Your Guess List

 

 

How long is your guess list? Everyone has one, whether they admit it or even know it or not. This list outlines all those things that failed to thrive in our lives, including ourselves routinely, because it’s natural to wonder why things turn out meanly as they do.

Yet rightly used, guess lists are designed to deepen our trust and our ability to understand what truly matters to us. As this becomes clearer, our lists become shorter and our steps surer. Certain things will remain, even as others are added. T

he difference, however, is in our savvy, because so much of what we question and complain about is insignificant once we figure out what truly matters.

 

 

OUR CONTRIBUTIONS

 

OUR CONTRIBUTIONS

Our contributions are often invisible but this doesn’t mean that they aren’t valuable. Unfortunately, however, ours is an age wherein value is valid only when it is known, professionally especially.

So, we obsess over who gets the credit rather than on making the contribution that we should, sharing ourselves freely to help others with achieving their goals.

Doing so makes sense; it also makes society insatiable and insensitive to those whose efforts aren't announced on the news or in the next company bulletin.

Unless these souls are strong they will get the sense that they don’t belong or that their contributions don’t matter.

To prevent this, we should be diligent in discovering those hidden heroes whose actions enhance organizational life. They remain unsung only because they are unsought.

As leaders, managers and persons, our job is to promote others and to provoke greatness in all of its degrees. In doing so, we strengthen relationships, energize organizations and encourage these hidden heroes to contribute without feeling unappreciated.

Make it your task to find one today!

THE END!

 

Though most of us won’t admit it, we are secretly inhibited (and anxious) about our end, desiring to know when it will end. Maybe that’s why we lose ourselves setting goals and courting greatness. Beyond the natural need to nurture our time and talents, we also do so to help maintain our balance, which is more elusive than we admit.

Even so, we are deeply concerned about our end; not, however, simply about the outcome of our efforts but more so about what happens when life has left us. This concern inspired existentialism, fatalism and every other historical ism. It also inspired the wisdom of the sages as revealed through the ages. A sense of mortality instinctively produces such when we allow it to touch us in ways we routinely deny and ignore.

Then we ask ourselves, “What am I doing this for?” Though rhetorical, this question is also rewarding because it forces us to fix our gaze beyond the ways we devise to achieve our goals and the privileges we hope to gain when we succeed. Thus, some people pursue religion for answers; others pursue pleasure instead, seeking to silence the interrogations that inspired Kierkegaard’s dread.

Even so, we want to know about our end, when it will end. Some of us may even want to know how and where it will end. To deny this inquiry as natural is to make detachment inevitable. How can we rightly relate to others when we are indifferent to ourselves about what matters most? In fact the quality of our lives is determined by the degree to which we have embraced our mortality.

Unfortunately, some people become ruthless and aimless in response. Others become ambitious and obsessed. Yet no goal or gain can censor mortality whether or not we respond. The time will come when we will be disarmed and must answer or perhaps ask, as did the Psalmist, “O’ Lord, help me to understand my mortality and the brevity of my live! Let me realize how quickly it will end.” (39:4)

Unlike many of us, William Shakespeare refused to ignore or deny the sovereignty of mortality. In fact he confessed, perhaps as an antidote, “I have immortal longings in me.” Maybe Shakespeare’s willingness to confront his mortality immortalized his writings. Maybe that’s why he was able to embed creatively what he couldn’t embody existentially. Maybe our work would be more enduring if we weren’t in denial about our mortality. Maybe we could increase our force if it were rightly faced.

Aptly embraced, legacies and legends result, depending upon our influence. But even if we never achieve this status, our lives will be more authentic because we confronted our mortality. Maybe facing it would make us more cheerful and charitable also. If we understood just how quickly our lives do end, no matter how long we live, maybe we would be the difference that makes the difference in the lives of others before nature pulls the covers.

 

SETTLLING FOR SUCCESS

     Settlers do their best until circumstances push them to buy a piece of property they never intended. Doing so is hard to understand if you haven’t been winded by circumstances. If you have, then you understand the salve that settling provides, usually temporarily ultimately, because settlers still ogle at the tract they for which they could have traded. But the need to make a living became overwhelming. Secretly, however, they wish that they could bid of these premium parcels, especially after the salve no longer soothes. Then more than most they desire to move. Yet they are land-locked and grid-locked together because they didn’t read the fine print on their deed, which many traded for their dreams.

     The perks and peace this provides discourages them to becoming serious about buying another acre despite their desire to be greater. Their plight is hard to understand unless you have been wounded and overwhelmed. Inwardly, though, they know that they could’ve done better. But they could only take so much bad weather, bad news, and the high dues associated with pursuing success. So they settled to save themselves the hassle of trying to haggle with it. This doesn’t mean that they aren’t successful. It just means that life was more stressful than they could bear. Thus they bought a plot and cast their lot with their neighbors who also chose to settle. Meanwhile a small few are deeply mired in trying to acquire the peculiar piece and thus refuse to cease until it is theirs. Whenever they consider settling, success dares and greatness draws them beyond themselves.

SILENCE PLEASE!

     Who do you call when desire gnaws and time stalls, indifferent to your desire despite the fire that inflames? What do you do when you’ve said your prayers (and a few swears) yet things remain and desire pains beyond expression? Have you ever experienced this depression, the kind that cuts, carves and consumes leaving nothing but more room for itself? Do you know what it’s like to spend your life waiting for the knife to be pulled from your back or trying to find a way to extract the desire that drives you on? If not, you can’t understand when greatness groans. On the contrary, you are apt to confuse its angst with an unwillingness to give thanks for all things. Perhaps this is true of some people. But there are those that, after they’ve exhausted gratitude, they still remain undone and prone to brood. What do you tell these? Do you have the words to ease what aches? If not, be thou silent in the presence of the great though they have yet to make their appearance or gain clearance to ascend as they intend.

OUR RESPONSIBILITY

"When the heart is hurting God is speaking."

When you encounter abuse how does it make you feel? Do you silently question, wondering if God us real? If so, you've yet to grasp your responsibility because circumstances should not impeach God's existence or limit our compassion. We should ponder rather our relation to Him and to our immediate circle. How much injustice fills this? How aware are we of others struggles? If their plights elude, how can we slander God? If we don't confront what we can, how can we confront what we can't? Our complaints are only valid when we get involved. Otherwise they deceive though they enrage. Yet rage alone fails; only action frees. The responsibility for changing the world rests with us, not with its Author. God created the world, not its abuses.

THE POINT

Missing the point imperils truth.

People have opinions but lack convictions. They discuss virtue but don't practice it. Like ancient sophists, they explore the great questions but don't answer them. Most require a good disaster or a great tragedy to stir. Yet after these pass complacency consumes. Virtue again eludes. Without tragedy some people would never know their capacity for kindness.

THE PROPOSAL

By the time we are in the mood, success has moved along or perhaps changed its mind about us. Hence, the time we spend courting and craving its attention, only to become suspicious of its intentions. We want a commitment but it wants a minute to consider our proposal. By the time it decides we have changed our minds, committing to failure instead.

SELF-LOVE

What we sell seldom swells in value unless it has been rightly hallowed.

Others often view our lives as optional. Seldom do they cherish us as we believe or prefer us as we desire. We exist instead on lower tiers torn by their indifference. Thus pity (and politeness) inspires their compassion. Yet both of these make us objects of charity rather than worthy of love. Our emptiness encourages our acceptance of these crumbs. It takes awhile before we demand more for ourselves. Yet some people never make this transition. These have been deprived of affection and thus tolerate relations self-respect wouldn’t.