Unhackable

 

Kary Oberbrunner recently wrote a book entitled Unhakable. The focus of the book is how easy it is for our lives to be hacked by smart technology like TV, phones, Alexa and other modern devices and the result of this is our distraction from our original purpose. These diversions steal our sense of creativity, ideas, dreams and missions in life. It's not unusual for people to sit around the house and binge watch a Netflix series for 20 hours instead of doing something more rewarding like writing, drawing, building something, having a real conversation or going outside to play.

The hacking part comes when these smart devices divert us from our own mind's ability to think for ourselves. They attempt to tell us what to think, what to buy, how to act and what our values should be. Some are consumed with knowing what the latest update is on social media and how many likes we get on our latest posts.

One possible and very promising antidote is our intentional devotion to personal responsibility. The operative word here is intentional. It's a mindful determination to look away from the hacking devices around us and do something real and tangible upon which we actually make progress.

Sour Grapes

 

Among Aesop's Fables is the tale of The Fox and The Grapes. 

A hungry fox saw some fine bunches of grapes hanging from a vine that was trained along a high trellis and did his best to reach them by jumping as high as he could into the air. But it was all in vain for they were just out of reach. So he gave up trying and just walked away with an air of dignity and unconcern, remarking, "I thought those grapes were ripe but I see now they are quite sour."

At the risk of passing undue judgment upon this poor fox, psychologists would call his reaction cognitive dissonance which, simply put, is the inability to hold incompatible ideas simultaneously, in the case of the fox, desire and frustration.  In an attempt to reduce the dissonance he resorted to criticism or disdain. The fox reasoned with himself by pronouncing the grapes as sour anyway. This is where the expression "sour grapes" originated.  

Often times we ourselves set a goal, have a desire or are determined to solve a problem and when we are met with the inevitable obstacles in the pursuit of the prize we begin to reason with ourselves, denigrate the cause and rather than admit our failure or lack of drive, we rationalize that it's not what we really wanted anyway or it's actually not worth the effort.

Acres of Diamonds

In my constant pensiveness over the course of my life's work there is always the consideration for the future. Someone once said anxiety arises within us when our mind is on the future. This is true but to be honest it's a challenge to draw the line between being responsible about our prospective circumstances and our mindful contentment for today. It always comes down to the question of whether I have something of value to offer or looking elsewhere for some other device outside myself like investments or a particular employment that will help ensure my future well being.

There is an old true story called Acres of Diamonds that recounts the tale of a wealthy African rancher by the name of Ali Hafed who heard that diamonds had been discovered on the continent and people were becoming wealthy by starting diamond mines. Ali decided he too wanted to start his own diamond mine so he sold his estate and set off in search of the gleaming gems. He spent years seeking them unsuccessfully and finally, despondent  after spending his entire fortune on the endeavor took his own life.

Meanwhile back on the ranch, the new owner of Ali's property was watering his livestock in a stream when he noticed what he thought to be a large crystal on the bed of the stream. He pick it up and kept it as an interesting curio only to later discover that it wasn't a crystal at all but actually a diamond. It turned out that the land upon which the ranch was located was full of diamonds and eventually became the Galgotha Diamond Mine; one of the most productive ever.

So Ali Hafed had owned, free and clear, acres of diamonds but gave it all up to search for them elsewhere. If he had only taken the time to explore his own property and learned what he could about diamonds he would have found the wealth he sought just beneath his feet.

So the moral of course is how I need to exploit all the value I currently possess, a practice I've neglected, before seeking it elsewhere. 

 

You Always Find What Your Looking For

Personally I have a list of problems to solve and by doing so will make my life tremendously better. Some like to call it a goal, mission, purpose or whatever narration one uses that best describes it but to my understanding it's finding solutions to problems that work best. In any case a requisite in solving my problems is believing that not only is my problem solvable but I can solve it. Author Hal Elrod calls it an unwavering faith in our ability to bring to a successful conclusion whatever challenge that besets us; in a phrase, our self efficacy.

Our self efficacy determines our outlook and course of action. Simply wishing things were better is a waste of energy and gets us no further in our journey but neither is imagining that everything is unicorns and rainbows. Sometimes things are not as we would want them be and the best approach is to accept things for what they are and proceed to solve the problem with unwavering faith in our ability to solve it and in the outcome.  The late Zig Ziglar said "you've got to be before you can do and you've got to do before you can have".

 

 

I was scrolling through Pintrest and I came across a post entitled "Habits to Help You Prosper". I couldn't help but bridle at reading the suggestions because the list was so pedestrian that it was on the brink of being dangerously misleading. It helped me to remember that although the internet can contain articles which are helpful and authoritative (check the sources) writers need no credentials, training or particular knowledge to publish articles that can be regarded as forgettable drivel. Even untrue.

There is no "secret" to success and a good habit is helpful if it displaces a harmful one. For example: "wake up early" is on the list. If I decided waking up early is a habit I want to acquire, what will I do with the extra time? If I watch TV or Tik Tok videos then waking up early is rather pointless and I'll again fall into my old habit of sleeping late. I would need a compelling reason for waking early and it needs to be something I work on everyday. That's the basic formula behind goal setting or problem solving; identify the goal or problem, develop a plan or solution and work on it everyday. 

A Black Swan Event

A black swan event is something that comes along rarely during a lifetime and changes things permanently, never going back to the way it was. There are at least two ways people respond to a black swan event: one way is to cling to the hope that things will be the way they used to be and get back to "normal". 

The other response is from those who realistically acknowledge the change for what it is and proceed in life knowing things will quite probably never again be the way they once were. They actually embrace the change and find new ways of pivoting their lives, businesses and relations in response to the change.

In the wisdom of modern psychology there is a school of thought that is strongly related to our response to things that happen to us either as individuals or collectively.  Acceptance and Commitment Therapy teaches us, using mindfulness, that we can accept events or thoughts for their face value, acknowledge their reality and proceed according to our values. By doing so we progress and embrace negativity in spite of our feelings and counter them with positive actions and results.

During this covid19 event are we holding out for a vaccine? Are we looking forward to the virus being eliminated as a threat? Are we expecting things to return to "normal" again or are we coming to terms with the possibility that even if things get back to normal it could be longer than we expect; maybe years, and responding accordingly? Maybe things will never be the way they were and resilient people will fair better rather than only waiting for better times.

   

 

The Price of Tomatoes

When I was a child my mother, sisters and I would take a weekly trip to our grandparents' house for Sunday dinner and invariably at some point the adults would begin a discussion on the affairs of the country. Presidents, inflation, foreign affairs, Elvis, race relations and among every possible scenario the most telling to my grandmother was food prices. She was always concerned about groceries and the one item she mentioned most was the price of tomatoes. To her their cost was an indication as to the state of the world. If tomatoes were high then the country was in trouble. The more affordable they were then she was more optimistic and this theory governed her overall outlook.

This lends the possibility that we all hold something we deem important enough that gauges how we view our world. Isn't there something we look to that determines our opinions, optimism or pessimism about the world around us; something equally telling to us as the price of tomatoes was to my grandmother? This begs the question, "what's your tomato?"