Discussing what should be done - is worthwhile - it's part of critical thinking. Yes, you should be critical - but you also have to be idealistic - otherwise, how will you know whether any given solution - is good or not?
Showing posts with label be realistic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label be realistic. Show all posts
What is ideal might not be possible, but it's still worth thinking about
Discussing what should be done - is worthwhile - it's part of critical thinking. Yes, you should be critical - but you also have to be idealistic - otherwise, how will you know whether any given solution - is good or not?
Feeling Secure
Life is a crap shoot and then you die. How can you feel secure in an indifferent world?
One of the existential issues people face is how to find meaning in a meaningless universe. Or to put it another way. How can I maintain my sanity if none of the crap I experience in life means anything and there is no guarantee that crap will stop happening?
That is a darned good question. One that doesn’t have a good answer. Which is why people use a wide variety of coping mechanisms to deal with the angst this reality creates in us.
The Humanist approach is a realistic approach. Instead of trying to find meaning to pacify our brains or trying to trick ourselves into thinking everything will be alright if we just pretend the universe is not a random collection of energy manifesting as things, we just accept this reality as scary as it seems.
Life is random. It’s random we were even born. We could have just as easily not been born. There are no guarantees in life. We may die tomorrow with our work unfinished. We may suffer a lot, or a little. We have no way of knowing. Here’s the weird part. I write this as a Humanist and it doesn’t upset me. Crazy, I know.
But here’s what happens once I accept the worst that could happen. I start to think, now what? What am I going to do with the time I have alive? What is under my control and what isn’t? I may not be able to control everything in my life, but I can certainly control some things. I do have some agency. And it’s in agency (the ability to make decisions and to act on them) that I have hope.
Life may be a crap shoot. And I’m definitely going to die. But right now I’m alive and despite life’s uncertainty and hardships, there is also love and music and light and beaches and cats and kids and food. There are people I can positively influence right now. While I’m alive. Why should I waste the little moments of happiness I find worrying about things that may or may not happen?
The serenity prayer is about changing the things you can change and accepting the things you can’t. The key – having the wisdom to know the difference. You can’t change the basic nature of the universe. No amount of prayer or wishful thinking can change that. So accept it. And work on the things you can change.
Do you really need to fuss over things that ultimately don’t matter in the big scheme of things? No. You don’t. Accepting the futility of it all helps you to be more calm.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care or actively work to make things better. You should. After all, even if things don’t matter in the big scheme of things, they do matter right now. To you. And to the people whose lives you can impact right now.
Camus spoke of the absurdity of life. The balance we all have to strike is how to live life fully despite the futility of it all. Accepting the reality of your death doesn’t mean your work is futile. It matters. Right now. And that actually is enough.
To learn more about how to cope with these existential issues – consider reading my book: The Humanist Approach to Happiness: Practical Wisdom and taking my online course – Living Made Simpler.
One of the existential issues people face is how to find meaning in a meaningless universe. Or to put it another way. How can I maintain my sanity if none of the crap I experience in life means anything and there is no guarantee that crap will stop happening?
That is a darned good question. One that doesn’t have a good answer. Which is why people use a wide variety of coping mechanisms to deal with the angst this reality creates in us.
The Humanist approach is a realistic approach. Instead of trying to find meaning to pacify our brains or trying to trick ourselves into thinking everything will be alright if we just pretend the universe is not a random collection of energy manifesting as things, we just accept this reality as scary as it seems.
Life is random. It’s random we were even born. We could have just as easily not been born. There are no guarantees in life. We may die tomorrow with our work unfinished. We may suffer a lot, or a little. We have no way of knowing. Here’s the weird part. I write this as a Humanist and it doesn’t upset me. Crazy, I know.
But here’s what happens once I accept the worst that could happen. I start to think, now what? What am I going to do with the time I have alive? What is under my control and what isn’t? I may not be able to control everything in my life, but I can certainly control some things. I do have some agency. And it’s in agency (the ability to make decisions and to act on them) that I have hope.
Life may be a crap shoot. And I’m definitely going to die. But right now I’m alive and despite life’s uncertainty and hardships, there is also love and music and light and beaches and cats and kids and food. There are people I can positively influence right now. While I’m alive. Why should I waste the little moments of happiness I find worrying about things that may or may not happen?
The serenity prayer is about changing the things you can change and accepting the things you can’t. The key – having the wisdom to know the difference. You can’t change the basic nature of the universe. No amount of prayer or wishful thinking can change that. So accept it. And work on the things you can change.
Do you really need to fuss over things that ultimately don’t matter in the big scheme of things? No. You don’t. Accepting the futility of it all helps you to be more calm.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care or actively work to make things better. You should. After all, even if things don’t matter in the big scheme of things, they do matter right now. To you. And to the people whose lives you can impact right now.
