Bryan Mills
  • Home
  • Bio and About
  • PowerPoints
  • Papers and text
  • Videos
  • Activities
  • Favourite Things
  • Free Book
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Untitled

Fixing the world

3/5/2013

3 Comments

 
Picture



 I have always been interested in the interconnectedness of things, of cause and effect, of actions and of consequences.  Playing this over in  my mind I started wondering if actually problems are simpler to resolve than we realise.  
 
The way I see it a lack of connection or a lack of awareness of  what might connect brings about most problems.  Don’t overthink this though- I’m not  saying we need to map out all connections.  What I am suggesting is that if we  think of a few simple principles and then work with them our lack of awareness of connections won’t matter so much.  
 
If we step outside our own little fog of expectations and instead look at the world as an on-going process neither for us or against us we may be  able to do some interesting things.   I think we have got hung up  on our selfish right to do stuff regardless of impact.     Take a simple case in  point – the drive home.  Really we  are all just trying to get home; we are not in a race, not police officers, just  people all trying to get somewhere.   So what do we do, do we just get along?  Often we stress ourselves about who is  ‘right’ or who has the ‘right’.  Rather than just pulling out slightly to  avoid the bonnet of a misplaced car we feel the need to blare our horn and  swear.    Where  is the interconnection here you may ask?   I can guarantee your stress has not reduced. Someone’s error has made you cross, or rather you have allowed someone’s  error to make you cross, and in addition you have now angered another person. Both of you have gone off  in a slightly worse mood even though nothing actually happened.  
 
This ripples through the rest of the day, now you may be a little more snappy at work, a little more curt with your partner and so on and so forth.  None of these needed have happened as the ‘benefit’ of imposing your right outweighs its ‘cost’.  Try another example.  On the way home from a bar you are all having a sing-song,   a harmless bit of fun you tell yourself. 
But in so doing you have woken a few people sleeping, scared the odd  individual making their way home and put pressure on the bar’s licence renewal –  is that really worth it?  Could you not have waited until there was no one around? 



At work we can do a similar thing, it’s not my job we can say, not my responsibility, I leave at 5.  We can push our rights to the fore regardless of the impact they have on others.  This is not a manifesto for obedience and puritanical values mind.  I am not advocating mindless compliance.  What I want to suggest  is that we think a little about the action we are doing and if our only
justification is that it is ‘our right’ then we may want to stop and think. 



Your need to leave at 5pm is based on a combination of your right and desire to get home (I guess), but that individual you serve that pushes your  time five minutes over may  actually have a far better day not having missed the close of business – let’s face it there are hundreds of genuine reasons for lateness.   Now the stress of lateness has been replaced by gratitude and a more positive mood, it has cost you nothing  and that’s a powerful thing to have done, to have changed someone’s life for the  better……


3 Comments
Dave Atfield
3/5/2013 06:24:05 am

Your musings reminded me of John Donne's wise words:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Food indeed for thought....

Reply
Sarah
4/17/2014 08:21:58 am

Perhaps we should extend this ethos to giving people chances to change & renew broken friendships wherever possible

Reply
sarah
4/17/2014 08:32:48 am

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Dr Bryan Mills

    "There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die" Hunter S Thompson describing the author in 1971.

    Archives

    November 2016
    August 2016
    April 2016
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    October 2013
    August 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011

    Categories

    All
    Strategy

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from vaRiax_, bochalla, playful.geometer, bixentro, Thomas's Pics, alexbuiter, ShanMcG213, EVO GT, DaveBleasdale, Sharon Mollerus, Rob Swystun