Friday Reflections

The Treasure is the Journey Itself

 

The very first Friday Reflection story was told 25 years ago this week, and there have been 1000+ stories since then. Here is one to reflect on 25 magnificent years.

 
Point to Ponder:

"Treasure lies where your heart belongs", and that treasure is the journey itself, the discoveries you make, and the wisdom you acquire." Anna Hassapi

Storyline: by Rajiv Shah

In Paulo Coelho's, "The Alchemist," Santiago is young shepherd who hears the distant calling to leave his town and explore the pyramids in search of a treasure. It starts off as little more than a dream that grows into an obsession. At first Santiago believes getting to the pyramids is a dream that is meant to stay that way, but something eats away at him, an internal pull suggesting something more - the promise of happiness. Santiago finally cannot deny the pull any longer and goes in search of this dream much to the disapproval and doubt of his relatives and neighbors.

Santiago doesn't make it to Egypt at first but gets marooned in Morocco when he is robbed of his belongings. He is stuck working there, trying to raise the money needed to reach the pyramids. Santiago begins to doubt his decision to chase this dream of his but he presses on.

Santiago is finally able to earn enough to leave Morocco winding his way into the desert and falls in love. He is about to give up on his dream, satisfied with spending his life with this girl but she encourages him to press on. Reluctantly he continues on.

Finally arriving at the pyramids Santiago finds them to be not as he imagined, not paved with gold or as magnificient as he dreamed. He returns back to the girl he loves and back to his home, a changed person. His Dream (destination) wasn't what he had imagined but it was the pursuit - the struggle, the journey - in which he found life.
 

Reflection by Anand Shah: Something that started out as stories told to our children on Friday evening rides is now enjoyed by people around the world in over 150 countries. In recent years, a few others have joined in sharing their stories on Fridays. Thank You all for 25 wonderful years.

As The Alchemist says to Santiago "When you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true".

As you think, so you shall reap

POINT TO PONDER

“Each man kills the thing he loves.”
-Oscar Wilde
 

STORYLINE

Are you a negative thinker? Before you can stop a potentially damaging habit, you must recognize it first. Take a look at these 9 points from David Burns' book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (Avon Books, 1999) and deduce for yourself if you suffer from habitual negative thought:

1. All-or-nothing thinking. Either you are a hero or a failure. Any small or large misstep is a sign that you are a failure. You feel the need to be perfect all the time and when you are not, it feels like something is lacking with you.
2. Overgeneralization. When something bad happens, you believe it will happen again and again.
3. The Mental Filter. You focus on the downside of a situation rather than on the positive. For example, you may have gotten straight A's on your report card in school but feel bad about the one A- you received.
4. Diminishing the positive. When you twist positive events into negative ones. For example, you got a raise but aren't happy because it wasn't a bigger raise.
5. Jumping to conclusions. You always try to predict future trouble. Examples are if someone doesn't return a call, you think they secretly dislike you. If you are happy in a relationship, you think it won't last and the relationship will end down the line.
6. Emotional reasoning. You believe that your mood reflects your self-worth. You feel lousy because you are lousy.
7. 'Should' and 'must' thoughts. You can't stop thinking of things you should or must do, no matter how much you've already accomplished. This also applies to expectations of other people – you expect other people to do things as you think they should.
8. Labeling and mislabeling. You think you are what you do. You are quick to label yourself and others as failures when mistakes are made. You develop a negative self-image and think negatively of others based on constant judgment.
9. Personalization. You take blame for anything that goes wrong, even if it is not your fault. 

 

REFLECTION

My father used to tell me that we are what we feed our minds. If what we feed is negative – our thinking and behavior will reflect accordingly. Negative thinking is a protective measure designed from past experiences that keep us from future disappointments - by shutting us out from possibilities - and ultimately, our true potential.

If we decide to pursue our dreams, negative thinking can be there every step of the way, manifesting itself in doubt. We question why we chose to walk this path in the first place. Right when we are so close to attaining our goals, right when it just in our grasp – a far more destructive form of negativity often arises – we sabotage our own success. We don't feel worthy of the success that is coming, don't know what to do with it, and the ownership of such a success can become overwhelming.     The solution to overcoming negative thinking is not just in positive thinking. That's why so many repel at the thought of another self-help course. Overcoming negative thinking is a long process, of rewiring your mental and emotional circuitry. And that happens slowly: by recognizing that it is there, isolating it when it happens, making the conscious choice to shift your focus to a new way of thinking, and ultimately, believing the new thoughts you are teaching yourself.    