Camus spoke of the absurdity of life. The balance we all have to strike is how to live life fully despite the futility of it all. Accepting the reality of your death doesn’t mean your work is futile. It matters. Right now. And that actually is enough.
To learn more about how to cope with these existential issues – consider reading my book: The Humanist Approach to Happiness: Practical Wisdom and taking my online course – Living Made Simpler.
Idealism vs. Reality – when trying to change the world
A leader should have the right blend of idealism tempered by reality.
I have grand plans. I intend to change the world. Teaching people how to stop bullies with science and compassion (and yes it works – read my book The Bully Vaccine to learn more), can have a tremendous positive impact on our society.
Imagine if no child were bullied. What would those kids who would otherwise be traumatized be like as adults. Imagine if no child every learned to bully because their peers shut it down in the early grades. What would those kids be like as adults? What would society be like?
This may seem like a pipe dream. And yes, it’s the ideal. What would the world be like if ... that’s the ideal. In order to make that a reality, I have to have a strategy. And that strategy needs to be based in reality. What is feasible? What is possible? How much is this going to cost? Where will I get the money? How can I, me, little ole me without any help, teach every parent in America how to teach their kids how to stop bullying.
Well, when I put it that way, it seems unrealistic. Except that it isn’t. Most parents work and workplaces give them training. Specifically a large number of American adults receive sexual harassment training biannually. What would happen IF that training taught them not just that harassment is against the law so don’t do it. But what IF that training also taught them how to actually stop harassing behavior using behavioral science? WE would not only be teaching them how to handle difficult people for real, we would also be teaching them the skills they need to be teaching their kids. Suddenly my idealist vision is gaining realistic clarity. It’s actually doable.
So why am I sharing my business plan in grand form with you here? Well, because IF you are in charge of providing sexual harassment training to your staff, I want you to consider me. Not only will you get an awesome training, but your staff will actually thank you for it as well. I mean really – it would be nice if the harassment training actually taught people how to STOP harassment. Right? (details at: https://humanistlearning.com/?p=2267)
The other reason I wanted to share this with you has to do with your goals as a humanistic leader. I don’t want to be a leader for the sake of being a leader. I am a leader because I want to make the world a better place. I’m driven to do so and, while I’m clearly a cock-eyed optimist, I’m also a realist. I can see what needs to be done to make my vision a reality. The rest of it is convincing other people to join me. That’s where leadership comes in.
In order to be a leader, you have to have people willing to follow you. To get them to follow you, you have to know not only WHERE you are going, but WHY you are going there and most importantly HOW you plan to get there and WHO you want to have help you get there.
I capitalized the important words so you can see them more clearly. Notice they are question words. WHERE/WHAT, WHY, HOW and WHO! If you don’t have an answer to those questions, people won’t follow you. To get answers to those questions, you need to be both idealistic and realistic. And that’s what makes a great leader.
I have grand plans. I intend to change the world. Teaching people how to stop bullies with science and compassion (and yes it works – read my book The Bully Vaccine to learn more), can have a tremendous positive impact on our society.
Imagine if no child were bullied. What would those kids who would otherwise be traumatized be like as adults. Imagine if no child every learned to bully because their peers shut it down in the early grades. What would those kids be like as adults? What would society be like?
This may seem like a pipe dream. And yes, it’s the ideal. What would the world be like if ... that’s the ideal. In order to make that a reality, I have to have a strategy. And that strategy needs to be based in reality. What is feasible? What is possible? How much is this going to cost? Where will I get the money? How can I, me, little ole me without any help, teach every parent in America how to teach their kids how to stop bullying.
Well, when I put it that way, it seems unrealistic. Except that it isn’t. Most parents work and workplaces give them training. Specifically a large number of American adults receive sexual harassment training biannually. What would happen IF that training taught them not just that harassment is against the law so don’t do it. But what IF that training also taught them how to actually stop harassing behavior using behavioral science? WE would not only be teaching them how to handle difficult people for real, we would also be teaching them the skills they need to be teaching their kids. Suddenly my idealist vision is gaining realistic clarity. It’s actually doable.
So why am I sharing my business plan in grand form with you here? Well, because IF you are in charge of providing sexual harassment training to your staff, I want you to consider me. Not only will you get an awesome training, but your staff will actually thank you for it as well. I mean really – it would be nice if the harassment training actually taught people how to STOP harassment. Right? (details at: https://humanistlearning.com/?p=2267)
The other reason I wanted to share this with you has to do with your goals as a humanistic leader. I don’t want to be a leader for the sake of being a leader. I am a leader because I want to make the world a better place. I’m driven to do so and, while I’m clearly a cock-eyed optimist, I’m also a realist. I can see what needs to be done to make my vision a reality. The rest of it is convincing other people to join me. That’s where leadership comes in.
