shriecks to the person from its several parts:
A Dionysus, dismembered by the cats
In a community of sharing: "Here! You keep
The head. I lov a bloody leg!"
They must have sung in harmony, dragging, limbs
About the yard; then left the god unburied,
The raw material of a ritual.
Last night this purring priesthood was caressed
Before the cellar lock-up: smelling gamey,
The smoke from incense-fires in their fun;
Dark-jawed from feasting, they had toyed with Kings'
Tossed organs, skinless as the summer moon!
So self and mole shared midnight, and the twain
Lay sundered on their fields. What rose again
To mend its wounds by fading Saturday?
A solar King, a subterranean mole?
Or both? Did severed parts personify
The Prince of Darkness and the Prince of Light?
Kicking, meanwhile, this body from the lawn,
Interring bits below the apple tree
Where the foot turns loose earth around the roots
And tamps it down. But nostrils of the cats
May raise the dad. So be it. What's a grave
But plunder, to a gardener? Or priest
Rooting up bones of martyrs for display.
The other body takes itself to bed,
Buries itself in sheets as thin as soil,
Dreams of the elevation of the Host:
Mole in a silver chalice; kneels to sup
The blood of the dying, resurrected soul.
But there leaping in the chancel aisle;
Stale altar flowers toss their heads, and burst
In an orgy of bloom: Communion Sunday,
With Dionysus, singing from the Cross!
On Rising from the Dead by Carolyn Kizer
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/06/sir-market.html[/postlink]
SIR MARKET, when he faints, does not faint alone. A bomb exploded at the Stock Exchange in Jakarta in the middle of September 2000.Broken glass, holes in the walls, more than ten dead. There was no long wailing for the dead and wounded. Stronger were the cries, "My God ! Sir Market has been hit".
Businessman, ministers, high official, political activist, IMF and World Bank technocrats were all at once stricken with anxiety: well, for half a day or so. The next morning there they were looking for newspapers and scanning TV screen, scrutinising the graphics from minute to minute: figures plummeting in all portfolios, stock prices falling, the rupiah value shaky. We were in the midst of our dark-told prophecy. Sir Market was in a critical condition.
We were afraid, because for the past three decades Sir Market has been enthroned as an invulnerable and unseen power. If there is a magical hand steering the direction society will take, it is his. If there is a force able to give sign about comi8ng changes and movements of wealth and power, it is he. And it is he who stimulates the economy to grow. He, it seems, who makes history. The state, the administration, bureaucracy--all of them, all those nets will never defeat him. In Indonesia people even measure how good or bad the Cabinet is by it "acceptability to the Market"
But a bomb explodes at the Stock Exchange and we can have different story. That murderous explosion showed that Sir Market--with all his magical power--also needs protection. This protection means nothing unless it arises from something closely connected with bureaucracy: Sir Market needs something with effective organisation, a wide reach, a well-structured way of working, and in a position unaffected by Sir Market himself.,in order to rid us of the curse of bombs, so that terrorist can be caught, documents not be wiped, and so that computers will be secure.The list could be long: a bomb disposal squad, intelligence, armed battalions, security and prison administrators, a bench of attorneys, a group of judges, and maybe a firing squad too. They all have to be put some place where they are not merely commodities.
For Sir Market needs safe space. Eventually, he needs what could be called the bureaucratisation of violence.He cannot survive in an arena of unpredictable destructive violence, like the bomb in the Stock Market. The pirates in the South China Sea who loot the shipping trade, bank robbers in the cities--this type of violence is all the more frightening and destructive because one of its core features is uncertainty.
Indeed, Sir Market is killed at dancing within uncertainty. The Stock Market lives because some stock prices rise, and some fall. Transactions take place because of this. Without fluctuation, speculation cannot move and people are unable to earn more profit. In other words,every day can bring supri9ses. I remember Mark Twain's joke about stocks. October, he said, is a risky month for playing the stock market. This is true too of May, July, September, March,April, November, August, February, June, December, January..................
But within this constant uncertainty people nonetheless still wish to diminish risk. Unpredictable violence must be made to enter the calculation.And so bureaucracy flourishes.
North Italy, 1176. In Legnano, a troop of German warriors living as bandits came to attack and loot the town. But unlike other places,in Legnano the attackers were actually beaten by the citizens who armed themselves and when on the alert. It was the voluntary action.
Then times changed. Defence forces such as this were no longer enough. Citizen-forces like the one at Legnano can only be effective if there is discipline, and if there are ties arising from a sense of common ownership. Yet when trade flourishes, the primary ties within the body of society break apart: there are the poor and the rich, there are bosses and those selling labour. Cities become enfeebled through internal conflict.
And so people are forced to hire the labour of others for their defence, contracts, are made, and the condotierri (from the word condotta for contract) are born. Such contracted forces eventually demand not only individual skill, but also management. The bureaucratisation of violence is bomb, together with those who hold the monopoly of violence: and behold--professional armed forces appear.
Yet at the same time, a society needs, the equipment that organises a state: there are tax offices, courts, those who make rules and regulations; and the power of the guardians of balance.Those who hold the monopoly of violence must yet be able to acquiesce to the citizens who pay taxe sand the costs of that bureaucracy. Guns must have lords.
Therefore, Sir Market should not touch these elements. Commercialisation must stop right here. The army must not be mobilised by those offering the highest wages. A terrible fate will strike a city when Sir Market infiltrates this far, and a state no longer behaves as a state but rather as a kind of black market: the generals offer military service to interested parties wishing to use violence--maybe someone who wants to collect a debt, maybe a casino or brothel owner, maybe an importer of narcotics, or maybe some public figure who bears a grudge.
And in the end, the poor will be unprotected. Precisely like the drivers who killed by the bomb blast at the Stock Market in Jakarta that day:just a few hours after the television had been switched off, the victims were no longer mentioned.
SIR MARKET, when he faints, does not faint alone. A bomb exploded at the Stock Exchange in Jakarta in the middle of September 2000.Broken glass, holes in the walls, more than ten dead. There was no long wailing for the dead and wounded. Stronger were the cries, "My God ! Sir Market has been hit".
