To be clear, I am being far more practical than spiritual.
True, sometimes we get backed up and have no choice but to enter a down-and-dirty race for a deadline or attack the too-long-ignored list of to-dos. But how often is our compulsive behavior simply a habit? And how often does this habit have more to do with trying to prove we are worthy, than satisfying a real need?
If there is always a line of people beckoning, have we put ourselves in a position of being responsible for too much?
If everyone IS depending upon you, who can you depend upon?
Think about it and make sure you are taking care of yourself. ~Vicki
Alan Alda has been my “boyfriend” since Mash and when I found out he was smart and a good husband, in addition to being adorable, he entered the main room of my Hall of Admiration.
Below Kevin Dickinson outlines Alda’s rule of three for effective communication. Considering how much material we skim and try to stuff into our brains daily, using this method might actually backfire and lead us to realize we don’t know what we are trying to communicate!
Check it out and have a good Spring Sunday!
Hug
Vicki P
3 Rules to Express Your Thoughts So Everyone Will Understand You (excerpt)
by Kevin Dickinson
(…)
Whether from public speaking or just having a heart-to-heart, life is full of these types of conversations. You’ve been there, I’ve been there, and Alan Alda has been there.
Though best known for his role on the 1970s sitcom M*A*S*H, Alda is a public speaker, science enthusiast, and long-time advocate for better science communication. He has interviewed scientists as the host of Scientific American Frontiers, won the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award, and founded the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University.
In that time, he has developed a playbook of strategies to help people engage in conversation and voice their ideas clearly. If these tips can help biologists explain genetic drift, physicists Hawking radiation, or linguists anything about Chomskyan linguistics, then chances are they can help us express our thoughts and feelings when we need others to understand them the most.
You’d be forgiven if you think lateral thinking is something that only works in the creative industry. After all, who would need to think outside the box in real life? The answer is everyone.
Anyone can find themselves in a situation where traditional thinking simply won’t cut it. It could be a job interview, clarifying a new idea, making a life-changing decision, or another challenge you face daily.
Thinkers like Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, and Thomas Edison all had one thing in common: they were all masters of lateral thinking.
They were able to view problems from unusual angles, coming up with creative or original solutions that others simply couldn’t see.
The School of Life had a recent post on the “inner idiot” – the one we all shelter within. Obviously the more we accept our own idiot, the more we will accept the idiot in others.
In the coming week, when someone’s actions surprise us, we could remember today’s post and remember, “Oh, maybe I need to find the humor in this!” (Or maybe compassion.)
Good luck!
Hugs to all,
Vicki P
THE INNER IDIOT
‘The Inner Idiot’ is a bracing term used to describe a substantial, hugely influential and strenuously concealed part of everyone. An Idiot is what we deeply fear being, it is what we suspect in our darkest hours that we might be – and it is what we should simply accept, with humour and good grace, that we often truly are. A decent life isn’t one in which we foolishly believe we can slay or evade The Inner Idiot; it’s one in which we practice the only art available to us: sensible cohabitation.
