Monday, May 12th, 2008 |
The Positivity Blog has a great post from a couple months back that is appropriate for this time of the year. While spring has been around for awhile some places, those of us in the northeast are still sorting out our feelings about whether it should be Winter or Summer right now. Fortunately this means we should be moving toward some semblance of Spring. Thus Spring Cleaning and renewal are just what the decorator and doctor are calling for.
The post goes over seven sayings from Bruce Lee that should help make your life a simpler and happier. I’ll share my two favorites and my own commentary. Then make sure you head over and see the full list of seven.
“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”
Life has become so hectic. It seems to have become a new extreme sport to add more activities to our daily lives. Now the point has come where many people are too stressed by the number of things packed into their limited schedule they no longer know how to get any of it done. For a lot of people, that is the same way the weekend goes.
No matter if you are at home or work, cut back! Examine what you are doing and eliminate as many things as you can. You will be happier at home and more productive at work. Don’t believe me? Try it for a week.
“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”
In a culture driven by the rich and famous, it might seem like a curse to not be one of the beautiful ones. However, trying to be somebody famous will kill off the person inside you who could be famous. You are already a full, unique person. Never dislodge what you are to make room for what you are not.
Posted in Individual Development | No Comments »
Sunday, January 20th, 2008 |
This is one of 3 articles to help introduce and explain the basic ideas and tenets of Sustainable Democracy. The Pillars follow a progression from smallest to largest. From the individual, to the community, to the society. This article will focus on the most basic part of society, the individual. Availability of resources is also based on that of an industrialized nation, the lack or absence of basic needs in developing or third world nations will be discussed in the article on society.
The Individual in Sustainable Democracy
We often think of the individual either as the rugged individual or as one unit of a more collective society. Very few nations (perhaps none) actually fall at these extremes; however, our thinking is generally controlled by these competing philosophies. Sustainable Democracy does not provide any radical alternative to these systems; it instead creates a radical synthesis of them.
No individual is a slave to society. We are not ants that need to be driven to provide and create so that the colony may survive and grow. At the same time we are not isolated islands or mountains that must hoard resources or seek power over everything around us in order to succeed. The outer edges of each extreme viewpoint can be cut off entirely. So now we know what the concept of the individual is not.
The new individual is a community member driven by his or her own passion to create. This individual is also largely free of the need to produce in order to meet the basic needs of survival. Consider:
There is likely no time in your life where the necessities for survival were absent. Food, water, shelter, and clothing are all in abundant supply. We have, however created a situation where unless the individual produces something that can be readily consumed, they may still lack access to these resources. While our ability to provide has been exponentially increased we have never changed the thought that individuals are in a zero-sum game for very scarce resources. The extreme energy put out to produce and consume as much as possible is counter to the ability to survive where competition over basic goods in entirely unnecessary.
In this way there needs to be a fundamental shift in what an individual produces. Rather than expending maximum effort to produce endless variations of consumer goods in order to shut competitors down, the focus must be on advancing community. Essentially, every individual should be in a competition of research.
Our ability to produce is well testified to. If we were to eliminate as many people from the act of production as possible and re-task them to improving and creating better operations or products we could perhaps enhance our ability to advance through technology tenfold. It should not be the effort of any society to produce more. It should be the focused effort of every individual to innovate in their area of expertise to produce the least quantity needed at the minimal effort required to produce the best results. Every individual should refine themselves in the same way. Why create more work if you can produce fewer, higher quality good or ideas in substantially less time.
Therefore the individual is striving to advance the community through the focused effort of their individual creativity and passion. This is an individual who is actively working to create their own optimum life and working toward fulfillment and self-actualization.
Please, tell me what you think. What problem do you see with this description? Do you think this is a functional view of the individual or not (and why)?
I will address any concerns and further elaborate these ideas in many more articles.
Posted in Individual Development, sustainable democracy | 7 Comments »