Businessman, ministers, high official, political activist, IMF and World Bank technocrats were all at once stricken with anxiety: well, for half a day or so. The next morning there they were looking for newspapers and scanning TV screen, scrutinising the graphics from minute to minute: figures plummeting in all portfolios, stock prices falling, the rupiah value shaky. We were in the midst of our dark-told prophecy. Sir Market was in a critical condition.
We were afraid, because for the past three decades Sir Market has been enthroned as an invulnerable and unseen power. If there is a magical hand steering the direction society will take, it is his. If there is a force able to give sign about comi8ng changes and movements of wealth and power, it is he. And it is he who stimulates the economy to grow. He, it seems, who makes history. The state, the administration, bureaucracy--all of them, all those nets will never defeat him. In Indonesia people even measure how good or bad the Cabinet is by it "acceptability to the Market"
But a bomb explodes at the Stock Exchange and we can have different story. That murderous explosion showed that Sir Market--with all his magical power--also needs protection. This protection means nothing unless it arises from something closely connected with bureaucracy: Sir Market needs something with effective organisation, a wide reach, a well-structured way of working, and in a position unaffected by Sir Market himself.,in order to rid us of the curse of bombs, so that terrorist can be caught, documents not be wiped, and so that computers will be secure.The list could be long: a bomb disposal squad, intelligence, armed battalions, security and prison administrators, a bench of attorneys, a group of judges, and maybe a firing squad too. They all have to be put some place where they are not merely commodities.
For Sir Market needs safe space. Eventually, he needs what could be called the bureaucratisation of violence.He cannot survive in an arena of unpredictable destructive violence, like the bomb in the Stock Market. The pirates in the South China Sea who loot the shipping trade, bank robbers in the cities--this type of violence is all the more frightening and destructive because one of its core features is uncertainty.
Indeed, Sir Market is killed at dancing within uncertainty. The Stock Market lives because some stock prices rise, and some fall. Transactions take place because of this. Without fluctuation, speculation cannot move and people are unable to earn more profit. In other words,every day can bring supri9ses. I remember Mark Twain's joke about stocks. October, he said, is a risky month for playing the stock market. This is true too of May, July, September, March,April, November, August, February, June, December, January..................
But within this constant uncertainty people nonetheless still wish to diminish risk. Unpredictable violence must be made to enter the calculation.And so bureaucracy flourishes.
North Italy, 1176. In Legnano, a troop of German warriors living as bandits came to attack and loot the town. But unlike other places,in Legnano the attackers were actually beaten by the citizens who armed themselves and when on the alert. It was the voluntary action.
Then times changed. Defence forces such as this were no longer enough. Citizen-forces like the one at Legnano can only be effective if there is discipline, and if there are ties arising from a sense of common ownership. Yet when trade flourishes, the primary ties within the body of society break apart: there are the poor and the rich, there are bosses and those selling labour. Cities become enfeebled through internal conflict.
And so people are forced to hire the labour of others for their defence, contracts, are made, and the condotierri (from the word condotta for contract) are born. Such contracted forces eventually demand not only individual skill, but also management. The bureaucratisation of violence is bomb, together with those who hold the monopoly of violence: and behold--professional armed forces appear.
Yet at the same time, a society needs, the equipment that organises a state: there are tax offices, courts, those who make rules and regulations; and the power of the guardians of balance.Those who hold the monopoly of violence must yet be able to acquiesce to the citizens who pay taxe sand the costs of that bureaucracy. Guns must have lords.
Therefore, Sir Market should not touch these elements. Commercialisation must stop right here. The army must not be mobilised by those offering the highest wages. A terrible fate will strike a city when Sir Market infiltrates this far, and a state no longer behaves as a state but rather as a kind of black market: the generals offer military service to interested parties wishing to use violence--maybe someone who wants to collect a debt, maybe a casino or brothel owner, maybe an importer of narcotics, or maybe some public figure who bears a grudge.
And in the end, the poor will be unprotected. Precisely like the drivers who killed by the bomb blast at the Stock Market in Jakarta that day:just a few hours after the television had been switched off, the victims were no longer mentioned.
Sir Market
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/05/ego.html[/postlink]
A POEM hangs on and old grave in Delhi, the burial site of an Islamic saint. The poem was written by Muhammad Iqbal, a Moslem poet from the Indian continent who composed it when he was twenty-seven years old. He wrote in praise of the great Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya.
This was around about the year 1903, and at this time Iqbal was still very close to Sufism. Two years later he left for Europe. He studied at Cambridge, London and Munich, and there, in the lively activity of Europe, he found a valuable model. "Through their ambition for action,' he wrote,'the Western nations have towered over the other nations of the world'. According to Iqbal, the literature and ideas of the West provide the best guide for Eastern nations wishing to appreciate the 'secret life'.
Iqbal was not without criticism of the West, and in this he differs little from other Islamic or Eastern thinkers. However, Iqbal, who regarded modern western thinking as the 'director descendant' of the culture of medieval Islam in Spain and Sicily, later voices more strident criticism of something existing in his own past--Sufism.
Iqbal's poem on Nizamuddin Auliya's grave remains, even though Iqbal himself changed. He was no longer a devotee of Sufism. "Mysticism is the sign of decline of a nation ,'he is quoted as saying. 'All religious teaching that obstructs the flowering of the human identity' is something 'worthless'. In other words, Iqbal had become an 'activist' who saw self as one with the wave: "If I roll, I exist. If I stop, I no longer exist'. But Sufism is passive. The Sufis stress the striving for 'extinction of self' within the Almighty. There, human identity is blottedout. To Iqbal, this is not what should happen. As Rajmohan Gandhi wrote in his work Understanding the Muslim Mind, "Iqbal hoped for man to become a gem, an emerald, not a drop of water.'
Iqbal did not seek union (wisal) with God, but firaq or separation. He wrote in a poem that in union there is the desire for death, but in separation there is the enjoyment of searching.
Man is not just a creature that lays down his head with faint whining in God's lap. Man does not need to speak as Chairil Anwar did when he knocked on God's door:'I am lost, destroyed'. Man is rather God's partner, His creative colleague. Man has his own independence. In a collection of Iqbal's poems, Payam-i-Mashriq, Iqbal relates a conversation between man and God: 'You created the night--but I turn on the light. You created the clay--but I make the pots. You created the wide expanses--but I create the gardens.'
