Exploring Resilience via Lifes Burning Issues

Tag: Thoughts (Page 22 of 23)

CHOICES – Part 2

by haribo

by haribo

Why was the word CONSTRUCTING selected to open the acronym for CHOICE?

Obviously a deliberate decision, made specifically to call to mind the process of building something. There are many ways to construct something.

Adhoc construction

There is the ad hoc, build it with what is laying around approach that may produce some interesting artistic pieces with a lot of pejorative  “character”.

In reality a structure built in this fashion is unlikely to be able the weather the downpours of life, the heavy winds, the shaky ground, the heat and the cold. Pieces are likely to fall off when subject to stress and the structure is most likely going to behave in unpredictable ways and may not behave the same way in similar circumstances because of shifts in the way the material has behaved already. Would you build the important structures of you life in this way….. I doubt it very much, or at least I hope not.

Planned Construction

A good structure is built with plans and a vision of what the outcome will look like. It is built by carefully selecting the materials. The materials are selected due to a range of features like their strength, their flexibility, their transparency or opacity, their weight, their ability to be moulded….. the list of criteria  goes on and on, but essentially they are selected due to being fit for purpose within the overall plan and vision.

by Braid44

by Braid44

Solid Foundations

All historically stable structures are also reliant on solid and well built foundations, designed to hold the load of the structure, the type of foundations are selected to be consistent with the type of soil on which the structure is to be built, to stop them sinking over time, like the famous leaning tower.

So  the word CONSTRUCTING was selected to remind you of this process.

How are you building your future?

Are you building your decisions on a solid foundation? Are you selecting the components that will make up your decision based on criteria that will make them fit for purpose and consistent with the intended goal? ….. or are you grabbing the building material as you go along, and building a ramshackle support?

We’d love to know how your a selecting the material on which to build your future, let us know by posting your comments in the discussion below……. and lets see how they emerge in Part 3 and beyond.

Believe Nothing.

The Budhha by rahlducca

The Budhha by rahlducca

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense – Buddha

I’m sure we have all experienced a shift in our opinions about some things over time. But this quote is a real challenge to check on what you consider to be self evident truths (and I’m not going to get into a post constructionist debate about the nature of truth… well not now anyway).

When you hold something to be a self evident truth then the reality is that you are unlikely to be open to anyone challenging the validity of that “truth” and there is a very good chance that the “truth” comes from some form of dogma. How much trouble is there in the world at the moment because of a rigid adherence to a self evident truths, and rigidity of “beliefs”?

Why do I love todays opening quote?

Rather than being told it is this way, and only this way here is a teacher who challenges you to think about what he says and challenges you to examine it in the context of your own life. How many teachers or systems do you know like this? Not many I bet.

In the post who are you? I dabbled with this question previously by providing a quote from Oscar Wilde and discussing what other peoples beliefs and opinions do to you without examination.

How long can something be self evident for?

Beliefs can be held to be self evident for a very long time………

Want some perfect examples…..

for how long did people “believe” that the earth was flat?

for how long did people “believe” that the universe revolved around the earth?

what about some more recent examples…

in medicine…. how long did people deny that stomach ulcers were caused by a bacteria?

in space exploration….for how long have people believed that there was no water on the moon?

What do you “believe” to be true?

The only firm opinion that I hold (based on my experience to date) is to use another quote “that the greater the circle of my knowledge, the greater the circumference of my ignorance”.   WHAT? Let me explain.

The more that I learn in life about anything and everything the more I realise simply how much I do not know, and in reality can probably never know.

So I work on maintaining an open mind, I’m prepared to look at any and all evidence in relation everything in my life, I will form an opinion based on (as much or as little of) the evidence that I can access, and work hard to remember that the opinion (or belief if want to put it that way) is limited by a multitude of factors and should remain open to change based on interaction with new evidence as it emerges.

What Beliefs have you or are you willing to challenge?

I’d love to know what things in life have facilitated a change in your “beliefs”…… I’d love to know how they changed and what it meant to you………so lets discuss it below in the comments.

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