A letter to the Financial Speculators

Dear Thieves,

I have come to warn you as Jacob Marley's ghost came to warn Scrooge (loosely quoting Dickens): "You will wear the chain you forge in life. You make it link by link, and yard by yard... For it is truly required of everyone, that one's spirit should walk among his fellow men, and travel far and wide. If that spirit does not, it is doomed to wander the world and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared."

How do you feel now? Are you happy in your cold, big house? Are you beloved by all you have touched? Does your money comfort you in the loneliness of your thoughts? What if you lost all your money? What would you have then? Do you have friends who come through for you in the hard times?

You sure did have what Scrooge would admire as "a good head for business." You sold out yourself, your fellow brothers and sisters, our children, your country, and mankind, but you did do a lot of business. You took the easy way. You took the greedy way. It didn't feel right, but your values are "greed is good." As Dr. Seuss' character, the Once-ler, says, "If I didn't do it then someone else would." You justified your lies.

"Would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? ...It is a ponderous chain!" Every time your ego clouded your judgment, every moment you were silent when you should have spoken, every dream you have shattered, is a link on your chain.

The hubris you wear as a shield now prevents you from knowing, "This means YOU." But someday, your chain will keep you awake. Someday, your chain will wear you down. Someday, your chain will chill you with its loneliness.

There is no way out. The only way is sacrificing short-term payoffs for long-term benefits: "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings were a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" Your business distracts you from your real business.

The rest of us wish you "a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. You'll be very merry and very happy, we have no doubt!"

Joe

Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, “This is what I need.” It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment—not discouragement—you will find the strength there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege!! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow.

Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures, followed by wreckage, were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see this is really true.Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.

~ Joseph Campbell Quotes

This is the major contribution of Eastern philosophy to the West.

8th highly-effective people habit = VOICE

Going from Good to GREAT --> 8th highly-effective people habit = VOICE

1. Draw 4 overlapping circles.
2. In one circle, write, “Good At.”
3. In the second, write, “Passion.”
4. In the third, write, “People Pay For.”
5. In the last circle, write, “Conscience.”
6. Fill them answers in according to who you are.

The middle space where all of the circles overlap is your unique, God-given, inalienable VOICE. Fill that space in. Now, use it and become truly Great.

God bless you.

The 10 Commandments (of the Ethical Atheist)

We thought this was pretty good...

The Ten Commandments (of the Ethical Atheist): http://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/ten_commandments.html

Carpe Diem

I was showed this to me today and we thought it was pretty good. It's too bad we are not conscious of this point more often...especially in America it seems. The voice-over is Alan Watts and the production/animation is by Trey and Matt of South Park fame.

Carpe Diem

-Harry


Music and Life - Alan Watts



Another good one: Prickles & Goo

Forgiveness...

Yes. Forgiveness is the strongest point to Christianity. No other religion emphasizes forgiveness to the extent that Christianity does. Before Christ, the world lay dark w/o forgiveness. After Christ, forgiveness bathed the world in acceptance and the true heart and action of love… “I and The Other Are One.”

(If you want a “less is more” lesson, check out Buddhism. If you want a “go with the flow and do not fight the nature of things” lesson, check out Taoism. It is not that Christianity doesn’t cover these topics, it is just that these other traditions do it better. But for forgiveness, there’s nothing like Christianity.)

You don’t need faith. You can just look at what’s in front of you. Christianity comes with a translation need. Luckily you have a symbolic mind that can read the allusions.

Therefore, hell is having to live with your sin. Heaven is being completely one with God. Christ came to show that God is truly one with man, to suffer with man. Through this suffering comes compassion and The Ultimate Forgiveness. So yes, Jesus picked up your tab. It happened and it is done.

Furthermore, anyone who asks God for forgiveness and has worked on his heart is forgiven. That is how the Universe works. Don’t you feel that way for your own children? That is how God feels for you, his child.

I think Catholic guilt can be a problem. God has already forgiven us. You need only to learn how to forgive yourself. Say it with me, “God has already forgiven me. I must forgive myself.” Catch all and any negative self-talk and replace it. Watch some Joel Osteen. Sign up for his free podcast www.joelosteen.com

What's Wrong with America?

RE: Anxiety in the Empire (by Froma Harrop) in the St. Petersburg Times, July 11th, 2007

Finally, someone said it. Froma Harrop's column on what's wrong with America has been eating many of us up inside. Ms. Harrop's clear and eloquent list includes leadership that doesn't care about the communal big picture, noisy religiosity and fear distractions, the powerful grabbing the loot while millions of the working-class slip into poverty, rising debt, a disregard of science, politicians lining corporate coffers, and waging an unnecessary war on the cheap.

