The Art of Possibility.............
After reading the first four chapters and taking notes, I wonder to myself, “should I write what the instructor wants to hear?” or fully embrace the spirit of the risk-taking improvisational soloist?
In my view as a self-help book or book of enlightenment it is a re-hash of other works but it does contain good insights into human nature, specifically:
Challenge all your assumptions
This is really hard for us to do. Just like the frog, we make decisions to survive and spend little time in mediation or reflection regarding our assumptions. Being able to question everything is a gift. As a physicist I always append everything with a disclaimer that reads: “As far as we know” and it drives my peers crazy. They often ask me how I can say that since we just observed or measured particular phenomena. I remind them that as a species, we know very little and haven’t even answered the universes top ten big easy questions yet somehow we feel educated by performing and experiment or solving a math equation. I always think of what Pontius Pilate asked, “What is truth?”
Ask yourself “What is possible?”
This is truly powerful. Being able to dream and visualize and conceive of possibilities truly taps into the human spirit. Dreaming unleashes potential and sometimes allows us to do more that we ever thought possible. This idea of having students write a letter from the future starting with, “Why I got an A…..” was an excellent idea presented in the book.
Be Present
Being present is something that people do not often do in their own lives. They are focused on the voice in their head or focusing on a little screen of pixels. Someone recently said that we need to switch from human-doers to human-beings. Instead of constantly being distracted by our own thoughts or desires we need to be present in our lives. We need to connect with those around so that we can truly see, listen, and resonate with those around us.
People will do a great thing, but begrudge a small thing
This concept reminds of a quote from Napoleon,
“A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him.”
Every human being wants their existence to matter. If you have no purpose, why get out of bed in the morning. We need a reason to drive us forward or as Napoleon put it ‘electrify us’ or ‘speak to our soul’. If you ask someone to do something simple like take out the garbage they will groan, but if you ask them to organize the cleanup and trash collection for a benefit dinner for the parents of kids killed in Afghanistan, they will willingly do it because they feel it matters. Just like the parent that groaned at giving their child $2000 but happily gave all of her children $20,000 each. That parent saw an opportunity to make a difference and embraced it.
In closing, since I was lukewarm on the readings, here are my picks for your reading list:
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
Ecclesiastes by King Solomon
Response:
Michael, I opted for your blog as I felt you [like myself] are a ‘green’ personality, a logical person who looks at things with that disposition. I was very interested to see your view of the ‘self-help’ book as you mention, and although I generally feel similarly about that style of book; for me this one went beyond just rehashing by providing stories that brought the help aspects alive. Your evaluation and recap of the points that you felt stood out are spot on and I especially enjoyed your thoughts on ‘Be Present’ – this is sadly something that often gets lost today. Even in times of quiet reflection folks can be seen staring off into space, minds off and racing on what
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