Author: Ricardo

I saw a startling video clip the other day. I’ll spare you the details. The clip did make me think about how, moment to moment, we are all participants in a cosmic equation filled with ever-changing variables.

Do not assume that you have any more moments coming to you other than the moment at hand. We are guaranteed nothing. We are not guaranteed that we will wake up tomorrow. We are not guaranteed that we will die tomorrow. We have only the current moment. The next moment may come; it may not come. As your heart beats, understand that there are BILLIONS of other heartbeats on this planet. With every moment, billions of beats…some hearts beat their last, other hearts beat their first. And for so many billions, this beat is just one in a lifetime of beats.

We lose count, so they lose meaning.

Yet, each beat is meaningful! It means something to the life, to the person, it sustains. It means something to their friends. It means something to their family. It means something to a great many people. It has the potential to means something to so many more. Look around you when you walk down the street. Those are all people who can, in some way, be affected by each beat of your heart.

I know someone who can tell you the number of grains of rice they just bought to help feed others thanks to some charity. I don’t know how one calculates such things, but I go with it. There is someone who believes that neighbors can help each other through rough times. She founded ProjectNeighbor.org. I know someone who is taking great pride in helping to make sandwiches for the homeless in Washington DC. I know another who plans to Clean Coppell along with the community. These are all hearts that beat, moment to moment, just like yours and mine. They are not guaranteed tomorrow, but they plan for it anyway, and in their plans, they make time for others. These are just four examples that I heard of today.

I had a conversation with someone earlier in the week who dedicates his life to teaching young men and women. He told me about his desire to help them understand how just one person can make a difference in the history of our species on Earth. They are young teens, so they scoff at the idea. “Adolf Hitler was one person,” he reminds them. “Morgan Spurlock is one person. Do you see ‘supersized’ items at McDonald’s anymore?” He laughed. “I want them to see that one person can make all the difference in the world.” “TO the world,” I thought. To change the world, we have to change ourselves; we have to live an example so great that others can’t help but be affected. Then we’ll know we changed a life and changed the world in the process.”

You don’t have to topple an empire to change the world. You just have to give a little.

One life to another. One heartbeat to the next. No guarantees. Borrowed time. Finite.

Act accordingly!

Somebody sent me a story. It’s really short. It goes like this:

“Some people asked a Sufi master, ‘Which is better, courage or generosity?’ The Sufi master replied, ‘Those who are generous have no need for courage.'”

I was asked for my take on the story. I think the implication is that true and total generosity requires freedom from material concerns. Freedom from material concerns requires a level of courage that I think few have attained, so much so that those who have it would not consider it courage. For them, it simply is.

I sent an Eckhart Tolle quote to a friend. He didn’t like it. The quote goes like this:

“The only thing that ultimately matters is this: Can I sense my essential Beingness, the I AM, in the background of my life at all times?”

He responded: “I” am not the I AM in the background of my life. That would suggest a very hollow existence. I did not create me, nor am I the one who sets the day the creation that is me ceases.”

I told him that I thought he misunderstood the quote. I know my friend was talking about God. My friend is Christian, so I guess I can see how he interpreted the quote the way he did. However, the greater context of Eckhart’s work is missing. When Eckhart talks about “I” he does not mean the thinking, human part. That’s what he call Ego, and I think that is how my friend interpreted “I” in the quote. When Eckhart speaks of “I”, he means TRUE consciousness, the part of each of us that exists outside of the flesh…and is very much a part of the totality of the Universe. You may call that God…or whatever fits your faith. Eckhart maintains, and I agree, that you cannot fully know God or the Universe as long as you are enamored, enslaved, and distracted by your Ego. “Essential Beingness” is the part of you that is closest and most likely to feel your connection to God.

To those who are courageously generous, it simply is. To those who are courageously selfless, it simply is. To those who are courageously…courageous, it simply is. This is how life is lived for a very special subset of people on this Earth. They pepper our shared human history, and we recognize them when our paths cross theirs. For them, everything we admire so much about them simply IS. They know no other way of being.

Authentic living. Essential Beingness. A sense of “I AM” being connected to the Universe, at the core of every action taken. Aspiring to these things is how we change the world.

I was talking to someone today at my kids’ school. My littlest kept walking up to me and kissing my shoulder. He would place both hands on my arm, then gently kiss my shoulder. You know, one of those soft, sweet kisses you can barely feel? He must have done it five or six times.

