Tag Archives: perspective

AprilMayJune

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One of the biggest challenges in being a school principal is the month of AprilMayJune. Three months that feel like they are condensed into one single month. From here to the last day of school it’s Go-Go-Go… It doesn’t feel like there is a break or a transition, it’s just non-stop action.

Good things will happen, wonderful events will be a big part of this extended month. So, it’s not just a slog, there will be some special moments to come. It’s just that things go so fast, and the pace feels accelerated, and then at the end of June we will look back and we won’t remember anything that delineates separate months from now until then.

To all the educators out there, have a fantastic AprilMayJune!

Being vs Doing

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I was listening to a guided meditation, and it mentioned that how we live in the world is more focused on doing rather than being.

This made me think about the multitude of tasks we do on autopilot, and how we aren’t always fully present when we do them. It made me think about my work day and how much of it is spent focused on tasks, and not at all on the experience.

Doing is an external experience focused on productivity and achievement. Being is intrinsic, it emphasizes awareness, mindfulness, and the value of life. Doing is all about chasing goals and getting stuff done, it’s what moves us ahead and lets us make things happen. But being… That’s about soaking in the moment, really living it up, and savoring life’s journey as it happens.

This isn’t an either/or thing, but I feel like we, I feel like I, could benefit from being more… More present, more aware, more in the moment. Whole days can go by where I’m task oriented, focused on what needs to be done, and not aware or appreciative of my experience. It’s really about valuing the life we have as it unfolds, rather than just checking off boxes of tasks and achievements mindlessly.

If we are too busy only doing, are we allowing ourselves the opportunity to value and appreciate this wonderful life we are living? Are we living at all, or just moving from task to task, like mindless robots. I laugh a lot more when I’m being and not just doing. I connect with people more meaningfully. I find joy in the tasks that I do. Being is an awareness that sits above the things we do, and it changes a life of activity for the sake of activity, to one where we can find meaning, and joy, throughout our day, and on days yet to come.

Headspace when alone

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My family started watching season 6 of Alone. 10 contestants are left alone in the wild way up north on Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada. The challenge ends when just one remains. The contestants have to fully fend for themselves, and they battle two significant battles, starvation and boredom.

Watching this reminds me of how important our self talk is to our overall mental health. We don’t have to face the challenges of these contestants. We don’t go days being hungry. We don’t go for endless hours with no entertainment and no one to interact with. But we still spend most of our time in our own heads.

We can be our own biggest cheerleader or our own worst enemy. We have incredible power to influence our own thinking. The most important thing we can do for ourselves is appreciate that we are doing the best we can with the resources we have. We need to be kind with ourselves… especially when we find ourselves alone.

Gone in an instant

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It’s tragic when it happens. Most recently in the news it was a bridge in Baltimore. A barge lost power and hit a bridge and it collapsed, killing several workers on the bridge. One minute they are going about their job, and then their lives are over. No warning, no forethought. Living one moment, gone the next.

I was recently on vacation and watched a few sunrises. That time of day is busy for birds on the hunt for fish. There is no glare from the sun, and many small fish are feeding near the shore. Here is a slow motion video of a bird diving for food.

Imagine the life of a small fish. You are among many other fish, feeding and going about your morning, and suddenly, most abruptly, a foreign beast plunges into your world and snatches you up. Seconds later you slide down inside of a bird’s neck and into its stomach where you suffocate before being digested.

No warning, no hint of pending doom. It’s part of the life cycle of many living things. We are fortunate that it is not frequent for us as apex predators. Still, it happens, and it’s totally unfair, even random. A fall from a ladder, a car accident, an allergic reaction, a plane crash, a freak accident.

We are fortunate not to be small fish, with far greater likeliness to come to a tragic, early, unexpected demise, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be thankful for the time we are given, and appreciate the luck we have to live a good life every day that we are given. It can be seen as scary or it can be seen as cathartic… knowing that we can be gone in an instant.