Iqbal goes on to speak further of that important pivot of his wellknown philosophy, khudi. This word can mean 'self' or 'ego' or 'identity'. To Iqbal, its meaning is close to 'declaration', 'reality', of ,'self-realisation'. For Iqbal sees that Adam (meaning man was sent into the world from Heaven not in order to be punished, but rather to be God's representative. Man is not burdened with sin, but rather is given freedom, and it is this that Iqbal calls 'the freedom of human ego'.
The difficulty for man is that this freedom is often frightening. Therefore,man calls upon laws and sets limitations. But how far, for how long and by whom? For those living souls who give birth to wisdom and poetry and those active minds that engender new ideas and discoveries cannot all merely be handed established time-worn limits ad infinitum. Here lies man's capacity to not become 'lost and destroyed'.
So, how can man's khudi move freely and yet not deviate? If we read the writing of Rajmohan Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's grandson,who seems to endeavour to understand Iqbal's teaching in the book quoted above, the Iqbal himself finally unable to find a satisfactory answer to his complex problem.
On 20 April 1938 Iqbal died. We recall a line of his last poem, sad and anxious: 'another wisdom will follow--but then again, maybe not'.
A POEM hangs on and old grave in Delhi, the burial site of an Islamic saint. The poem was written by Muhammad Iqbal, a Moslem poet from the Indian continent who composed it when he was twenty-seven years old. He wrote in praise of the great Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya.
This was around about the year 1903, and at this time Iqbal was still very close to Sufism. Two years later he left for Europe. He studied at Cambridge, London and Munich, and there, in the lively activity of Europe, he found a valuable model. "Through their ambition for action,' he wrote,'the Western nations have towered over the other nations of the world'. According to Iqbal, the literature and ideas of the West provide the best guide for Eastern nations wishing to appreciate the 'secret life'.
Iqbal was not without criticism of the West, and in this he differs little from other Islamic or Eastern thinkers. However, Iqbal, who regarded modern western thinking as the 'director descendant' of the culture of medieval Islam in Spain and Sicily, later voices more strident criticism of something existing in his own past--Sufism.
Iqbal's poem on Nizamuddin Auliya's grave remains, even though Iqbal himself changed. He was no longer a devotee of Sufism. "Mysticism is the sign of decline of a nation ,'he is quoted as saying. 'All religious teaching that obstructs the flowering of the human identity' is something 'worthless'. In other words, Iqbal had become an 'activist' who saw self as one with the wave: "If I roll, I exist. If I stop, I no longer exist'. But Sufism is passive. The Sufis stress the striving for 'extinction of self' within the Almighty. There, human identity is blottedout. To Iqbal, this is not what should happen. As Rajmohan Gandhi wrote in his work Understanding the Muslim Mind, "Iqbal hoped for man to become a gem, an emerald, not a drop of water.'
Iqbal did not seek union (wisal) with God, but firaq or separation. He wrote in a poem that in union there is the desire for death, but in separation there is the enjoyment of searching.
Man is not just a creature that lays down his head with faint whining in God's lap. Man does not need to speak as Chairil Anwar did when he knocked on God's door:'I am lost, destroyed'. Man is rather God's partner, His creative colleague. Man has his own independence. In a collection of Iqbal's poems, Payam-i-Mashriq, Iqbal relates a conversation between man and God: 'You created the night--but I turn on the light. You created the clay--but I make the pots. You created the wide expanses--but I create the gardens.'
Iqbal goes on to speak further of that important pivot of his wellknown philosophy, khudi. This word can mean 'self' or 'ego' or 'identity'. To Iqbal, its meaning is close to 'declaration', 'reality', of ,'self-realisation'. For Iqbal sees that Adam (meaning man was sent into the world from Heaven not in order to be punished, but rather to be God's representative. Man is not burdened with sin, but rather is given freedom, and it is this that Iqbal calls 'the freedom of human ego'.
The difficulty for man is that this freedom is often frightening. Therefore,man calls upon laws and sets limitations. But how far, for how long and by whom? For those living souls who give birth to wisdom and poetry and those active minds that engender new ideas and discoveries cannot all merely be handed established time-worn limits ad infinitum. Here lies man's capacity to not become 'lost and destroyed'.
So, how can man's khudi move freely and yet not deviate? If we read the writing of Rajmohan Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's grandson,who seems to endeavour to understand Iqbal's teaching in the book quoted above, the Iqbal himself finally unable to find a satisfactory answer to his complex problem.
On 20 April 1938 Iqbal died. We recall a line of his last poem, sad and anxious: 'another wisdom will follow--but then again, maybe not'.
Ego
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/05/winters-tale-by-william-shakespeare.html[/postlink]
LEONTES, king of sicily, and his queen,the beautiful and virtuous Harmine, once lived in the greatest harmony together. So happy was Leontes in the love of this excellent lady, that he had no wish ungratified, except that he sometimes desired to see again, and to present to his queen, his old companion and school-fellow, Polixenes, King of Bohemia. Leontes and Polixenes were brought up together from their infancy, but being, by the death of their fathers, called to reign over their respective kingdoms, they had not met for many years, thought they frequently interchanged gifts,letter, and loving embassies.
At length, after repeated invitations, Polixenes came from Bohemia to the Sicilian court, to make his friend Leontes a visit.
At first this visit gave nothing but pleasure to Leontes. He recomended the friend of this youth to the queen's particular attention, and seemed in the presence of his dear friend and old companion to have his felicity quite completed.They talked over old times; their school-days and their youthful pranks were remembered, and recounted to Hermione, who always took a'cheerful part in these conversations.
When, after long stay, Polixenes was preparing to depart, Hermione, at the desire of her husband, joined her entreaties to his that Polixenes would prolong his visit.
And now began this good queen's sorrow; for Polixenes refusing to stay at the request of Leontes, was won over by Hermione's gentle and persuasive words to put off his departure for some weeks longer. Upon this, although Leontes had so long known the integrity and honourable principles if his friend Polixenes, as well as the excellent disposition of his virtuous queen, he was seized with an ungovernable jealousy. Every attention Hermione showed to Polixenes, though by her husband's particular desire, and merely to please him, increased the unfortunate king's jealousy; and from being a loving and true friend, and the best and fondest of husbands, Leontes became suddenly a savage and inhuman monster. Sending for Camillo,one of the lord of his court, and telling him of the suspicion he entertained, he commanded him to poison Polixenes.
