Crunch Time

The mauraders of change

A ship ladened with gold, silver, and precious jewels was on its way back to port when it was suddenly confronted by a pirate ship, skull and crossbones flag waving in the wind. The first mate asked the captain what they should do. The captain simply replied, "Bring me my red shirt". They repelled the pirates with out sustaining any casualties.

A few days later the ship was confronted not by one but by three pirate ships. The first mate asked the captain what they should do. His reply again was, "Bring me my red shirt". The captain fought valiantly and was an inspiration to the rest of the crew. They again held off the pirates with very few casualites.

That night as they were celebrating, the first mate asked the captain what the secret of the red shirt was. "It's quite simple," replied the captain. "I wear the red shirt because then the men won't see the blood from my wounds and will be inspired to continue to fight."

Another couple days went by when yet again they were confronted by pirate ships. The strength of the mauraders this time was an armada of ten ships. The first mate, in a panic, asked the captain what they should do. The captain answered, "First mate, bring me my brown pants."

There are many reasons today to wear our brown pants. The mauraders of change that bear down upon us can cause great fear and a trepidation:

The Financial Marauder: We are currently living in the worst economic times since the Great Depression of the 1930's. No one has been immune to its residual effects. People either are, or know someone who is, laid off or underemployed and struggling to make ends meet.

So we wear our brown pants.

The Technological Marauder: We live in a day and age of rapid technological advancement. It's exciting, but is still wrought with fear. Are we able to keep up with the accelerated innovations? As more and more functions are being taken over by technological automation, where does that leave the workforce? With the blending of fact and fiction, real and digital (atoms and bits) what does it mean to be human?

And so, we wear our brown pants.

The Environmental Maurader: The degredation of our natural habitat is quickening. The warming of the planet is causing frequent and powerful weather events. Earthquakes remind us that we are beholden to the natural moans and groans of our planet.

And so, we wear our brown pants.

The Educational Maurader: Our public school system is the focus of much critique. No matter how much money we throw at our concerns, education in the United States is lagging in many ways the rest of the world. The answer to the question, 'What does it mean to be well educated today?" does not seem to align with the answer of our current educational systems.

And so, we wear our brown pants.

These are just a few of the mauraders  that are sailing the waters of incredible change. We could come up with many more. The challenges and opportunities are all there before us, confronting our abilities to engage in significant ways. Fear is there, yes, but so too is the adrenaline of where we can go with these changes. The onus is on us to engage them with confidence and in ways that will better the world - or at least our little corner of it.

The dynamics of resilience

Resilient people are characterized by actions, events and experiences which collectively embody the
qualities that enable one not only to overcome what others may experience as disasters, but to utilize such experiences to bounce back to an exhilarating resolve. We canʼt stop change but we can choose how we respond to it. The really good news is that resilience is not an inborn personality trait, but a set of skills and attitudes that can be learned, dynamics that provoke our ability to bounce and thrive.

Here are some of the dynamics of resilience:

• Resilience is knowing the nature and ramifications of the changes we experience
• Resilience is engaging the ramifications of change with courage and honesty
• Resilience is navigating life with an unwavering resolve to succeed
• Resilience is perceiving success as living out the core reason for who they are
• Resilience is embracing uncertainty and finding unexpected, untapped opportunities
• Resilience is relating richly with others for support in tough situations.
• Resilience is allowing mistakes to provide the fuel for innovation
• Resilience is living effectively in the moment; and leveraging opportunities

 

The power of trivial acts

During World War II, a Jewish woman was riding a city bus home from work when SS storm troopers suddenly stopped the coach and began examining the identification papers of passengers. Most were annoyed, but a few were terrified. Jews were being told to leave the bus and get into a truck around the corner.

The woman watched from her seat in the rear as the soldiers systematically worked their way down the aisle. She began to tremble, tears streaming down her face. When the man next to her noticed that she was crying, he politely asked why.

“I don’t have the papers you have. I am a Jew. They’re going to take me.”

The man exploded in disgust. He began to curse and scream at her. “You stupid bitch,” he roared. “I can’t stand being near you!”

The SS men asked what all the yelling was about.
“Damn her,” the man shouted angrily. “My wife has forgotten her papers again! I’m so fed up. She always does this!”

The soldiers laughed and moved on.

