Poker lessons (November 25th 2021)

 “There are many reasons why wrapping our arms around uncertainty and giving it a big hug will help us become better decision-makers. Here are two of them. First, “I’m not sure” is simply a more accurate representation of the world. Second, and related, when we accept that we can’t be sure, we are less likely to fall into the trap of black-and-white thinking.”

Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

“Once a belief is lodged, it becomes difficult to dislodge. It takes on a life of its own, leading us to notice and seek out evidence confirming our belief, rarely challenge the validity of confirming evidence, and ignore or work hard to actively discredit information contradicting the belief. This irrational, circular information-processing pattern is called motivated reasoning. The way we process new information is driven by the beliefs we hold, strengthening them. Those strengthened beliefs then drive how we process further information, and so on.”
Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

My thoughts:

I never thought of living life like it is a poker game before, because I thought what is the point of risking everything on a game of chance. As always, thinking something is one way closes off the possibility that there is another way to think of it. Annie Duke is a former professional poker player. She won more than $4 million in tournament poker before retiring from the game. Before that she studied Cognitive Psychology. Here's the Annie Duke quote that opened  a window for me to a new depth for decision making (can't wait to try it out in some games:-)); “In most of our decisions, we are not betting against another person. Rather, we are betting against all the future versions of ourselves that we are not choosing.” 

I haven't read anything except some of her quotes yet, but you can bet with relative certainty that I will be reading Annie Duke's book and more about her and how to transform my way of reasoning from "motivated Thinking" into uncertainty in the very near future!

Annie Duke - Author, Speaker and Decision Strategist

“If you put individuals together in the right way,

such that some individuals can use their reasoning powers to disconfirm the claims of others, 

and all individuals feel some common bond or shared fate that allows them to interact civilly, 

you can create a group that ends up producing good reasoning as an emergent property of the social system. 

This is why it’s so important to have intellectual and ideological diversity within any group or institution whose goal is to find truth.”
Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

Cheers

Jeanne

Communicate with empathy (December 2nd 2021)

 “Tolerance isn't about not having beliefs. It's about how your beliefs lead you to treat people who disagree with you.”

Timothy Keller

“Respectful communication under conflict or opposition is an essential and truly awe-inspiring ability.”
Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason

My thoughts:

Everyone deserves our respect, kindness and empathy. Not because of how they treat us or don't treat us, not because of anything they do, say or believe, but because we are all here together and if we do not give respect, kindness, and empathy to others we have no right to expect it for ourselves.

If we do not listen to people we disagree with we cannot expect them to listen to us. We all know what it is like trying to talk to someone who has already decided they know what we are saying and has prejudged it without ever really listening to us. It feels like talking to a wall.

It doesn't work to ask other people to take the risk and go out of their comfort zone to listen deeply if we keep our wall up and shut them down when they speak. We have to be listeners before we can expect to be heard. 

Every human being, of whatever origin, of whatever station, deserves respect. We must each respect others even as we respect ourselves. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself. 

Thomas Paine

“We should all consider each other as human beings, and we should respect each other.”
Malala Yousafzai

“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
Dr. Seuss

Where to focus (December 9th 2021)

 “Anger is effortless. Kindness is hard. Try to exert yourself.”

Sue Monk Kidd, The Book of Longings

“She stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.”
Elizabeth Edwards

"It was a little light, but she aimed it directly at the gloom of ignorance"
Maya Angelou

Cheers

Jeanne

Responsibility (December 16 2021)

 A society that values order above all else will seek to suppress curiosity. But a society that believes in progress, innovation and creativity will cultivate it, recognizing that the enquiring minds of its people constitute its most valuable asset."

Ian Leslie

My thoughts today;

Sometimes it feels like some vocal politicians and people are living in a fantasy world where "if we close our eyes it won't happen". 

What has happened to "What is Happening?" 

Sometimes it feels like people believe we are being "done to" and that there is a power beyond our control dictating that we are having a pandemic, that our social structures are breaking down and that climate change and wars are escalating.

When did we acquiesce to giving up our individual power?

Sometimes it feels like people believe he who shouts loudest is the winner

If everyone is shouting then Who is there to listen?