Missing the big picture

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A couple weeks back I was in a problem solving situation where I was brought in to give some perspective on how one of my programs could assist with a problem at a school. I was an add-on to a conversation that was already happening, and I found it frustrating. I kept having to speak up and give perspective on the big picture and how what seemed like a simple fix was actually something that would have unforeseen consequences. My grandfather used to say, “Don’t put lipstick on a pig,” and that seemed to be the approach. “Let’s make it look like we are addressing the issue, all the while just making an ugly situation seem like it’s not as bad.

Yesterday I was in a meeting and it was completely different. Everyone was thinking big picture. How does this affect students? Staff? Funding? Optics? When a suggestion was brought up, the team of people I was working with took each idea and put it through a big picture lens. When a suggestion was knocked down, there were no egos attached, it was just a change in frame, and the new perspective provided more useful information.

A one hour meeting took over an hour and a half, and afterwards I had another 45 minutes of hammering out one possible solution, which may not be the one we go with. However, even if the idea I suggest isn’t the one we go with, I know the final decision will be one that considers multiple perspectives, and will be a viable solution to the problem we are working on.

What a contrast it is between these two scenarios. In the first case, the focus was on a quick fix, and in the second case the focus was on a sustainable solution. The difference was being with a team of people focused on the big picture rather than just trying to make a problem go away.

It’s a matter of the frame you put around your problem… and when in fix-it mode, the bigger the frame the better.

Do you hear the music?

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“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche

Sometimes we let our perception cloud our perspective. We get caught up in our own world and don’t recognize that we are focused on minutia that clutter our attention, and we lose perspective.

We don’t see the the early season budding flowers, we don’t feel a light breeze, we don’t taste the food we rush to eat. We don’t hear the music. We don’t dance. We don’t perceive the beauty of the world around us.

When you see someone joyful, be perceptive, what is making their heart dance? Listen carefully and you too will hear the music.

Introvert at a party

Sometimes the introvert in me really comes out… or rather shuts me in. In a social setting I can find comfort in a one-on-one conversation, but feel totally removed from a larger group discussion. It’s like a switch goes off and suddenly I’m no longer a participant but a distant observer of everything happening around me.

I don’t feel isolated or secluded. It’s not like I’m trapped somewhere I don’t want to be. I’m not suddenly feeling left out or alone, I am simply not fully engaged in what everyone else is doing. It’s not sad, it’s a comfortable place that is just one step removed from the present, or rather presence of everyone else.

A joke is told, I hear the laughter, I smile. It’s like I’m watching a sitcom, and I’m not part of the laugh track. I get and appreciate the humour, it just doesn’t hit me like something that would make me laugh. If someone asks me a question, I’m right there to respond, but it feels like it is filtered through a vail from the outside, remote yet not far away. I answer politely but I’m not fully engaged.

This is not a place I choose to go. It doesn’t happen all the time. It’s just a consequence of being an introvert. A loud and busy gathering is not a comfortable place, so I recede to a place inside myself that is more comfortable and I engage with the outside world from there.

Still happy to be with people I like. Not fully disengaged, but also not fully present. A slightly distant observer rather than full participant. An introvert in an extraverted world.

What’s my age again?

My youngest turns 22 today. Sometimes I struggle to grasp how I am the father of 2 kids in their 20’s? Am I really that old?

I remember hearing old people – as in my current age – say that they didn’t feel very old. I remember the look on my dad’s face when I asked him how ‘my old man’ was doing for the first time. I remember being in my 20’s and seeing old people, like in their 50’s, on tv and thinking they were ancient.

In some ways I’ve earned my way here. In other ways I feel like an imposter pretending to be older and responsible. How did I get here? Wasn’t I just in my early 30’s?

My perspective on what ‘old’ means has changed year by year, or maybe decade by decade. My 60’s are just around the corner, so I guess 80 is old… for now. So what if younger me thought my current age was old, I’m not old… that word will always belong to people older than me!

Going Meta

If I was going to give this post a subtitle it would be, ‘How do you know that you’re smart enough to know the difference?’

