So...What's Next?!?

How Susan Boyle reached us

The latest Internet buzz is about Susan Boyle's song on Britian's Got Talent. I watched it yesterday and I have to admit I was sitting in the office with tears streaming down my face.

However, what I keep reading is people saying things like, "oh look how cynical we all have become" and "see do not judge a book by it's cover."

I think there is more to her instant fame than just the surprise voice and all of our initial reactions upon first being introduced to Susan Boyle. I think she did  more than show our cynical site. I think, for many people, me included, she reminded us to believe in ourselves.

Susan stepped on that stage and everyone sneared and rolled their eyes. Now, honestly you can not blame the audience for doing that. Shows like American Idol and Britains Got Talent have consistently exploited people who severely lack talent and tend to make complete fools of themselves. From the start Susan seemed to fit that type.

But when she began to sing - we all were shocked.

So wonderful. She is a woman from a small village who does not look like a Barbie doll but has a voice of an angel. Why the overnight Internet sensation? Why are people so moved to tears (myself included) everytime they watch the video. I mean even my 14 year old son posted the video on his Facebook page. Susan seems to have reached all ages, all personalities, all over the world.

My guess is that it is not because she showed us how cynical we can be, as the female judge suggested, my guess is because we have all been in Susan's shoes at one time, standing in front of someone or many people who doubted us, having to face our own fear and summon up enough belief in ourself to perform, and then perhaps were lucky enough to feel the exhilarating sensation of winning the crowd over.

We have either been lucky enough to experience that and were able to re-live those emotions vicariously through Susan Boyle or we have held ourselves back and are still wishing we could summon up the courage that Susan displayed and we look to her for a little inspiration.

So, I do not think that Suan Boyle is an overnight sensation because she pointed out our flaws, I think she reached us all by tapping into our own self doubts and giving us a shot of inspiration.

God Speed Susan Boyle.

Really?

One of my favorite blogs is Post Secret. Rarely do I relate to the post cards. Sometimes they remind me of friends or family members. This one however, reminded me of life in general ...

Everything's Going To Be OK (at least for most of us)

For a long time (since early childhood actually) I have been arguing that the world is getting better not worse. The back-story of that is when I was 10 my mom started studying with Jehovah's Witnesses and would take me to the meetings. The main premise of that group is the world is getting worse and will end soon. I never bought that - not even at the age of 10.

I guess because I have always been fascinated by history I have known enough history to know that the world is getting better. Even today as we turn on the news and hear reports of more families being homeless, more people losing their jobs and more terrorist killing dozens of people in the middle of a street, I still know enough history to know - that as horrible as these events are, it is still better than it used to be. The world is improving.

You hear people say that the media has desensitized us to the horrible events and in some ways I agree. We would go crazy if we allowed ourselves to feel the intense emotions that come when we hear of a child being abused or killed or a mother, father, brother losing his life because he was simply at the wrong street corner at the wrong time or people who are tortured for their spiritual beliefs. But we are not being desensitized we are becoming more and more aware. Wars are fought differently today, people help strangers in far away lands more and we simply do not accept unfounded prejudicial views as easily as generations that still live today once did.

Since the beginning of this recession/depression I have been saying this one "feels" different than the last couple of recessions I have experienced. I recall the recession of the late 80's early 90's which was when I started working for the first time. I still feel the pain of the recession of 2001-2002.  But this time it is different. I have been telling people this is not a cyclical recession, this is chaos. This is caused because of how rapidly things are changing and we are in a state of chaos as some people run so far ahead of their time while others are left so far behind.

Les and Glenn, the founders of Fuzebox have been discussing a book that they highly recommend called Revolutionary Wealth. This weekend I started reading it. I am only on page 22 and already I see that it is confirming all of my thoughts about this state of chaos. I found it interesting how they even talk about how the "Wealth Waves" impact family structures (page 22). It reminded me of a paper I wrote in college where again I argued that we were not seeing a decline in the family but that we were in a state of chaos as we experienced a change in family structure.

This book does a wonderful job specifically outlining the factors that are causing the acceleration in change. But considering we humans are creatures of habits it will be a struggle over the next several years. But when you read about the evolution of mankind and how each Wave brought more wealth to more people, more opportunities to raise to new intellectual and spiritual heights, you realize these are exciting  albeit turbulent times.

Everything's going to be OK - if you are willing to adjust, adapt, and grow/evolve. If you are determined to go down and believe this is the end of the world, well history shows you will simply be creating your own self-fulfilling prophecy.

The future is in our hands and we have more opportunity than ever.

People Puzzles

Last night I took the boys (all three of them) to the Braves game. Thanks to a friend of mine we have the privilege of getting awesome club level seats, which does change the game a bit.

When I got home, around 4:30, ready to get everything together for the game I was faced with 2 boys who were not thrilled about going. My oldest has always been the type who needs routine and advanced warning.  I had not given him enough advance warning that we were going to the game.  My youngest, I swear he just looks for opportunities to be difficult sometimes, and so he decided he did not like baseball.

I let them pick out a restaurant to eat at before going down to the field. That seemed to perk them up and off we went. My oldest was much more into going to the game by this point. My youngest was still being difficult. We get downtown, parked, and started walking toward the stadium. My youngest makes the statement that when he grows up he will never come downtown, he does not like the city. My oldest looks at him and basically tells him he is crazy. My oldest loves the city and is dying to get up to NYC. By the end of the night my youngest was very in to the game and really understanding what was going on and cheering enthusiastically. My oldest was in the club area with my husband enjoying an ice cream cone and not caring about the game.