Sometimes it feels like freedom is our natural right

But if we defend our right by trampling other people's right what does freedom mean? 

Does entrenching ourselves in our beliefs constitute the best use of Freedom?

Does the opportunity to express our beliefs mean we don't have to listen to others??

Does the opportunity and availability of diverse information mean we get to pick what confirms our beliefs?

Does anyone out there ever slow down to recharge their brain and detach the closed ends of loops that are only serving to get us more entrenched in our own limited mindsets?

How can I ask these questions?? Because when I see them in people I know they are reflecting me. Because the only way to open my eyes is to start from within me. I am thinking out loud my own patterns, and I am trying to take responsibility for them and open my eyes, my ears, and my beliefs to ask questions and not know and also to take my power back by taking responsibility for what I put out into the world.

Bonus Quotes

You want to defend citizenship? Don't persecute or isolate those without papers. Just live like a citizen. That'd be a first-class way to be American.
Eric Liu

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
Marie Curie

"All scientific work is incomplete - whether it be observational or experimental. All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have, to postpone action that it appears to demand at a given time."
Naomi Oreskes

“While the idea of equal time for opposing opinions makes sense in a two-party political system, it does not work for science, because science is not about opinion. It is about evidence.”
Naomi Oreskes, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Mark Twain

“There's no perk in being closed-minded as a minority. It's never, ever, ever going to help you, ever.”
Baratunde R. Thurston, How to Be Black

Cheers
Jeanne

Thank you (December 23rd 2021)

 "Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love."

Lao Tzu

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

“Love can often be misguided and do as much harm as good, but respect can do only good. It assumes that the other person's stature is as large as one's own, his rights as reasonable, his needs as important.”

Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

My thoughts;

Thank you for staying connected and reading these messages. My life has been blessed by meeting and knowing many different people from different places who have enriched my life in many ways, not the least of which is your willingness to stay connected as the weeks, months and years pass.

For as many Thursday mornings as I can remember I have indulged myself in looking for quotes, reading at least dozens each time and exploring authors, concepts and thoughts to come up with what I choose to share with you each week. This is a pleasurable challenge that has many side benefits for me. One I hadn't recognized until now is the clarity I am getting of my own sense of purpose through reflecting on the values represented in quotes, and that this weekly activity is strengthening what I know about myself and who I want to be.  It has been a process for me to trust that what I think is worth sharing (though sometimes it may not be, but I trust my intentions)

I'm realizing that having the courage to live up to my beliefs gives my life more meaning. The courage to speak when my gut feeling tells me it is okay or important to express my thoughts out loud, while accepting that they will not always be understood or agreed with. At times I take a big gulp before hitting Send for these Thursday messages because I understand they may be a stretch or a challenge for some, and that I may be sacrificing my desire to be liked and accepted by all. Often before I send them I go outside and look at the trees for a few minutes to breathe and regain perspective. And since the trees are still there, acting as trees, I get that I can be me.

I think about what I read, examine what I believe and evaluate my values. This helps me become the me that is like a tree; the me that acts like me because I know intrinsically all this important stuff about what makes me feel alive. I go through scenarios where I am the hero who faces my fear and leaps because to do anything less corrodes my belief in myself. I wonder what I'd do if I were to witness injustice being done such as those we hear and see in the media; what I'd do if I were on the street at the time George Floyd was being restrained, on a bus when some scared kid was being attacked, in an underground parking lot where a woman was being raped, at a park where someone was mistreating an animal... I am grateful that I have not been in any of these situations, but this leaves me wondering whether my values or my fears would determine my response. 

Yet my values are being tested everyday against more insidious abuses, the ones that others laugh at you for if you make a big deal of them, the nearly acceptable norms or the on the edge behaviour that we let go because it was a friend or because making waves might make it worse, or the ones that we are embarrassed to speak out loud or admit we've been less than honest about. The bullying that can happen anywhere by anyone, including people who I care for and respect. I even have to face that, it could be me being the bully. Abuse and meanness can be overt or covert and unless I choose to be vigilant and aware, to challenge that behaviour by anyone, anytime and anywhere, I am devaluing my values. Fear, laziness, ignorance, greed, etc., can act like a virus attacking my value system, each time I acquiesce to any of these they gain strength and my self esteem weakens.