Just to be clear, I’m delusional. But guess what… so are you. The world we live in and the world we think we live in are two different things. We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as our senses are capable of seeing it. Then we go further and apply our individual perspective to add meaning to what we observe.

I say think of a dog, and I guarantee you that you aren’t thinking of the same dog I am. Not the same kind, not the same size, probably not the same disposition… which might be different in our perception even if we were thinking of the same dog.

So we live lives of illusion and delusion, except most of our delusions are close enough to each other’s that we don’t think of each other as crazy… Most delusions. Although, maybe less of them than at any time in recent history. Because now more than ever people seem to be seeing the world in vastly different ways.

So what can we personally do? We need to get meta. We need to think about our thinking. We have to start from honest awareness and seek to debunk ourselves, to figure out how we are deceiving ourselves. We have to see the frame we put around things. Observe ourselves, (the observer).

This meta self reflection is most important when we talk to someone with a different perspective or world view. It’s so easy to see the bias of others, and much harder to see our own. Yet this self reflection is essential.

A wonderful example of this is looking at the growth in numbers of people who think the world is flat. It flabbergasts me to think that this number is actually getting larger. How is that possible? Flat world views. That is to say, people are asking one question, looking from one central position: ‘Show me the curve… I’m on earth and I can’t see it. You must be delusional and gullible to believe it’s round, when you can’t see it.’

Only then, and from that biased position, can someone make jumps to conclusions like NASA is trying to fool us, and the conspiracy to fool us is suddenly everywhere. Then evidence that fits this world view suddenly starts to appear. Except it doesn’t.

No, what actually happens is that these flat mindsets start to create excuses for everything that doesn’t fit this world view. Never mind that civilizations like the Mayans, 4,000 years ago, understood the movement of the stars and probably already knew the earth was round. Never mind the view of earth from the Apollo moon missions. Never mind simple science experiments that have been around for hundreds of years proving the earth is round.

All that said, the flat earthers start with an observation, or lack of observation of a curve. They are using their senses, that are basing the criteria on their view of the world… their delusion.

That’s an easy example, because there is a lot of evidence debunking a flat earth. But there are a lot of topics where one perspective isn’t so clearly wrong. There are arguments on different sides of the political spectrum, different sides of a global conflict, and different sides of hot topics where the perspective someone, the perspective you, take is not necessarily the clearest. Suddenly our delusion is potentially working against us.

If we aren’t willing to go meta and really look at where our view is coming from, we are susceptible to flat world views. We can get stuck in a single delusional frame of mind where we don’t see what’s really happening, what a better perspective might be. And so just like the flat earther, we only see the issue from a perspective that we can observe, but isn’t correct.

The irony is that the more humble you are, the more likely you are to be able to go meta and see other possible perspectives. It seems that being humble is a key ingredient, because a lot of smart people struggle with this. Religion, politics, and culture all seem to undermine intelligence, and smart people get lost in dogma. Even scientists can do this. It’s not about how smart you are, it’s about how humble you are.

Are you willing to recognize other views? Are you able to let go your ego and really observe an issue from a different perspective? Are you willing to change your mind? Ironically if the answer is yes, you probably don’t need to get meta as often as others. It’s still useful to do though, both to solidify your own view, and to change your mind.

High versus low trust societies

I love when someone adds to my perspective on social media. That’s exactly what happened after I posted Basic assumptions a couple days ago. The post reflected that, “people no longer give each other the benefit of the doubt that intentions are good. This used to be a basic assumption we operated on, the premise that we can start with the belief that everyone is acting in good faith.”

I shared the post on Twitter and Chris Kalaboukis and I had the following conversation thread:

Chris: Reading your post: could we be transitioning from a high-trust to a low-trust society?

Dave: Yes, that seems like an appropriate conclusion. Is there an author that speaks of this idea?

Chris: Not that I can recall, however, if you look at the attributes of low-trust societies you see a lot of what is happening now.

Dave: So true! The circle of high trust seems to be shrinking and it really seems like a step backwards… tribalism trumps the collective of a greater community.