Camillo was a good man; and he, well knowing that the jealousy of Leontes had not the slightest foundation in truth, instead of poisoning Polixenes, acquainted him with the king his master's orders, and agreed to escape with him out of the Sicilian dominions; and Polixenes, with the assistance of Camillo, arrived safe in his own kingdom of Bohemia, where Camillo lived from that time in the king's court and became the chief friend and favourite of Polixenes.
The flight of Polixenes enraged the jealous Leontes still more; he went to the queen's apartement, where the good lady was sitting her little son, Mamillus, who was just beginning to tell one of his best stories to amuse his mother, when the king entered, and taking the child away, sent Hermione prison.
Mamillus, though but a very young child, loved his mother tenderly;and when he saw her dishonoured, and found she was taken from him row be pure into prison, he took it deeply to heart, and drooped and pined away by slow degrees, losing his appetite and his sleep, till it was thought his grief would kill him.
The king, when he had sent his queen to prison, commanded Cleomenes and Dion, two Sicilian lord, to go to Delphos, there to inquire of the oracle at the temple of Apollo,if his queen had been unfaithful to him.
When Hermione had been a short time in prison, she was brought to bed of a daughter;and the poor lady received much comfort from the sight of her pretty baby, and she said to it,"My poor little prisoner,I am as innocent as your are."
Hermione had a kind friend in the noble-spirited Paulina, who was the wife of Antigonus, a Sicilian lord;and when the lady Paulina heard her royal mistress was brought to bed, she went to the prison where Hermione was confined; and she saidto Emilia, a lady who attended upon Hermione,'I pray you, Emilia, tell the good queen, if her majesty dare trust me with her little babe, I will carry it to the kin,its father; we do not know how he may soften at the sight of his innocent child." "Most worthy madam," replied Emilia, "I will acquaint the queen with you noble offer; she was writing today that she had any friend who would venture to present the child to the king". "And tell her," said Paulina," that I will speak boldly to Leontes in her defence ," "May you be forever blessed," said Emilia, "for you kindness to our gracious queen!" Emilia then went to Hermione, who joyfully gave up her baby to the care Paulina, for she had feared that no one would dare vent to present the child to its father.
Paulina took the new-born infant, and forcing herself into the king's presence, notwithstanding her husband, fearing the king's anger, endeavoured to prevent her, she laid the babe at its father's feet, and Paulina made a noble speech to the king in defence of Hermione, and she reproached him severely for his inhumanity, and implored him to have mercy on his innocent wife and child. But Paulina's spirited remonstrances only aggravated Leontes' displeasure, and he order her husband Antigonus to take her from his presence.
When Paulina went away, she left the little baby its father's feel, thinking when he was alone with it, he would look upon it, and have pity on its helpless innocence.
The good Paulina was mistaken: for no sooner was she gone than the mercilles father order Antigonus, Paulina's husband, to take the child, and carry it out to sea, and leave it upon some desert shore to perish.
Antigonus, unlike the good Camillo, too well obeyed the orders of Leontes; for he immediately carried the child on ship-board, and put out to sea, intending to leave it on the first desert coast he could find.
So firmly was the king persuaded of the guilt of Hermione, that he would not wait for the return of Cleomenes and Dion, who he had sent to consult the oracle of Apollo at Delphos; but before the queen was recovered from her lying-in, and from her grief for the loss of her precious baby, he had her brought to a piblic trail before all the lords and nobles of his court. And when all the great lord, the judges, and all the nobility of the land were assembled together to try Hermione, and that unhappy queen was standing as a prisoner before her subjects to receive their judgements, Cleomenes and Dion entered the assembly, and presented to the king the answer of the oracle, sealed up; and Leontes commanded the seal to be broken, and the words of the oracle to be read aloud, and these were words: --"Hermione is innocent, Polixenes blameless, Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous tyrant, and the king shall live without an heir if that which is lost be not found." The King would give no credit to the words of the oracle: he said it was a falsehood invented by the queen's friend, and he desired the judge to proceed in the trail of the queen; but while Leontes was speaking, a man entered and told him that the prince Mamillus, hearing his mother was to be tried for her life, struck with grief and shame, had suddenly died.
LEONTES, king of sicily, and his queen,the beautiful and virtuous Harmine, once lived in the greatest harmony together. So happy was Leontes in the love of this excellent lady, that he had no wish ungratified, except that he sometimes desired to see again, and to present to his queen, his old companion and school-fellow, Polixenes, King of Bohemia. Leontes and Polixenes were brought up together from their infancy, but being, by the death of their fathers, called to reign over their respective kingdoms, they had not met for many years, thought they frequently interchanged gifts,letter, and loving embassies.
At length, after repeated invitations, Polixenes came from Bohemia to the Sicilian court, to make his friend Leontes a visit.
At first this visit gave nothing but pleasure to Leontes. He recomended the friend of this youth to the queen's particular attention, and seemed in the presence of his dear friend and old companion to have his felicity quite completed.They talked over old times; their school-days and their youthful pranks were remembered, and recounted to Hermione, who always took a'cheerful part in these conversations.
When, after long stay, Polixenes was preparing to depart, Hermione, at the desire of her husband, joined her entreaties to his that Polixenes would prolong his visit.
And now began this good queen's sorrow; for Polixenes refusing to stay at the request of Leontes, was won over by Hermione's gentle and persuasive words to put off his departure for some weeks longer. Upon this, although Leontes had so long known the integrity and honourable principles if his friend Polixenes, as well as the excellent disposition of his virtuous queen, he was seized with an ungovernable jealousy. Every attention Hermione showed to Polixenes, though by her husband's particular desire, and merely to please him, increased the unfortunate king's jealousy; and from being a loving and true friend, and the best and fondest of husbands, Leontes became suddenly a savage and inhuman monster. Sending for Camillo,one of the lord of his court, and telling him of the suspicion he entertained, he commanded him to poison Polixenes.
