Taking our lives in our hands

I heard recently of an eighty-year old who had given up his car and who was now doing all his local journeys by bicycle instead. Someone in the discussion said: “He’d better watch out -   he’s taking his life in his hands.”

We all agreed on the risks that the modern cyclist faces. But afterwards, I was struck by the phrase “taking his life in his hands”. We knew the speaker meant that the cyclist was voluntarily putting himself in danger.

Taken literally, however, the phrase actually suggests that he was taking more care of himself than usual. By taking his life in his hands, he was taking responsibility for his own life rather than surrendering it to others. Put this way, the phrase becomes even more incongruous when used to suggest that someone is being careless of their life.

And today I heard the phrase “they had their life in his hands” describing a person in crisis. Again the literal description – of being the person carrying one’s life – differed from the phrase’s usual meaning.

One of the clearest messages to come from the human potential movement has been the need to take more of our lives more often into our hands. We are responsible for who we are, how we respond to what happens to us, and how we cope with the feelings we have about ourselves.

This can be hard to do in organisations, even if we’re the boss. Culture as well as policies and procedures can sometimes chain us down, and create the impression that we have no room for personal choice. External pressures too – not least those of funders – can force the organisation down routes that we would not prefer to take. They even may put the organisation in danger.

If we are very lucky, we each have one person in the world who puts us at the centre of their attention, and who plans all their activities, joys and hopes around us. That person is ourselves. In becoming who we truly are, we take our lives in our hands.

£100 to change the world

The most intriguing present this Christmas that Bronwen and I received this year was £100 “to do something we wouldn’t normally do”. Given by an activist couple in their seventies who had just moved out of a spiritual community into a smaller house, they gave £100 to friends and family who they felt were still in the generation of “maximum contribution” – now there’s an ominous expectation.

According to the accompanying letter, the gift is to be used “to do something which you wouldn’t normally do. Buy an expensive book? Give someone a special meal? Go on a visit? Give it on to someone else? Whatever you choose”.

There are many things of course that we don’t normally do – and some of these we would like to do if time and resources permitted! We’re hoping to see the money as a means to heal hurts, raise awareness of issues not yet on public agendas, or as seed money that hopefully will have some kind of domino effect. Maybe too optimistic, and the amount itself is a challenge – a lot to some people, but very little to most organisations.

We’re pondering our responses, and have found value in bringing the idea into conversations with friends to see what possibilities emerge. Do you have any ideas to share?

Zebra mediation

Note: This parable is not my own invention; I’d be pleased to hear if anyone knows the author’s identity. Please post a comment if you want a mathematical explanation of the solution.

A great chieftain had died, leaving his herd of seventeen zebras to his three daughters. According to the chieftain’s will, one daughter was to have half of the herd; the next daughter got one-third; and the third daughter one-ninth. These proportions don’t divide very well into seventeen zebras, and the sisters were at loggerheads.

A mediator came by, leading her own zebra. “Would you like to add my zebra to the herd to help resolve the dispute?”, she asked.

Now with eighteen zebras, one daughter could take half – nine zebras; the next daughter took her six zebras (one-third), and the third daughter her one-ninth share, two zebras. Nine plus six plus two means seventeen zebras, and everyone was happy.

“Could I have my zebra back please?”, the mediator asked, and went on her way.

Moral: the mediator brings the process (her zebra). The parties use the process to get what they want, and the process moves on to the next conflict.

We’re all connected

How many ways can you think of in which you are connected to the human beings around you?

“We’re all connected”.

This phrase is said so often, in so many contexts, that it is in danger of becoming a truism. We speak it and believe it but it may make no difference to what we do.

Here’s a list that a friend Edward Harland and I drew up. What do you think?

Some ways of being connected:

• We are all made out of the stuff created at the beginning of the universe. In other words, we’re all recycled from the same material.
• There is a continuous interchange of molecules as we breathe in and out.
• The soles of our feet are all walking on the same earth, sharing mutual attraction of we to earth, earth to us.
• Via the five senses, perceiving and sensing each other and being perceived by others.
• Part of Gaia/the earth as a living system.
• The one and the many: we are the many centres of consciousness making up the cosmic whole.
• We are economically connected via the global market place.
• We have ancestor connections, as a species; and to life when it first emerged. Every living thing is a cousin to us.
• Our actions have an impact. The impact may be miniscule, enormous, or unmeasurable on a global scale; but they are often of immense importance to those nearest or dearest to us.
• We are governed by same natural & physical laws.

The challenge for me is not just to realise the nature of our many connections to each other, glorious or mysterious they may be.

Rather, they are an inspiration and a challenge. My thought process goes: we’re all connected; but so what? For me, these connections have many implications for how we behave – or how we ought to behave – towards each other and the world. To notice those connections is to hear a call to action.

Do you have other descriptions of how you feel yourself connected to those around you? Please add them in the comment box.

Six universal values

According to a list in the in The Guardian a couple of years ago, researchers have come up with a list of overarching virtues valued across several cultures. The result is a power pack of right-living and right-thinking attributes:

1. Wisdom – Curiosity, love of learning, judgment, ingenuity, emotional intelligence and perspective
2. Courage – Valour, perseverance and integrity
3. Humanity – Kindness and loving
4. Justice – Citizenship, fairness and leadership
5. Temperance – Self-control, prudence and humility
6. Transcendence (which refers to the virtue of escaping the self and its general pettiness) – Appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, spirituality, forgiveness, humour and zest.

Well, how do you score? Lists like these can be turn-offs in various ways, from “not another survey” to “whose agenda are they peddling now?”

A less worthy form of turn-off, as I experienced on reading the above list, is “I mistrust their methodology and so the list can’t be any good”. In other words, I’d rather not look at myself too closely in case I don’t measure up!

Beyond that fear, however, a bit of reality creeps in.

First, I would like to think that I can do most of these virtues some of the time, although who wouldn’t say this about themselves? I’m reminded of the putdown of Zaphod Beeblebrox in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series: “He was clearly a man of many qualities, even if most of them were bad ones”.

Second, in the two main areas of my life, home and my work, several virtues are my lodestars for action. Love of learning; emotional intelligence, and forgiveness are those I particularly seek to develop. I learn much about forgiveness from my children; my best parenting comes from rising above my hurt and fear to be open to new possibilities.

And in work, a love of learning urges me to discover myself through my contact with clients and their organisations. I am fortunate that at present, ‘the project of the self’ – namely, self-development – is possible through my work. Long may I strive for this to continue.