D
ear Friends


Welcome to Two Sides, ONE Coin.

Quote of the Week comes from Albert Einstein
.

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."


Thanks for reading!

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

The Missing Years


  Almost a decade has passed since I first started writing for eyes other than my own.  Truth is I've felt compelled to write since I first learned how.  Putting pen to paper served as a release for the many thoughts running through my mind, a surrender of the strong emotions coursing through my body that refused to dissipate on their own.

   Although it has been nine years since I last posted to my blog I continued to write in the years in between. Not with conscious intent but as particular ideas or long forgotten memories bubbled to the surface I would scribble them on whatever was at hand - napkins, scraps of paper, on the back of envelopes or in the margins of a newspaper or magazine I meant to read later.  I write these things down simply because something inside me still compels me to do so.

    I have boxes full of the words I've written over decades now.  There is probably an even greater number that found their way into recycle bins or were buried underground at city dump sites.  Reminds of an old technology  saying "garbage in, garbage out." I can only imagine the content of all the words I let go, taking care to remember that words are only symbols for things and not the things themselves.

     So, what has happened in these intervening years?  I went to work in another corporate environment.  A global wine company with vineyards in dozens of countries and well known brands that strives to become Number One in the industry.  Like many large companies their mission statement contains all the right buzz words of the times (sustainable practices, community involvement, etc.) that sound good but have little in common with daily operations.  More on this topic later.

   On the personal side, sprinkled between the mundane were many large and significant events.  I saw my daughter married, the other engaged, lost my brother and gained a grand-daughter.

    On the world stage, regimes rose and fell, wars raged, the rich grew richer and the poor grew poorer.  Beyond a plethora of man-made tragedies there were also those caused by nature - raging fires, devastating earthquakes, massive flooding, and destructive hurricanes.  Time marches on.

Life is a tapestry with threads of every color woven iin.  There are many of us who still have the audacity to hope for a better, kinder world.  My goals today are much the same as those I articulated several years ago.  I hope to provide my readers with an interesting array of topics,inspirational quotes, an occasional poem, philosophical musings, intuitive insights and observations along with those things that arise in the heart before they come to mind.  Thanks for reading?

 
    

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

The Leadership Paradigm

Welcome to 2019.  It has been many years since my last post which was written at the height of the great recession.  Much has changed since then while much has also remained the same.

I had hoped that when I resumed writing that I would  write words that uplift, inspire, comfort, or calm.  Words that speak to our souls as well as our minds.  And yet, re-reading my prior posts there is still a need to address What Is in relation to a vision of what might be and to examine  the space between.  Why is there a sense of greater separation rather than evidence of a bridge between the divide?

 Sadly, there is still fear and uncertainty in our headlines exacerbated by those who profit from their perpetuation.  We have only gone further down the path of an economy of thought where communications are now condensed to a handful of characters on Twitter or hashtags on Instagram further demonstrating a lack of deep thought or original thinking. Global warming poses an ever-increasing threat to our very survival with today's profits taking priority over people and planet.  Income inequality across the globe has only grown worse since the so-called recovery and the middle class continues to dwindle in numbers. Can we hit the pause button long enough to question our collective reality?

  The Parliament of the World's Religions celebrated it's 125th anniversary last November, 2018. Thousands of people from 80 nations and more than 200 spiritual backgrounds gathered together in Toronto.  The common thread between them was action consistent with mutual love and respect for their fellow human beings, a moral principle considered superior to almost all others.  Some version of this Golden Rule is found in all major religions including Christianity,, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism,  and Taoism, among others. Treat others as we wish to be treated.  Why is this so hard for so many today?

  Today, we suffer from a lack of Enlightened Leadership.  This lack is evident in the leaders of nations, the leaders of governments, the captains of industry  and even within our houses of worship.  While many have risen to power and millions more have been compelled as adherents, there are few who are truly worthy of followers.

   James Kouzes and Barry Posner in The Leadship Challenge state that "Leadership is not an affair  of the head. Leadership is an affair of  the heart."

   I read somewhere long ago that the only voice worth listening to is the voice of our own heart. That voice is seldom heard nowadays  and its outward expression is often confined to our immediate friends and family but absent in the world at large. Many cannot differentiate soul-speak, the voice of our hearts, from mind speak. Reason replaces yet it is " the heart alone that knows what love is while the eye of reason has no power to behold it" (author unknown).

When we consider how our companies, institutions, governments, and even houses of worship function we recognize they are structured as top-down pyramids whose origins date back centuries in the form of dictatorships, monarchies and tribal warfare. If we want something new, something better, than we need to get creative and stop doing things that are centuries old.  We need new models that, much like old machinery and technology, make our existing models obsolete.

We must never lose sight of the reality that our humanity is the one thing we all have in common.  Enlightened Leadership, therefore, must be for the benefit of the followers and not to merely enrich
the leader.