Camillo was a good man; and he, well knowing that the jealousy of Leontes had not the slightest foundation in truth, instead of poisoning Polixenes, acquainted him with the king his master's orders, and agreed to escape with him out of the Sicilian dominions; and Polixenes, with the assistance of Camillo, arrived safe in his own kingdom of Bohemia, where Camillo lived from that time in the king's court and became the chief friend and favourite of Polixenes.
The flight of Polixenes enraged the jealous Leontes still more; he went to the queen's apartement, where the good lady was sitting her little son, Mamillus, who was just beginning to tell one of his best stories to amuse his mother, when the king entered, and taking the child away, sent Hermione prison.
Mamillus, though but a very young child, loved his mother tenderly;and when he saw her dishonoured, and found she was taken from him row be pure into prison, he took it deeply to heart, and drooped and pined away by slow degrees, losing his appetite and his sleep, till it was thought his grief would kill him.
The king, when he had sent his queen to prison, commanded Cleomenes and Dion, two Sicilian lord, to go to Delphos, there to inquire of the oracle at the temple of Apollo,if his queen had been unfaithful to him.
When Hermione had been a short time in prison, she was brought to bed of a daughter;and the poor lady received much comfort from the sight of her pretty baby, and she said to it,"My poor little prisoner,I am as innocent as your are."
Hermione had a kind friend in the noble-spirited Paulina, who was the wife of Antigonus, a Sicilian lord;and when the lady Paulina heard her royal mistress was brought to bed, she went to the prison where Hermione was confined; and she saidto Emilia, a lady who attended upon Hermione,'I pray you, Emilia, tell the good queen, if her majesty dare trust me with her little babe, I will carry it to the kin,its father; we do not know how he may soften at the sight of his innocent child." "Most worthy madam," replied Emilia, "I will acquaint the queen with you noble offer; she was writing today that she had any friend who would venture to present the child to the king". "And tell her," said Paulina," that I will speak boldly to Leontes in her defence ," "May you be forever blessed," said Emilia, "for you kindness to our gracious queen!" Emilia then went to Hermione, who joyfully gave up her baby to the care Paulina, for she had feared that no one would dare vent to present the child to its father.
Paulina took the new-born infant, and forcing herself into the king's presence, notwithstanding her husband, fearing the king's anger, endeavoured to prevent her, she laid the babe at its father's feet, and Paulina made a noble speech to the king in defence of Hermione, and she reproached him severely for his inhumanity, and implored him to have mercy on his innocent wife and child. But Paulina's spirited remonstrances only aggravated Leontes' displeasure, and he order her husband Antigonus to take her from his presence.
When Paulina went away, she left the little baby its father's feel, thinking when he was alone with it, he would look upon it, and have pity on its helpless innocence.
The good Paulina was mistaken: for no sooner was she gone than the mercilles father order Antigonus, Paulina's husband, to take the child, and carry it out to sea, and leave it upon some desert shore to perish.
Antigonus, unlike the good Camillo, too well obeyed the orders of Leontes; for he immediately carried the child on ship-board, and put out to sea, intending to leave it on the first desert coast he could find.
So firmly was the king persuaded of the guilt of Hermione, that he would not wait for the return of Cleomenes and Dion, who he had sent to consult the oracle of Apollo at Delphos; but before the queen was recovered from her lying-in, and from her grief for the loss of her precious baby, he had her brought to a piblic trail before all the lords and nobles of his court. And when all the great lord, the judges, and all the nobility of the land were assembled together to try Hermione, and that unhappy queen was standing as a prisoner before her subjects to receive their judgements, Cleomenes and Dion entered the assembly, and presented to the king the answer of the oracle, sealed up; and Leontes commanded the seal to be broken, and the words of the oracle to be read aloud, and these were words: --"Hermione is innocent, Polixenes blameless, Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous tyrant, and the king shall live without an heir if that which is lost be not found." The King would give no credit to the words of the oracle: he said it was a falsehood invented by the queen's friend, and he desired the judge to proceed in the trail of the queen; but while Leontes was speaking, a man entered and told him that the prince Mamillus, hearing his mother was to be tried for her life, struck with grief and shame, had suddenly died.
The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare (part I)
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/05/proverb.html[/postlink]
A BAD BEGINNING MAKES A BAD ENDING
The multistorey (multistoried) building was destroyed only by a small earthquake because the foundation was too law. A bad beginning made a bad ending.
BAD NEWS TRAVELS FAST
He thought that all of the boys knew that he had been defeated in the fight. As people said that bad news travelled fast.
CALL A SPADE A SPADE
He took some money from her bag and said the borrowed it. But she told him he stole it because she decided to call a spade a spade.
DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES
The robbery witnesses were killed by the robbers. They believed (in) the proverb, 'Dead men tell no tales.'
EARLY TO BED EARLY TO RISE, MAKES A MAN HEALTHY, WEALTHY AND WISE
She told her son to go to bed early. Because he was weak lately. She loved to follow the proverb, 'Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.'
FACT ARE STUBBORN THINGS
He said he could defeat the new fighter. But in the ring, he was knocked out only in the first round. His opponent said, 'Fact are stubborn things.'
GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT
He always complained about his meal. What she served was far form nourishing. So how he could work hard with such undernourished meal. But he didn't say a bit that what he sent home was less than half of the money he earned. He was a real stingy husband. So what she served was a reflection of what she received. It was a case of garbage in, garbage out.
HABIT IS SECOND NATURE
When he was a child, he used to set an alarm clock for five o'clock. Now he still wakes up at five o'clock. Waking up at five o'clock has become his habit and habit is second nature. He thinks it's impossible to break his habit. Even on Sundays he wakes up at five o'clock.
IDLE FOLKS HAVE THE LEAST LEISURE
He had nothing to do. And he spent his time only to avoid work. Every time his mother ask him to help her, he always answered that he had no time. It seemed that he didn't enjoy the time he had. It was true that idle folks had the least leisure.
JACK IS AS GOOD AS HIS MASTER
They and their children regarded their maidservant as their family member. Because she had been with them for a long time. Besides, they thought that Jack was as good as his master.
A BAD BEGINNING MAKES A BAD ENDING
The multistorey (multistoried) building was destroyed only by a small earthquake because the foundation was too law. A bad beginning made a bad ending.