There are times when a task that only you can do finds you. It is at that moment you have to fulfill part of your destiny, to be who it is you were truly meant to be. Vibrant people know that such moments arise at unexpected times and in unfamiliar places. They are ready and willing enough to respond to moments of self-sacrifice, even risk. They know that all of us are in this thing called life together, and the actions of one can impact the lives of many. It often all funnels down to the power of seemingly trivial acts.

Facing the Lion

There is a story of a man who had a recurrent dream that he was being pursued by a ferocious, terrifying lion. The fear and subsequent retreat for his life left him exhausted, and weakened. He would eventually wake himself up with terrifying screams.

As he recounted the dream to a friend, his friend suggested that next time in the dream he should confront the lion head on and figure out who or what he was doing in the man’s life. A few nights later he had the dream of the lion chasing him. Instead of running away, the man turned and engaged the lion with terrifying roars and teeth meant to shred through flesh. In fear, the man asked, “Who are you? What do you want?” The lion replied, “I am your courage and your strength! Why do you keep running away from me?”

That is a great little story. The fear of fear is worst than the fear itself. Flip the perspective of crisis in your life. See it as an opportunity to find the courage you need. You can’t run away from it, no one can. Life is filled with adversity, setbacks, and losses. So turn and face it and find the courage you need to overcome. The crisis that you face has all the inherent resources you need to thrive. Sometimes you don’t need to look any further for help than within the crisis itself. Sounds impossible?

Just consider that inherent within every crisis is its openness to be shaped. How? through the power of your perception. This is your explanatory style. You can explain tough and stressful events either through positive or negative explanations. The crisis will conform to the perception. What is your default thought process when confronted with a challenge. Is it shaping the crisis with engaging or retreating perceptions?

Inherent within crisis is its humility to allow others to act. When I was going through a very tough bout of depression my counselor told me I needed to give people the honor of ministering to me. That was tough. I always wanted to be the one who was counted on to help. It was humbling to think I needed help from others. But the crisis allowed me to give to others the honor of helping. You know what? All were available and willing to be there for me when I needed it.

Crisis provides the gift of wisdom. Remember what I mentioned about “scar tissue”? It is the wounds that crisis inflicts that give us the depth of insight and wisdom toward life we couldn’t get without crisis giving it them to us..

Made for the struggle

We were made for the struggle. The human race has shown an amazing ability to be resilient in tough times- we all wouldn’t be here otherwise. Exposure to struggle, setbacks, and adversity can steel us to function better than expected with future challenges. It is similar to an inoculation that gives us the strength to resist future exposure to a disease.

Often the deepest joy comes from going through crisis and growing into a stronger, more vibrant person. Meaninglessness in life comes not from having too much pain, but from having too much pleasure. As much as we might not want it, inevitable adversity leads to a depth of meaning that can be garnered no other way.

Becoming a stronger person because of adversity and setbacks is one of the deeper satisfactions in life. However, in order to thrive in the midst of them, we must make a choice. As was previously mentioned, you can either choose to let the situation shackle you with weakness and insecurity or you can choose to lean forward into the headwinds of the storm and find the strength to walk on through.

Choice is the choice to give up choices. When confronted with a difficult situation you must make the choice to give up the choice to give in. It must not even be an option in your mind. You must have a whole hearted resolve to face the difficulty full on and accept the pain that comes along with it. It’s tough though. And there’s the kicker. The weaker response of giving in to adversity is the easier way. That’s why so many people wallow through life. Giving up rather than getting up is a cowardly response that doesn’t take much effort. It’s also surrendering to self-pity and inactivity- the enemies of resolve.

Getting up from tough times takes courage and strength. Its a battle, and a tough one at that. It’s the wounds of that battle that leads to wisdom. I call it “scar tissue”. People who have scar tissue healed by resilience are the wisest, most vibrant of people I know. They become the sages that people seek out for insight on their own quest to thrive.  So, be strong rather than weak, spunky rather than dull, and feisty rather than flaccid.

We're all bipolar

There are two ways to respond to adversity, setbacks, and losses. You can either survive or you can thrive. In other words, you can be weak or strong. The choice is yours. Two people can be laid off from work. One will start his own internet company and become successful, the other will wallow and be paralyzed by self-pity. The circumstances are the same, but the responses are wildly different. I am continuing to explore why that is. Resilience is key. The answer to how one bounces back and thrives is essential to succeeding in today’s whirlwind changes and challenges and makes all the difference in the world.