Positive thinking is far harder than its negative counterpart. Our world is filled with so much disappointment that it is easy to discredit possibilities and positive thought. When someone has achieved a high level of success, we want to tear them down, find the faults and if that is hard to find, we like to label them as an exception to the rule. They are only an exception because they have chosen to believe in themselves no matter what obstacles or disappointments come across their path. Negative thinking would like to suggest that you are not good enough while positive belief suggests that you are capable beyond all measure. It is up to you which you believe.

It's Not Our Problem ...

POINT TO PONDER

"What the hell did we do to deserve this?" - BP CEO Tony Hayward, speaking to fellow executives in London about the Gulf oil spill disaster, May 2, 2010

STORYLINE (and a possible answer...)

Not Our Problem: A Tale from Burma and Thailand, retold by Margaret Read MacDonald

The King sat with his Adviser eating honey on puffed rice.
As they ate they leaned from the palace window and watched the street below.
They talked of this and that.
The King, not paying attention to what he was doing,
Let a drop of honey fall onto the windowsill.
"Oh sire, let me wipe that up," offered the Adviser.
"Never mind," said the King.
"It is not our problem.
The servants will clean it later."

As the two continued to dine on their honey and puffed rice,
The drop of honey slowly began to drip down the windowsill.
At last it fell with a plop onto the street below.
Soon a fly had landed on the drop of honey and begun
His own meal.
Immediately a gecko sprang from under the palace and with a flip
Of its long tongue swallowed the fly.
But a cat had seen the gecko and pounced.
Then a dog sprang forward and attacked the cat!

"Sire, there seems to be a cat and dog fight in the street.
Should we call someone to stop it?"
"Never mind," said the King.
"It's not our problem."
So the two continued to munch their honey and puffed rice.

Meanwhile the cat's owner had arrived and was beating the dog.
The dog's owner ran up and began to beat the cat.
Soon the two were beating each other.
"Sire, there are two persons fighting in the street now.
Shouldn't we send someone to break this up?"
The King lazily looked from the window.
"Never mind.
It's not our problem."

The friends of the cat's owner gathered and began to cheer him on.
The friends of the dog's owner began to cheer her on as well.
Soon both groups entered the fight and attacked each other.

"Sire, a number of people are fighting in the street now.
Perhaps we should call someone to break this up."
The King was too lazy even to look.
You can guess what he said.
"Never mind. It's not our problem."

Now soldiers arrived on the scene.
At first they tried to break up the fighting.
But when they heard the cause of the fight
Some sided with the cat's owner.
Others sided with the dog's owner.
Soon the soldiers too had joined the fight.

With the soldiers involved, the fight erupted into civil war.
Houses were burned down.
People were harmed.
And the palace itself was set afire and burned to the ground.
The King and his Adviser stood surveying the ruins.
"Perhaps," said the King,
"I was wrong?
Perhaps the drop of honey WAS our problem."

From Peace Tales: World Folktales to Talk About. c 1992 Margaret Read MacDonald (North Haven CT: Linnet Books).

Through the looking glass

POINT TO PONDER

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”
-Rumi
 

STORYLINE - by Rajiv Shah

On September 11th, 2001, Balbir Singh Sodhi watched on his TV as two American Airliners collided with the World Trade Center. He watched as the twin towers fell, an uneasiness coming over him as the flaming wreckage replayed over and over on his screen. Balbir Singh Sodhi had recently moved to his Mesa, Arizona community and was the new owner of a Chevron Gas Station in town. Sodhi had initially moved to Los Angeles, CA in 1989 when he immigrated to the US from his native India, eventually working for over ten years as a cab driver in Los Angeles and San Francisco. When Sodhi saved enough money, he relocated his wife and three sons to Mesa to open the gas station which he now owned.

The station was enormous source of pride for Sodhi and he was known to treat the customers with generosity and care. Children claimed that he often let them buy candy from his store even though they didn't have enough money pay for it. Sodhi was a Sikh, a deeply spiritual man who was described as a quiet and gentle. He often would spend time outside his gas station, planting and tending to the flowers he grew outside.