BAD NEWS TRAVELS FAST
He thought that all of the boys knew that he had been defeated in the fight. As people said that bad news travelled fast.
CALL A SPADE A SPADE
He took some money from her bag and said the borrowed it. But she told him he stole it because she decided to call a spade a spade.
DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES
The robbery witnesses were killed by the robbers. They believed (in) the proverb, 'Dead men tell no tales.'
EARLY TO BED EARLY TO RISE, MAKES A MAN HEALTHY, WEALTHY AND WISE
She told her son to go to bed early. Because he was weak lately. She loved to follow the proverb, 'Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.'
FACT ARE STUBBORN THINGS
He said he could defeat the new fighter. But in the ring, he was knocked out only in the first round. His opponent said, 'Fact are stubborn things.'
GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT
He always complained about his meal. What she served was far form nourishing. So how he could work hard with such undernourished meal. But he didn't say a bit that what he sent home was less than half of the money he earned. He was a real stingy husband. So what she served was a reflection of what she received. It was a case of garbage in, garbage out.
HABIT IS SECOND NATURE
When he was a child, he used to set an alarm clock for five o'clock. Now he still wakes up at five o'clock. Waking up at five o'clock has become his habit and habit is second nature. He thinks it's impossible to break his habit. Even on Sundays he wakes up at five o'clock.
IDLE FOLKS HAVE THE LEAST LEISURE
He had nothing to do. And he spent his time only to avoid work. Every time his mother ask him to help her, he always answered that he had no time. It seemed that he didn't enjoy the time he had. It was true that idle folks had the least leisure.
JACK IS AS GOOD AS HIS MASTER
They and their children regarded their maidservant as their family member. Because she had been with them for a long time. Besides, they thought that Jack was as good as his master.
Proverb
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/05/reflections.html[/postlink]
There is a Chinese story about mirrors and humans. In the time of the Yellow Emperor, it is told, the world of mirrors and the world of humans were not separated as they are now. They differed from each other. There were no beings, colours or shapes that were the same. The two kingdom lived peacefully side by side. The inhabitants of each kingdom could go in and our through mirrors that divided them.
But one night the creatures from the kingdom of mirrors attacked the earth. They had terrific force. Even so, the bloody conflict ended in victory for the kingdom of humans. The Yellow Emperor used magic. The attackers were forced to retreat, and they lost.
The enemies were imprisoned in the mirrors. As punishment they had to copy--like in a dream--whatever humans did. Their power had been taken from them, as also their forms. They were made into mere obedient reflections of the human image.
Yet this situation is not eternal. One day to come, as the storyteller, the Emperor's magic will be end. The mirrors-creatures will free themselves. At least this is how Jorge Luis Borges writes it, who put this story--or even created it himself--in his Book of Imaginary Beings published in 1957.
A narrative, as Borge himself once said, is 'an axis of innumerable narrations'. This tale about mirrors and humans becomes, amongst other things, a parable. A post-modernist thinker, Jean-Francois Lyotard, for example, consider this tale as a story about modern man who conquers the world outside himself. Modern man, this argument goes, builds the world outside just as the Emperor cast a spell on the mirror creatures: making it imitate his own form exactly.
In this interpretation, the Emperor can maintain his position only as long as he represses those mirror creatures, and keeps them on the other side. The existence of The Powerful one depends on this tethering. His Majesty can say 'I am' precisely because he has made that other side reflect himself.
It seems there is indeed a mechanism within people to go on conquering nature--a mechanism that has to make reality outside of oneself seem frozen: like an object to be formulate, concept, theories, or planning objectives. For only with formulate, concept and planning can I have power over the world. And in this way, too, the 'other' creatures or people,over there, are merely projections of myself, or parts that follow whatever comes from myself.
In the beginning there is self depends. In the end there is death. Making everything frozen, acquiescent, and incapable of further variation,is like becoming King Midas--everything he touched turned into gold: perfect, brilliant, but dead.
This is the violence towards the plural world--unsuspected. Eventually it becomes a lie--and also violence--towards oneself. Changing others to become units uniform in number,becoming just group samples, is the same as viewing a swift river as merely a grouping of the elements H2O. Seen this way, man lives no longer within the flow of time--something free.
'Time is the substance from which I am made,' writes Borges in Labyrinths.'Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is the fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.'
There is a Chinese story about mirrors and humans. In the time of the Yellow Emperor, it is told, the world of mirrors and the world of humans were not separated as they are now. They differed from each other. There were no beings, colours or shapes that were the same. The two kingdom lived peacefully side by side. The inhabitants of each kingdom could go in and our through mirrors that divided them.
But one night the creatures from the kingdom of mirrors attacked the earth. They had terrific force. Even so, the bloody conflict ended in victory for the kingdom of humans. The Yellow Emperor used magic. The attackers were forced to retreat, and they lost.
The enemies were imprisoned in the mirrors. As punishment they had to copy--like in a dream--whatever humans did. Their power had been taken from them, as also their forms. They were made into mere obedient reflections of the human image.
Yet this situation is not eternal. One day to come, as the storyteller, the Emperor's magic will be end. The mirrors-creatures will free themselves. At least this is how Jorge Luis Borges writes it, who put this story--or even created it himself--in his Book of Imaginary Beings published in 1957.
A narrative, as Borge himself once said, is 'an axis of innumerable narrations'. This tale about mirrors and humans becomes, amongst other things, a parable. A post-modernist thinker, Jean-Francois Lyotard, for example, consider this tale as a story about modern man who conquers the world outside himself. Modern man, this argument goes, builds the world outside just as the Emperor cast a spell on the mirror creatures: making it imitate his own form exactly.
In this interpretation, the Emperor can maintain his position only as long as he represses those mirror creatures, and keeps them on the other side. The existence of The Powerful one depends on this tethering. His Majesty can say 'I am' precisely because he has made that other side reflect himself.
It seems there is indeed a mechanism within people to go on conquering nature--a mechanism that has to make reality outside of oneself seem frozen: like an object to be formulate, concept, theories, or planning objectives. For only with formulate, concept and planning can I have power over the world. And in this way, too, the 'other' creatures or people,over there, are merely projections of myself, or parts that follow whatever comes from myself.