If I do not have the conviction of my values and do not have the courage to face my fears I cannot do the kindness I want, I cannot do what my heart knows is right, I am not living with integrity and I will be defined more by what I don't do rather than what I do. My character is nothing if I do not stand up for what I believe.

"Know what's important and what isn't. Have the wisdom to know the right thing to do, the integrity to do it, the character to stand up to those who don't, and the courage to stop those who won't."
Mark Goulston

I wish you all a healthy, safe, warm, courageous Merry Christmas and I hope we can all share the miracle of kindness with ourselves, our families and friends, our communities, strangers, trees, the Earth, those we fear, and those we disagree with.

Thank you and warmest regards to you all

xo

Jeanne

Happy New Year (Dec 30th 2021)

 It has been said that love is a function of communication. I believe that to be true. I believe, by extension, that human understanding is a function of communication. And the better human beings understand one another, the higher the level of functioning.

Dan Pallotta; Dan Pallotta: The way we think about charity is dead wrong | TED Talk

“You’ll never change a community you don’t know, and you can’t begin to know a community until you hear, feel, taste and tramp through it.”

Robert Egger: Begging for Change: The dollars and sense of making non profits responsive, efficient and rewarding for all

"The future of every community lies in capturing the passion, imagination, and resources of its people."
Ernesto Sirolli

Thoughts for entering 2022

It seems to me that change will never happen when we are busy trying to patch up problems created by doing things the way we've always done them. The end of a year is a special time to reflect on our blessings and be grateful. 

I am thinking about where I can make a difference and take actions that will make people/someone feel heard, recognized, empowered, and valued. It does not matter if what I do is a drop in the bucket, a shot in the dark or a dead flop. We are like stars in the sky, billions of tiny lights, each different and each a part of a galaxy, and with billions of galaxies in the universe what difference does a tiny star make?? If all the stars grow dim our universe will be dark. I want my energy to keep my star burning bright because to do anything less is to waste the gift of life I've been given. 

I wish for all a healthy, safe, sharing, empowering, opportunity filled, energizing, exciting, warm, loving, giving and Happy New Year!!

Jeanne

“ALL of my models take things our society thinks aren’t pretty, or important—bruised fruit, bent veggies, felons, addicts, and older people—and we reveal their true beauty and value. In our kitchen, all food has power, and all people have potential.”

Robert Egger

“Wrinkled food or wrinkled people, the idea is to show that just because someone or something has a bruise, blemish, or wrinkle doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have an important role in strengthening our society. The goal is to look past the superficial and dig deep to reach the potential.”

Robert Egger

The future isn’t about how many pounds of food you move, but how you utilize every ounce to liberate, empower or uplift.

Robert Egger

Let go the load, lighten up! (January 15th)

 "Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

Dr Seuss

My today thoughts

Time to lighten up, to let go of needing to know, to stop allowing myself to get seduced into needing to figure out things that there is no neat, absolute answer to. Time to be content to learn what I can, where I can, how I can without needing the answers and getting bogged down discussing what and who to blame for things in this pandemic and crazy world and be content to do the best that I can. 

No matter how much sense we can make of what is happening externally, today is the only today we will have in our lives so it is a good day to live in!!  

"In this world there are very few things made from logic alone. It is illogical for man to be too logical. Some things we must just let stand. The mystery is more important than any possible explanation." 
Bryce Courtenay

"Life is all beginnings and ends. Nothing stays the same, lad."

Bryce Courtenay

"It's nothing to be ashamed of. There comes a time in everything when you don't know something."

Bryce Courtenay

Searching quotes on a gloomy January morning I came across these from Dr Seuss that were too apropo to thinking not to share:

"Think left and think right and think low and think high.
Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose."

"You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.”

"From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.”

"If things start happening, don’t worry, don’t stew, just go right along and you’ll start happening too.”