But on September 11th as he watched his TV, an uneasiness came over Sodhi. He knew he stood out – his long black beard, turban, and dark brown skin were all manifestations of his Punjabi roots. So on September 15th, he did what many distraught Indian, middle eastern, and Muslim Americans did: he went to the store and purchased an American flag to display outside his gas station. A symbol that he was not the enemy but an American like his neighbors. On his way out of the store he donated seventy-five dollars to the September 11th victims fund.

A few hours later Sodhi was back outside his gas station doing what he had come to enjoy – planting flowers. As he stooped over to plant another flower into the earth, the silence was shattered by a loud pop followed by four more gunshots. As Sodhi's shirt began to soak in a pool of crimson, he crumbled to ground, and tires screeched as his assailant sped away in a pick-up truck. Balbir Singh Sodhi was killed instantly, his life cut short at the age of fifty-two. His assailant was captured, a man named Frank Roque, a Boeing aircraft mechanic who would exclaim after the murder, “I'm a patriot... I stand for America all the way!” After his arrest, Roque told the police that he was, “standing up for his brothers and sisters in New York,” by delivering on the promise that he was, “going to go out and shoot some towel-heads.”

At Balbir Singh Sodhi's memorial service, three thousand people attended. Ten-thousand letters were sent in support and in condolence. The loss, pain, and rage as was addressed by Sodhi's nephew, Daman, “he was killed because of the way he looked. It's so stupid.” Sodhi's own son, Sukhwinder, talked about his father's murder, “what are you going to do with anger? We like peace and we are a peaceful people.” The service chose to reflect on peace rather than condemnation and focused on finding a way to “keep American's hearts open to one another,” as expressed by Sikh minister, Guru Roop Kaur Khalsa.

REFLECTION

I had a hard time deciding to write on this topic. It is not an easy one in which there are no clear answers or resolutions. It is a tragedy where an innocent man lost his life due to another person's fear, ignorance, and judgment. It would be too easy to write Frank Roque off as crazy, as a man  troubled to the point of insanity as was claimed by his lawyers. He wasn't crazy, he knew what he was doing and even bragged about it at a bar in Mesa before carrying out the killing. The jury didn't believe the insanity argument either, they sentenced Frank Roque to death.

Three-thousand lives perished in the towers. Many have died in the countries from which the terrorists originate. And Frank Roque decided to take the life of what he believed to be terrorists in his own country. What he ended up doing was taking the life of an innocent family man – a father and a husband. What would happen if Sodhi's own son couldn't deal with his own pain and instead of choosing peace decided to go out and take revenge for his father's murder? Where does the cycle end? Frank Roque performed an act that is abominable but what motivated him to kill was a basic human behavior of which we've all been guilty – the judgment of another. And perhaps the passing of judgment is actually our own anger and dissatisfaction with ourselves directed at another life? And where the cycle ends is in each of us. It is within that we must turn our attention.

Many men go fishing all their lives...

 
Point to Ponder

“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.”

-Henry David Thoreau
 

Storyline - by Rajiv Shah

Bruce Lee dedicated his life to pursuing an understanding of the body, mind, and spirit within martial arts. He pushed the boundaries of traditional techniques and the limits of his own body. The results were evident in his physique, his strength, and ability to lay an opponent on the floor with the most economical and explosive martial arts the world has seen. His legacy to push the martial arts out of forms and into what he believed to be a fluid, formless, and rigorously simple process of fighting still influences fighters across multiple disciplines around the world.

In an early scene in “Enter the Dragon,” Bruce is coaching a young fighter with his technique. He tells the student to kick him. The student throws out a kick without much thought, as he probably has done hundreds of times. Lee moves toward his pupil and says, “What was that? An exhibition? We need emotional content. Try again.”

This time when they square up, the student is bubbling with irritation. He throws a kick, this time with more force. Again, Lee moves towards his young student, “I said emotional content, not anger.”

This time they face off and the student kicks, and kicks. Bruce smiles in approval, “that's it” and asks, “how did it feel to you?”

The student's eyes glaze over, “let me think ...” he says.

SMACK! Bruce Lee bops him on the head, “Don't think! Feel...”
 

Reflection

I find this scene particularly revealing, as it illustrates a challenge we all have faced. How many times do we do things without knowing why we are doing them, or execute them for reasons that have no resonance?

What we do decide to engage with should fill us with purpose. When we feel purpose it will be effortless to suffuse our work with 'emotional content.'

How do you feel about what you do? Why? Assess your answers and see if you can find ways to apply your energies towards filling work with meaning.