In order to be a leader, you have to have people willing to follow you. To get them to follow you, you have to know not only WHERE you are going, but WHY you are going there and most importantly HOW you plan to get there and WHO you want to have help you get there.
I capitalized the important words so you can see them more clearly. Notice they are question words. WHERE/WHAT, WHY, HOW and WHO! If you don’t have an answer to those questions, people won’t follow you. To get answers to those questions, you need to be both idealistic and realistic. And that’s what makes a great leader.
Feeling Overwhelmed?
Learning how to take 1 thing at a time is a critical skill for leaders.
My dad died a couple of months ago. I bring this up not for sympathy but because it left me feeling overwhelmed. I simply didn’t have the brain power to do much of anything besides grieve. And that’s ok. It’s kind of expected with grief.
The problem is that the world doesn’t stop when I feel overwhelmed. I still had things to do, a family to care for, work related tasks and publication deadlines to make. As much as I might want to scream – stop the world I want to get off – it’s not going to happen.
The hard part in doing one thing at a time is not worrying about the other things that also need to get done. To help me with this – I write out a timeline – what all needs to get done. Knowing that I am not going to miss something helps me focus in the present on the 1 thing I need to do. When I am done, I look at the list for the next thing.
And when other things come up that I need to deal with – I look at my list. It’s either time for me to work on that other thing or it’s not. My to do list helps me to reject intrusions that I can’t handle at the moment. I might add them to a to do later list, but I’m not taking them on right at this minute.
What I find when I do this is that by allowing myself to be overwhelmed and allowing myself to restrict my activities to just those things that I really have to do and by doing them 1 thing at a time, I fairly quickly stop feeling so overwhelmed and am able to return to normal activity levels sooner rather than later.
We all get overwhelmed. That’s ok. Not taking care of yourself just makes things worse. Trying to soldier on through and get things done when you aren’t capable of it only means that the things you do get done don’t get done well and you will continue to feel stressed out and overwhelmed and you will not be performing at the level you should be.
The most effective way to get back to a high level of performance is to take a break and to focus on 1 thing at a time and do it well so that your brain can relax. If your brain is so stressed it can’t think well, give it a break. The sooner you acknowledge your frail humanity, the sooner you can do what you need to do to take care of yourself and get better.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, take it 1 day at a time and 1 task at a time. You have my permission. These are boundaries you need to set for yourself so that you can take care of others. Good luck.
My dad died a couple of months ago. I bring this up not for sympathy but because it left me feeling overwhelmed. I simply didn’t have the brain power to do much of anything besides grieve. And that’s ok. It’s kind of expected with grief.
The problem is that the world doesn’t stop when I feel overwhelmed. I still had things to do, a family to care for, work related tasks and publication deadlines to make. As much as I might want to scream – stop the world I want to get off – it’s not going to happen.
One thing at a time
I find that when I am overwhelmed, I need to not look at the enormity of the task or tasks in front of me, but just focus on 1 thing at a time and get that 1 thing done. Once it is done, I can do the next thing.The hard part in doing one thing at a time is not worrying about the other things that also need to get done. To help me with this – I write out a timeline – what all needs to get done. Knowing that I am not going to miss something helps me focus in the present on the 1 thing I need to do. When I am done, I look at the list for the next thing.
And when other things come up that I need to deal with – I look at my list. It’s either time for me to work on that other thing or it’s not. My to do list helps me to reject intrusions that I can’t handle at the moment. I might add them to a to do later list, but I’m not taking them on right at this minute.
What I find when I do this is that by allowing myself to be overwhelmed and allowing myself to restrict my activities to just those things that I really have to do and by doing them 1 thing at a time, I fairly quickly stop feeling so overwhelmed and am able to return to normal activity levels sooner rather than later.
Be Realistic
At this stage in my life I have no illusions about what I can handle and what I can’t. And I know that I don’t do anyone any favors by pretending I’m ok when I’m really not.We all get overwhelmed. That’s ok. Not taking care of yourself just makes things worse. Trying to soldier on through and get things done when you aren’t capable of it only means that the things you do get done don’t get done well and you will continue to feel stressed out and overwhelmed and you will not be performing at the level you should be.
The most effective way to get back to a high level of performance is to take a break and to focus on 1 thing at a time and do it well so that your brain can relax. If your brain is so stressed it can’t think well, give it a break. The sooner you acknowledge your frail humanity, the sooner you can do what you need to do to take care of yourself and get better.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, take it 1 day at a time and 1 task at a time. You have my permission. These are boundaries you need to set for yourself so that you can take care of others. Good luck.
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