Living with and managing the emotional oscillations of bipolar II disorder (manic-depression) since I was 15 has been the defining and most challenging aspect of my life. It wasn’t correctly diagnosed until I was 47, so any treatment up to that time was ineffective. Back then we didn’t know what we were dealing with exactly, and if we did, there weren’t many treatment options available. The result has been bone jarring depression through most of my young and productive years. One needs to bounce back from a painful past as well. Many do; many do not.

When the manic moments kicked in, I misperceived them as my normal self. They, too, however were irrational and detrimental.  It was a rough go for a long time.

I now have an amazing doctor who helps me manage my illness and an incredible support system that encourages me in my journey. Particularly me wife, who is a model of resiliency as she continues to bounce back from the ramifications of my illness on our lives and is instrumental in helping our family thrive in spite of it. I married way over my head, and one of the most resilient persons on the planet!!

All that is to say, my experience has given me first hand knowledge, and the “scar tissue”, to explore the dynamics of being strong and weak (manic and depression) in responding to events in life. Depression could have led to many tragic responses, but I resisted those. The mania could have gotten me into big trouble in many ways, but I resisted those. Why is that? I believe it was resilience, and the openness to allow crisis to grow into a better, stronger person.

I also realized that life itself is bipolar. There are ebbs and flows, ups and downs, weakness and strength. It can often seem that there are more lows in life than highs. There is no getting around that. We need to accept that that is life and move on. To do so requires resilient skills for dealing with the relentless and accelerating challenges of life, and making the choice to live effectively in its oscillating, wavelike reality.

The definition of resilience

There are many popular attempts to summarize the challenges of everyday existence. Some of the more humorous ones are found on bumper stickers- insights boiled down to pithy statements. One I saw lately that made me laugh was, “there is no gravity, the earth sucks”. Quite an insight on life!
There are other avenues of course to describe life, from scholarly tomes to the movies (remember Forrest Gump and his “life is like a box of chocolates”?). My favorite description comes from a Jewish rabbi:

“Life is tough.   It takes up a lot of your time, all your weekends, and what do you get in the end of it?...I thing that the life cycle is all backward.  You should die first, get it out of the way.  Then you live twenty years in an old-age home.  You get kicked out when you’re too young.  You get a gold watch, you go to work.  You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy retirement.   You go to college; you party until you’re ready for high school; you go to grade school; you become a little kid; you play.   You have no responsibilities. You become a little baby; you go back into the womb; you spend your last months floating; and you finish up as a gleam in somebody’s eye.”

I love that! Today though, it seems as if the gleam is gone. So much going on so quickly it creates stresses and strains on a continual basis. That isn’t to say that there aren’t wonderful aspects of our times. There are many. It’s just that past comforts and ways of solving our problems are fast receding. What is needed today is a new orientation; a new way of being, thinking and doing that are effective in engaging contemporary challenges. We need a mental fortitude and emotional resolve that are up to the task. We also need behaviors that are appropriate to the moment. So how do we develop body, mind, and soul capable of taking advantage of the next round of changes? Through resilience.

Diane Coutu summarized the depth of resilience in an excellent Harvard Business Review article and described its dynamic this way:

“Resilience is a reflex, a way of facing and understanding the world, that is deeply etched into a person’s mind and soul. Resilient people and companies face reality with staunchness, make meaning of hardship instead of crying out in despair, and improve solutions from thin air. Others do not.”

Who you are as a person is revealed most tellingly by who you are during times of conflict and crisis.  It's you're ability to bounce back and thrive from life changing times.

Welcome to the outer limits

The old, funky television show “The Outer Limits” had one of the most creative openings I can remember. The screen you were watching would begin as a test pattern. Then suddenly it would begin to morph and act erratically as an ominous voice would begin to narrate,

“There is nothing wrong with your television set” it would intone, “Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. For the next hour we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to the outer limits.”

It seems today that we have entered a place in the outer limits. The speed of change is mind boggling. We are held captive to a test pattern and we feel as if we have no control over our situation and its extraordinary changes.

The subsequent anxiety often expresses itself as a vice-like compression deep in the gut. Our thoughts race around in our skulls first thing in the morning toward what seems an insurmountable finish line. Days become reflective, many times obsessive, about the state of our lives and the condition of our world.