I would add that the key underlying factor behind many of these ills is lobbying. Corporations contribute millions to politicians if politicians do whatever the corporations say. As a result, corporations have created laws that can allow CEO’s to retire after one year with stock options vesting at upwards of $20-million while their employees work longer hours at reduced pay with no health insurance.

Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin are turning over in their graves at their democracy that is no longer “one man, one vote,“ but rather, one corporate lobbyist contribution, one more bunch of rich old white guys robbing us blind. Corporate lobbying has hi-jacked our democracy; it is ours no longer.


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/07/anxiety_in_the_empire.html

The Secret Doesn't Mean Ignore the Truth. Embrace the Paradox.

The Secret doesn’t mean ignore the truth. Maybe they (The Secret, Inc.) haven’t clarified the importance of using negative emotions and experiences as useful information to make a real change. I feel that our greatest failures are our greatest gifts. I feel that The Secret did show that if you focus on negative aspects of your personal life like debt and frustration, those will expand. If you focus on how sick you are and how your life isn’t fair, that will create more of the same. That is true and very useful. Perhaps The Secret II will show how “hitting bottom” is the greatest gift b/c it opens our eyes to the truth and forces us to change. We should always be searching for where mishaps and mistakes can happen, that way we can prevent them. The Secret does not talk about that.

Although no one in their right mind would ignore cancer treatments, there is a growing and vast body of scientific data built in the last 5-10 years that is proving an extremely strong mind-body connection. That is now undeniable. So, if you want health, meditate on health. If you want a heart attack and cancer, act angry, frustrated, and ungrateful. This has been scientifically proven. A scientific article in the paper yesterday stated that people who are ungrateful and think “Life isn’t fair” are at something like a 60% increased risk of a heart attack. That’s huge. If we were talking about a drug doing that, it would be a huge effect. A “Gratitude Attitude” is perhaps the single best thing you can do for your health, along with social support, exercise, and weight loss.

The great thing about healing visualizations, relaxation breathing, and social support is that it is free! These are extremely strong statistically proven factors related to health. So ignore them at your own peril.

Does that mean someone who gets cancer, for example, was lacking in some relaxed, spiritual sense? No. Sometimes free radicals just mess with our cells and we get cancer through no fault of our own thoughts or deeds. However, now the scientific consensus is that YES, You Can Give Yourself Cancer/Heart Disease, etc.

There is a wonderful scientific business book called Good to Great, by Jim Collins that Harry’s company lives by. In it are the most important factors common to “Great” companies. (However, these factors are human factors that can and should be applied to individual greatness.) The most important one is humility. Another one of the important success factors is called The Stockdale Paradox, read about it here.

Read it and weep! Live every day like it is your last.

Social Activity

We have come to a realization lately that social activity is truly one of the keys to happiness and longevity. Ironically, everything these days forces us into being less social: computers (here I am), TV, video games, house and apartment design, city planning. I think there are a few places where people have recognized this trend and are building cities, places, homes to foster more social interactions, but in general I think it is pretty bad/sad. We long for a front porch on our house where we can hang out and visit our neighbors. I'd like a good neighborhood pub we can walk to. I think old folks homes could use more of this type of thing... I have been thinking about idea involving a front porch type concept, but for apartments. Hmmmm.

Baby Boomers Growing Older, but Will They Grow Up?

There's been a lot of press lately about baby boomers hitting retirement age and growing older. There's always a lot of press about whatever baby boomers are going through because there's just so many of them. Still, one wonders what this kind of national attention and societal mindset has done to the boomer psychology and the non-boomers who love them.

Millions of people have grown older and retired and it wasn't news. Millions of people before the boomers learned to face the end of their careers, possible ill health, and grandparenthood with quiet aplomb. Instead of following the modest and noble example of the greatest generation before them, the boomer psychology tends toward self-centered narcissism, as is encouraged by national news on boomers.

Not only did the boomer generation pioneer thinking for oneself and protesting war, they also relaxed social norms that protect children being born into intact families. Not only did boomers assert their right to self-expression and discovery, they also pursued careers and self-interest at the expense of their latch-key children and soaring divorce rates.

And now that boomers are entering retirement and grandparenthood, many are not letting go of their careers and are not making time to develop real relationships with their grandchildren on a regular basis. They would rather play golf and fight aging “every step of the way.”

Boomers, as Pulitzer Prize winning author Anna Quindlen quotes, “No one ever said on his deathbed, ‘I wish I had spent more time at the office.’” I would extend that to say, “No one on his deathbed has ever said, ‘I wish I had spent more time on myself trying to look or be younger.’”

Boomers, it’s all about friends and family. We non-boomers miss you, but we have given up trying to change you. We’ll be waiting here for you now and on your deathbed. The rest is up to you.

Written by a Gen-Xer, whatever that means.