In the beginning there is self depends. In the end there is death. Making everything frozen, acquiescent, and incapable of further variation,is like becoming King Midas--everything he touched turned into gold: perfect, brilliant, but dead.
This is the violence towards the plural world--unsuspected. Eventually it becomes a lie--and also violence--towards oneself. Changing others to become units uniform in number,becoming just group samples, is the same as viewing a swift river as merely a grouping of the elements H2O. Seen this way, man lives no longer within the flow of time--something free.
'Time is the substance from which I am made,' writes Borges in Labyrinths.'Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is the fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.'
Reflections
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/05/sacred-poetry.html[/postlink]
If sacred texts merely books of law without poetry, humans would have been living a long time with barren spirits. The Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, the Koran: in the midst of our contemporary experience, one thing we need is to revive the poetry found within them.
And this doesn't mean merely to translate them with verbal decoration or to read them in a beautiful style. The poetic translation of the Koran pioneered by Mohamad Diponegoro in Indonesia some years back, or Nyoman S. Pendit's attempts with the Bhagavad Gita, proved they did not have to ornament. For we do not need such ornament. More fundamental to the revival of the poetry of sacred texts, is actually to revive our own spirituality. To me this means a renewal of attitude, so as to be able to accept sacred texts as not just a kind of code of criminal law.
For indeed, God spoke in human language, in poetry. And poetry, with its symbolism,its rhythm, with all its energy, does no dictate. Poetry is speech to the soul, which involves the acknowledgement of the other as a person, with all that this implies. Accepting sacred texts as living poetry means to accept the word of God not as a decree, but rather as an invitation to dialogue;not as intimidation, but rather as the bestowal of love. In this way, we free ourselves from a biased, confining view about God and mankind; God as a kind of tyrant, and humans like His colonised subjects, already exiled, and forever distrusted.
Too often we are asked to be in fear of Him, and we all too frequently forget that we can actually be attracted to Him and love Him. Henry Miller, in his autobiography, write that once he suddenly noticed on a wall in Chicago writing in ten-foot high letters: Good News! god is Love! as though this good news had to be made into a headline--even though this 'news' was not actually any new truth. For this not-new truth had been long stifled, and mankind had, for a long time, not known of it. We know the character Hasan in Achdiat K. Mihardja's novel, The Atheis: he suffers because since his childhood God has been depicted to him as the Owner of Hell, speaking only of threats and never of consolation.
A God who does not cheer is a God depicted not as the All-loving and All-forgiving, but rather as the All-hating. And if so, he is a futile creator. For then our life loses its meaning, man is just one absurd product. And then we forget that life is a gift, that the world is not a cursed place of exile, that man is important, a caliph on earth, and not a hunted dog.
To accept the important meaning of man is actually our problem now. If we believe there is no coercion in religion, if we are open enough to live within the poetry of God's words and not merely to live within His threats, then we have to trust man with his freedom. For God bestows upon us what Iqbal calls the 'freedom of human ego'. For the relationship between man and God, which these days is called a relationship between 'I-and-Thou' is a relationship of Subject-to-subject. It is only through the poetry of sacred texts that this kind of relationship can be experienced: my self is not submerged, but rather emerges, with a living spirit, in liberty. In short, a relationship without ambition, where humans can give thanks within a situation of devotion and intimacy, a direct contact without any other person as intermediary--for in the end, poetry cannot be determined by a go-between.
Indeed, in the end, the conversation of God with man in poetic experience is not determined by third party. We can get assistance from someone else to interpret the Word of God, but then it is up to us to determine our attitude. Through poetry, the words of God convey not merely His being, but also His mystery. For in the meeting transformed by poetry, language is enriched, approaching comprehensive depiction, and portraying realities that cannot be completely clarified by analysis. Poetic articulation does not speak of details, bit by bit. Its articulation contains its own ambiguity, and yet can still communicate. Through poetic language such as this God can appear in our hearts,creating an inner experience, which made the poet Chairil Anwar write:
Although it is truly difficult
to remember the all of You
He experienced the mystery of God, which opened up all kinds of possibilities of interpretation, without there ever being fullness of depiction. No one can resemble God, and no one can claim to have found the one and only Truth of Him. That is why God gives each of us the opportunity to relate to Him. In this way, to revive that poetry of sacred texts means to open the door to a free, authentic and individual communication between God and man. To revive that poetry means to avoid the tendency of stasis in our system of belief. Faith cannot be transplanted, religion cannot be regimented, and interpretation about God cannot be monopolised.
I think we need awareness like this in our times.
If sacred texts merely books of law without poetry, humans would have been living a long time with barren spirits. The Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, the Koran: in the midst of our contemporary experience, one thing we need is to revive the poetry found within them.
And this doesn't mean merely to translate them with verbal decoration or to read them in a beautiful style. The poetic translation of the Koran pioneered by Mohamad Diponegoro in Indonesia some years back, or Nyoman S. Pendit's attempts with the Bhagavad Gita, proved they did not have to ornament. For we do not need such ornament. More fundamental to the revival of the poetry of sacred texts, is actually to revive our own spirituality. To me this means a renewal of attitude, so as to be able to accept sacred texts as not just a kind of code of criminal law.
For indeed, God spoke in human language, in poetry. And poetry, with its symbolism,its rhythm, with all its energy, does no dictate. Poetry is speech to the soul, which involves the acknowledgement of the other as a person, with all that this implies. Accepting sacred texts as living poetry means to accept the word of God not as a decree, but rather as an invitation to dialogue;not as intimidation, but rather as the bestowal of love. In this way, we free ourselves from a biased, confining view about God and mankind; God as a kind of tyrant, and humans like His colonised subjects, already exiled, and forever distrusted.
Too often we are asked to be in fear of Him, and we all too frequently forget that we can actually be attracted to Him and love Him. Henry Miller, in his autobiography, write that once he suddenly noticed on a wall in Chicago writing in ten-foot high letters: Good News! god is Love! as though this good news had to be made into a headline--even though this 'news' was not actually any new truth. For this not-new truth had been long stifled, and mankind had, for a long time, not known of it. We know the character Hasan in Achdiat K. Mihardja's novel, The Atheis: he suffers because since his childhood God has been depicted to him as the Owner of Hell, speaking only of threats and never of consolation.