So here is why I titled this "people puzzles." The whole night I was amused at how wrong any assumptions I could make were. I assumed the boys would be excited and ready to go to the game when I got home, I was faced with just the opposite. When my oldest son was starting school we moved to the suburbs (although we prefer the city) because we felt our oldest would do better in the suburbs based on his personality. He actually prefers the city. I have been counting the years until we can move in-town, thinking that when my oldest graduates in 4 years we could move my youngest to the city because he has a personality that would do well in that environment, he claims to hate the city. My oldest was more interested in going to the game but barely paid attention. My youngest said he hated baseball, but ended up actually knowing quite a bit about the game and really got into it.

These are my own kids whom I have known their whole life. I feel I know them really well, and yet they change their personalities on me continuously and are never exactly what I expected.

I began to think about the assumptions we make about people whom we barely know. Work relationships, friends, neighbors. We are often so full of assumptions and opinions of other people when we really know very little about them and when we have no way to keep up with their continuous changes. People are changing all the time. I hear and talk about how fast technology changes....technology is a snail to how fast an individual person can change. We also have so many, possibly an unlimited amount of facets to our personalities, it is impossible to know who or why a person is as they are at the moment. I could, and if I had the time, would dive into the various psychological theories. But the point is, or lesson learned, is when we are dealing with another person in our life, we need to pause to figure out who they are at that moment and how that fits in with the situation at hand. Assumptions and memories of the past are major obstacles to getting to know another person.

Coffee with my favorite skeptic

Sometimes we just need to have coffee.

I was invited by one of my favorite skeptics to meet for coffee this morning. We met at 8:30am and spoke until 11:30am. 3 hours of conversation about how the world is changing, is it for better or for worse, how we need to adapt, and is social media waste of time when we need to be billing for our hours.

My skeptic gave me the best visual ever. He said that as he is reading and attempting to be part of the social media world, every time he hesitates he see me as his "Jiminy Cricket" urging him on.

As we discussed the opportunities to get vital information from a simple tweet on Twitter, he said - "a tweet is a wish your heart makes."

Alright - someone has watched too many Disney movies.

We discussed the importance of learning how to learn. 150 years ago people needed to know how to think on their feet, solve problems and adapt to the wilderness for mere survivor. Today we are dealing with a wilderness of information, and we need to know how to think on our feet, solve problems, and adapt to the wilderness.

Although both of us had work to do, a three hour coffee discussion was just what I needed to refresh my spirit and connect all the reasons why I am so optimistic about the future of the world.

Every topic that came up, from privacy issues to HR concerns we were able to explore the changes that needed to happen in the world and the positives of those changes.

The only dark side in my view of the future is the fear of those who remain ignorant. I fear that information in the wrong hands can be used to influence those who do not take the initiative to be life long learners and skeptics. I fear a world of sheep in an environment where a charismatic person can broadcast a warped message loud and wide.   

I love that information is available to everyone to both find and contribute to. I feel that the participation of the masses is what protects us. I think, somewhere, deep down, that is what compels me to be such an advocate of participation by the masses.

Finally, I think  besides taking the time to participate in online communities, we need to take more time to have 3 hour coffee conversations. Life shouldn't be all about business transactions and networking. Every now and then we need to have the opportunity to connect simply to explore what we do all of this for.

What is Your Story?

That is a book I have wanted to write since high school. My "vision" is to walk around and ask random people "what's your story...any story" and create a book. We all have stories, and what I have realized as I have gone through the years of this life is that our stories, especially our dysfunctional stories, are a thread to our commonalities.

So...for the last few months I found myself looking at the world as so aptly described by Shakespeare as being a stage. I find myself creating " characters" out of the people I meet. I by no means suggest any disrespect, it is just the writer in me wanting to express itself.

More recently I started thinking about all the characters that have passed through my life.

I am very fortunate to have met and gotten to know a whole variety of people. My dad was the type of person who opened his door to anyone - seriously...ANYONE.

I have known a homeless man who was studying to be a truck driver. In fact it was because of him that I read the first book that influenced my life, Living, Loving and Learning. It was in one of his few boxes of stuff. I grabbed it to read, and do not think I ever returned it...so I guess I stole from a homeless man. I was 12..so hopefully all is forgiven by now...

I have known strippers and girls who dated much older men and women who sought out much younger men. I have known professors who became good friends and successful business men who thought I was "fascinating." I have known "dirty old men" and dying young men.

I have known alcoholics, gamblers, cheaters, bigots, liars, drug addicts, sex addicts, and freaks...all of whom I found a reason to like.

I realized I already have lots of stories to tell and perhaps a few stories that need to be told.

So tonight, as opposed to writing the book, I started a new creative writing category for exploring Character Development. No real names will be used, and oftentimes the stories will be written with a very liberal creative license, but my hope is that they will all be motivational. I plan to write a story a night - and would love feedback. but more importantly, you never know when you might be the character of the evening story :)

Tonight's story is about a young mom who lost herself trying to serve others until she found herself betraying the people she loved the most. It is called "Close Your Eyes" - Enjoy...

“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.”

Ryunosuke Satoro