It’s no wonder. I believe we are in an unprecedented time of change, the likes of which have been experienced only a few times before. It’s an evolutionary exclamation point in human history.

Alvin Toffler’s "Social Wave-Front Analysis" looks at history as a succession of rolling waves of change and asks where the leading edge of each wave is carrying us. It focuses our attention not so much on the continuities of history as on the discontinuities--the innovations and breakpoints.
The First Wave in human history was the agricultural revolution.  It was during this time we learned to cultivate the land and grow fruits and vegetables from seeds.  It lasted for thousands of years.

The Second Wave was the industrial revolution. During this time we learned to harness the energy of steam, coal, and oil to advance the ability of machines to make work more efficient and our lives more convenient.  This lasted for hundreds of years.

The Third Wave of human development is what Toffler calls the information age.  This movement is only decades in the making and we are still trying to catch up with the speed of its change and its far-reaching impact on what it means to be human.

This is our time…this is when we discover what we are really made of...

That's the irony. Our true character doesn't reveal itself when times are sedate or situations are easy. It emerges when we are brought to the brink of intense challenges.  What a great opportunity to strengthen our resolve and build the mental and emotional moxie such times require.

 

Look up and smile

I was walking my dog around the park by my house. Other people were doing the same- it was a nice day after all. I noticed that when people on the path going the opposite direction passed me, no one looked up, no one smiled. They kept to the tasks at hand - their walk and their dog. They seemed so serious.

Although, in all honesty, I found myself hesitant to look up and smile. There was an uneasiness to make human contact - to look up and smile. Why is that?. In my generational presentations I reference what sociologists call the "depersonalization of society". Take our neighbors as an example. My parents, and especially my grandparents, knew the first and last name of everyone on their block. When I ask members of the audience how many of them knew the first and last name of their neighbors, hardly any hands go.

I remember when the sniper attacks were occuring in Washington D.C. about six years ago. No one knew at that time who was randomly picking human beings off of parking lots and gas stations. The newscasts in Denver suggested that it could be someone as simple as your neighbor - "details at ten!".

Isn't true that we are scared of those we don't know? It seems we hardly know our own neighbors- and have become apprehensive of "the other".  We are a fearful society. Fearful of so many people and those who are unfamiliar to us. I find it rather sad.

So, I want to start a revolution to counter the depersonalization of society. I want to see if we might be able to reverse the process and become more like the social animals we are intended to be. Next time you walk by another human being, or find yourself in a room full of people you don't know, simply look up and smile. The next time I walk my dog, I am going to be very intentional about looking up and smiling at everyone I pass. Maybe it will catch on like a yawn, causing others to look up and smile with people they don't know. Take the initiative. Let's see what happens

Why depression will persist

I've often wondered what evolutionary purpose depression serves. Its been around as long as the human race has walked this earth. Because it has persisted so long and has not been phased out, it must be beneficial to our survival right?. But why?

When I'm in its throes, I don't considered my depression as beneficial to my life. Even its effects on my life have been challenging: It has stalled my life vocationally, strained relationships, and done a real number on my self-esteem. Yet reluctantly I believe it must persist. It must not be eradicated fully.  Here are my reasons:

1. In order to experience the full spectrum of human emotion, depression must be part of the mix. You cannot define happiness unless you can reference it to sadness. The reverse is also true.
2. It slows us down and causes us to ponder the deeper issues of humanity. Most of the great poetry and artisitic confrontation with the world has been birthed in the depressed heart of the artist.  It gives the existential questions of life an honest hearing.
3. Enjoyment of life is fully seized. Because of my depression, I am much more intentional about making my life truly significant. Time with my kids and wife and others is rarely squandered in my better moments.  I gotta seize the day.
4. Depression makes us empathetic to the pain of others. People who have experienced deep depression can resonate deeply with another's pain, no matter how intense. It provides comfort and consolation.
5. It inspires us to make the needed changes to make our world a better place. There is much about our society and world that is less than inspiring (you know intuitively what they are). In fact they can be downright depressing. Confronting the tough issues and helping to transform our world so they no longer drag down the heart is essential for a better world and a movement toward a meaningful future.

As much as I dread the moment of agony I know will come again, I persist in the belief that its gotta be good for my soul - and so I carry on...