Cheers

Jeanne

Spelling Tuesday (January 20th)

 Quotes from Winnie the Pooh are good any time, but as January 18th was A.A.Milne's birthday and a random reminder popped up on my screen you were destined to get some wisdom from Winnie today.

“Spelling isn’t everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn’t count.”

A.A. Milne - Winnie The Pooh

Well thank you for this! I spend way too much time trying to do things when they don't need doing at the time ... 

“Before beginning a Hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it.”

WWtP

I trust this needs no interpretation

"When you are a bear of very little brain, and you think of things, you find sometimes that a thing which seemed very thinkish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”

WWtP

Trick: get the thinks into the open before spending much time on it.

"If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”

WWtP

Sometimes it is just that simple

"A hug is always the right size."

Winnie the Pooh

Cheers

Jeanne

Sand and secrets (January 27th)

 “We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.”

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

We say this is the way it is because this is the way it always was and we leave it at that but ... there is always much, much more.

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”
Roald Dahl

Cheers

Jeanne

What is the Answer and what the heck is the question? (January 6 2022)

 "Doing the right thing is not the problem, knowing what the right thing is, that's the challenge"

Lyndon B Johnson

"It is a mistake to suppose that there is always a single right answer to every moral dilemma."

Richard Norman

My thoughts;

2022 has begun and, although the change to a new calendar year feels like a divide between an old and a new, an opportune time to make change, it is merely another day in a life. Each change of day, change of hour, change of minute, change of second is a divide if I look at time as something that separates now from then, past from future, missed opportunity or potential for change.

What has time to do with Moral and Ethical challenges? 

Everything! In the future I will know the result of my action. This will determine the relative value of my decisions, but it does not help me now. Despite my intention for 2022 to stop worrying and accept I cannot be perfect and make everyone happy I am waking up at night worrying about the impact of choices I have made and need to make. Despite my intention to be the boss of my mind I am still ruminating over the potential consequences and fall out of alternative choices and what is the "right" thing to do. 

Choices need to be made in the flow, I can't wait to see what happens before I do something or I won't sleep. And, sadly, just because there is a time change my decisions do not become automatically better or wiser. The only way my decisions become better or wiser is because I can learn from them. And if I don't see any right answer the challenge is to determine, from my experience, what I believe is the best choice in the circumstances and then take responsibility for the results. 

How do I live with myself if the results turn out to hurt people I admire and care for or to make things harder for people already working hard ... I don't know... these are difficult decisions. I think of all the what ifs, and go in circles, I accept that is my process. Is there an absolute right and wrong... well that question takes me down a long and winding rabbit hole with many branching tunnels that I'm not going to explore today. While I may not make the same decision tomorrow or in 2023, right now my decision has to be based on my motives. If there is no absolute right or wrong then my moral compass has to be my guide. 

Sheesh I just want to retreat to the trees and their patience, and live in forest time. I know that today's issues will be resolved and there will be new ones tomorrow and this only matters now. This moment my experience and heart send me in one direction and my what ifs another. 

What would a tree do? Be! If a tree grows too tall and gets hit by lightning that just is. The tree recovers or not, changes course and grows stronger or continues stunted and weak. 

My choices today are not life or death. They are not as dramatic or life altering as being struck by lightning (I hope). I will close my eyes, hold my breath and plug my nose for a couple seconds, then jump where my heart and my concerns for the greater good take me. I will live with my choice and deal with the resulting choices with more experience and more sleep I hope.

Wishing you all the joy living in the Flow!! This is a very alive, learning, growing place to be, definitely not boring:-)

Cheers

Jeanne

Sense of an Owl

 "We all want the complicated world we live in to make sense. So we tell ourselves stories to fill in the gaps of what are effectively blind spots.”

Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money

I listened to The Psychology of Money on a long road trip recently. Besides being an interesting read with practical examples and advice about wealth and investing The Psychology of Money offers a look at why and how our experience and reactions determine the stories we choose to make up to explain things we don't understand. 

“wise old owl lived in an oak,
The more he saw the less he spoke,
The less he spoke, the more he heard,
Why aren’t we all like that wise old bird?”

Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money

Cheers

Jeanne