A God who does not cheer is a God depicted not as the All-loving and All-forgiving, but rather as the All-hating. And if so, he is a futile creator. For then our life loses its meaning, man is just one absurd product. And then we forget that life is a gift, that the world is not a cursed place of exile, that man is important, a caliph on earth, and not a hunted dog.
To accept the important meaning of man is actually our problem now. If we believe there is no coercion in religion, if we are open enough to live within the poetry of God's words and not merely to live within His threats, then we have to trust man with his freedom. For God bestows upon us what Iqbal calls the 'freedom of human ego'. For the relationship between man and God, which these days is called a relationship between 'I-and-Thou' is a relationship of Subject-to-subject. It is only through the poetry of sacred texts that this kind of relationship can be experienced: my self is not submerged, but rather emerges, with a living spirit, in liberty. In short, a relationship without ambition, where humans can give thanks within a situation of devotion and intimacy, a direct contact without any other person as intermediary--for in the end, poetry cannot be determined by a go-between.
Indeed, in the end, the conversation of God with man in poetic experience is not determined by third party. We can get assistance from someone else to interpret the Word of God, but then it is up to us to determine our attitude. Through poetry, the words of God convey not merely His being, but also His mystery. For in the meeting transformed by poetry, language is enriched, approaching comprehensive depiction, and portraying realities that cannot be completely clarified by analysis. Poetic articulation does not speak of details, bit by bit. Its articulation contains its own ambiguity, and yet can still communicate. Through poetic language such as this God can appear in our hearts,creating an inner experience, which made the poet Chairil Anwar write:
Although it is truly difficult
to remember the all of You
He experienced the mystery of God, which opened up all kinds of possibilities of interpretation, without there ever being fullness of depiction. No one can resemble God, and no one can claim to have found the one and only Truth of Him. That is why God gives each of us the opportunity to relate to Him. In this way, to revive that poetry of sacred texts means to open the door to a free, authentic and individual communication between God and man. To revive that poetry means to avoid the tendency of stasis in our system of belief. Faith cannot be transplanted, religion cannot be regimented, and interpretation about God cannot be monopolised.
I think we need awareness like this in our times.
Sacred Poetry
[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/05/from-loser-to-winner.html[/postlink]
Some years ago, an acquaintance of mine with a number of years' experience in various types of financial sales decided to sell life insurance. After working for a number of companies, with diminishing results, he ended up with a company selling debit life insurance. In selling this type of life insurance, the salesman solicits door and collects the premiums either weekly or monthly. My acquaintance has a snapshot of himself dressed in baggy trousers in which he is dejected looking, slouching, and clutching his debit book.The picture was taken in a grimy parking lot outside a rundown diner.
Shortly after this picture was taken, he obtained a reprieve with an opportunity to sell rather sophisticated financial services to major corporations. Because this work entailed meeting the treasurers and financial vice presidents of major companies, he spent his last dollars on a decent pair of shoes, a couple of suits, and a new overcoat. Today, many years later, he is one of the more successful people in the industry. He has had the snapshot enlarged and enclosed in plastic, and it has a place of honor on his desk. He has also given it a tittle-'"The Loser." He says he keeps it as a reminder of less fortunate days.
Recently, I asked him what had changed a loser into a winner in this case. He told me this:
"I spent every waking hour learning about my product. I wanted to know everything that pertained to it, an I am continuing to learn about it today. As a result of this study, I decided that I know my product as well as anyone in the world. Certainly, I knew more about it than any of those people to whom I was attempting to sell it.
Before every days' prospecting, I had a talk with myself. I told myself that I was the worlds' greatest salesman and that I was doing these people a substantial service in sharing my knowledge with them. Somehow this talk buoyed me up and gave me real confidence. This attitude seemed to come through to those I dealt with. Soon I began to enjoy real success, and my confidence increased even further. When difficulties arose, I asked myself what the worlds' greatest salesman would do in this case. Whatever the answer, I had usually failed to do it. When I began to attempt to act like the worlds' greatest salesman, I came close to becoming one."
Today this man, 20 years older than in the picture, stands straight and radiates enthusiasm, knowledge, and confidence. Clearly, his attitude and frame of mind have had a very positive effect.
Some years ago, an acquaintance of mine with a number of years' experience in various types of financial sales decided to sell life insurance. After working for a number of companies, with diminishing results, he ended up with a company selling debit life insurance. In selling this type of life insurance, the salesman solicits door and collects the premiums either weekly or monthly. My acquaintance has a snapshot of himself dressed in baggy trousers in which he is dejected looking, slouching, and clutching his debit book.The picture was taken in a grimy parking lot outside a rundown diner.
Shortly after this picture was taken, he obtained a reprieve with an opportunity to sell rather sophisticated financial services to major corporations. Because this work entailed meeting the treasurers and financial vice presidents of major companies, he spent his last dollars on a decent pair of shoes, a couple of suits, and a new overcoat. Today, many years later, he is one of the more successful people in the industry. He has had the snapshot enlarged and enclosed in plastic, and it has a place of honor on his desk. He has also given it a tittle-'"The Loser." He says he keeps it as a reminder of less fortunate days.
Recently, I asked him what had changed a loser into a winner in this case. He told me this:
"I spent every waking hour learning about my product. I wanted to know everything that pertained to it, an I am continuing to learn about it today. As a result of this study, I decided that I know my product as well as anyone in the world. Certainly, I knew more about it than any of those people to whom I was attempting to sell it.
Before every days' prospecting, I had a talk with myself. I told myself that I was the worlds' greatest salesman and that I was doing these people a substantial service in sharing my knowledge with them. Somehow this talk buoyed me up and gave me real confidence. This attitude seemed to come through to those I dealt with. Soon I began to enjoy real success, and my confidence increased even further. When difficulties arose, I asked myself what the worlds' greatest salesman would do in this case. Whatever the answer, I had usually failed to do it. When I began to attempt to act like the worlds' greatest salesman, I came close to becoming one."
Today this man, 20 years older than in the picture, stands straight and radiates enthusiasm, knowledge, and confidence. Clearly, his attitude and frame of mind have had a very positive effect.
From Loser to Winner
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