Chris: It is. It seems that even our institutions are driving us towards more tribalism and division.

Dave: And how do you suppose we correct this course? I honestly don’t have a clue, and see things getting worse before they get better.

Chris: I think that in reality, most people prefer to live in a high-trust society. We need leaders and media who support that vision.

Dave: I think the biggest problem right now is that most leaders do not want to step into a limelight where both social media and news outlets are only interested in focussing on the dirt. It seems everyone is measured by their worst transgressions, regardless of many positive deeds.

Chris: If it bleeds it leads. we’ve never been able to communicate with more people at the same time but the only communication which seems to get through is negative. It’s all about keeping your attention to sell more ads.

Dave: I sound like quite the pessimist, that’s not usually my stance on things, but I do struggle to see a way forward from here.

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The idea Chris shared that we could be ‘transitioning from a high-trust to a low-trust society’ seems insightful and really intrigues me. It isn’t happening at just one level, but many!

• Scam phone calls and emails are perfect examples. We used to operate from a position of trust, but now unknown calls and unsolicited emails are all necessarily met with skepticism.

• Sensationalized news leads with misleading headlines that are more about getting attention and clicks than about providing truthful news. And if the news slant doesn’t match your beliefs, it’s ‘fake news’.

• Sales pitches and advertising promises almost everything under the sun, you aren’t buying a product with a basic function, you are buying a product that is going to change your life or transform how you do ‘X’, or use ‘Y’… your results will surprise you and you’ll be amazed!

• If you are even slightly left wing you are ‘woke’ or ‘Antifa’ in the most derogatory way you can use these words. If you are even slightly right wing you are ‘Alt-right’ and racist. No one gets to sit on a spectrum, you are either viewed as an extreme on one or the other side. And even agreeing on one topic on the other side makes you less trustworthy on your side.

These are but a few ways we’ve become a lower-trust society. Ad hominem and straw man attacks get more attention than sound arguments. A well said lie is easily shared while complex truths are not. Saying a situation is complex and sharing nuance does not make for catchy sound bites, and aren’t going to go viral on TikTok, or Instagram Reels. No, but the snarky personal attack will, as will a one-sided, extreme view that packs a powerful punch.

What’s worse is that moderate voices get shut out. And in general many people feel silenced or would rather not share a view that is even slightly controversial. So the extreme voices get even more airtime and attention.

I feel this often. Writing every day, and sometimes picking controversial topics to discuss, I find myself tiptoeing and treading very carefully. I said in my Twitter conversation with Chris above, “It seems everyone is measured by their worst transgressions, regardless of many positive deeds.” I sometimes wonder what one thing I’m going to say is going to get blown out of proportion? If I write one single inappropriate or strongly biased phrase, will it define me? Will it undermine the 1,500+ posts that I’ve written, and make me out to be something or someone I’m not?

This sounds paranoid, but I wrote one post a few years ago that a friend private messaged me about, then called me and said I’d gone too far with my opinion on a specific point. I totally saw his point, went back and adjusted my post to tone it down… but I feel like that one issue, that one strong and overly biased opinion shared publicly put a rift in our friendship. And that’s someone I respect, not some stranger coming at me, not someone that doesn’t know my true character. My opinion in his eyes is now less trustworthy, and holds less value. That said, I appreciated the feedback, and respect that he took the time to share it privately. That’s rare these days.

The path forward is not easy. We aren’t just swaying slightly towards a less trustworthy society, we are on a full pendulum swing away from a more trustworthy society. Tribalism, nationalism, and extremism are pulling our world apart. Who do you trust? What institutions? Which governments? Who do you consider a neighbour? Who will you break bread with? Who do you believe?

The circles of trust are getting smaller, and the mechanisms to share bias and misinformation are growing. We are devolving into a less trusting society or rather societies, and it’s undermining our sense of community. We need messages of kindness, love, and peace to prevail. We need tolerance, acceptance, and more than anything trustworthy institutions and leaders. We need moderates and centrists to voice compromise and minimize extremist views. We need to rebuild a high trust society… together.