Chau Nguyen wrote:
> Oh Winfried, where should I start here? First, sorry it takes this long
> to reply. I was out of town, and did not have access to my email.
> Second, i wish that i could read your message in the context of an inquiry
> rather than an interrogation, third why does my PERSONAL statement has to
> be complex? fouth, complex to what/whom standards? fifth, why is "being
> a good person" not complex enough? because it does not have many words?
> why can't complexity been in the thoughts instead of the words? sixth,
> after all, it is MY Personal Mission Statement, who gives anyone the right
> to dissect it? if anyone wants to teach me something, there are other
> ways to do so, seventh, now that you know how i feel about this, if you
> still want to hear MY deffinition of "being a good person", do let me
> know.
I'm going to assume that Chau has a personal & tacit definition of the
word "good," and that is sufficient.
I've learned an important lesson recently (at least I think I've learned
an important lesson), and that is we do not always have to justify or
explain ourselves or our beliefs to other people.
For a long time I've operated under the assumption that everything I did
had to be rational and logical. I needed to be able to explain why I did
what I did, and what I expected to get from the action. I still feel that
rational thought is an important element of living a happy & productive
life, but sometimes it's OK to act on the heart; to act without reason; to
go with intuition. And if someone questions your actions all you need to
say is "I don't have to explain myself to you."
I reached this conclusion when I came to realize how prejudiced/judgmental
people are. I don't think I've appreciated the power and depth of
well-entrenched mental models until I challenged a whole bunch of them at
one time. And, as a result, I've learned, firsthand, what is meant when
someone said (who I can't remember), you can't see a whole system until
you try to change it. The power and force of a system -- and the mental
models within that system -- can literally drive individuals to do things
that are self-destructive or that lead to unhappy & unproductive lives.
To challenge deeply embedded mental models -- and systemic forces -- takes
genuine courage & determination. It is not for the faint-hearted or the
cowardly.
Chau, I agree with you, it's your mission statement and you don't have to
explain or justify it to anyone. Thanks for being open about your
feelings.
-- Ben Compton "Friends are the ornaments of life." E-Mail: bcompton@geocities.com Phone: (801) 222-6178 Fax: (801) 222-6993 Web: http://www.e-ad.com/ben/BEN.HTMLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>