I re-read my post from yesterday about Mike Wieringo and decided to leave the typos. That one drained me. Sometimes, I don’t take the time to proof my own posts, especially if I’ve written about something that’s particularly moving to me. I’ll have to get better at that.

My friend, Eileen, sent me a nice note today with a parable about writing. I write until I burst.

My oldest kept smiling at me so radiantly today. At dinner he just hung on my every word. And he kept smiling so radiantly. His face is beautiful, and I love to look at it.

I keep thinking about those kisses and that radiant smile as I sit here and write this. It’s distracting, honestly. But, it’s distracting in the best way possible. I guess what I needed today, more than anything, was to know that my boys love me. Somehow, they knew.

That’s all I’ve got. My boys love me…=)

There is no doubt that I am here, right now. I am alive. I am well. I do not plan on going anywhere, figuratively speaking. Well, literally, too, but I won’t be sitting at my desk at the time you read this. What I am saying is that I am still young, and I have no plans of abandoning this Earth.

But my plans aren’t that relevant to the greater order of the Universe. Whether or not there is a Grand Plan doesn’t matter as much as the fact that there is Order and Chaos in the Universe. Order and Chaos stand in opposition to one another yet complement each other beautifully. The result is Balance.

Balance may or may not care what I want. I mean, I can give input, but that doesn’t guarantee a thing. Whether or not one believes in a sentience behind the madness the is the physical manifestation of the Universe isn’t relevant. What matters is that my plan may not necessarily dovetail with the delicate interplay between Order and Chaos. I will get stepped on as the cosmic dancers go about their eternal waltz. It’s just a matter of when.

When I returned from a trip back in August of 2007, I found out that a friend of mine had passed away. He was young, just 43 years old. His name was Mike Wieringo. To say he was a friend in the conventional sense isn’t entirely accurate. You see, I never met Mike. I never spoke to him. I never really corresponded with him. I sent him a note once or twice, but I never got (nor expected a reply). Mike was an artist. I knew of his work in comics, and I was a huge fan. I visited his website religiously. I was often frustrated at how infrequently it was updated. Then, once day, Mike added a blog to his site, and everything changed.

Mike made it a habit of posting often. He’d write about anything and everything. Sometimes he’d write about a project he was working on. Sometimes he’d write about personal things. He went through a period where he found old sketches from when he was a kid and updated them with his adult skills. He wondered whether he was good enough. He shared moments of doubt, moments of triumph, moments of joy. For all intents and purposes, Mike was my friend.

Mike died suddenly. It was a shocked, and it chills me to this day to remember how I felt when I heard of his passing. At that point, I had been visiting Mike online for years. YEARS. He part of my nightly ritual. I always checked in to see what he was up to. Sometimes, I can’t believe it has been over two years. I still miss him, although I stopped going to his site long ago. You see, his brother left the site exactly as Mike left it. If you go there, you’ll see his last post. To the right, there’s a heading entitled “‘Ringo 1963-2007.” Under that is says “Remembrances.” I’ll leave it at that. You can visit the site at http://www.mikewieringo.com/.

Of course, a piece of Mike lives on in everyone he touched, but there is this other part of Mike…this odd sort of relic of the information age…that continues to live on in it’s own way. It is a strange, strange thing to stumble on the blog of someone who has died. These blogs are voices of the living…daily reminders that we are here. But, Mike isn’t here. Yet his blog lives on. Someday, as is the case with all human endeavors, even Mike’s blog will disappear. It has the potential to live on for what may seem like infinity, but that’s just an illusion. Another illusion.

Mike blogged. There is proof that he was here. He may not have contemplated this during his lifetime, but blogging was proof to all of those who read his words that Mike Wieringo, the man, shared this Earth with us. For now, anyway, Mike Wieringo will lives.

I blog, therefore I am.

Despite what I have heard from others, it really is quite easy to find silence in this world. I’m not talking about sensory deprivation. That kind of experience is hard to come by. What I mean is that it is possible in the course of a normal day to achieve a level of solitude and relative quiet such that most intrusive noises are eliminated, even if it is just for a few minutes.

I find that time when my kids are in bed and my wife is off somewhere doing something important for our family that needs to be done. If I allow myself the luxury, I can find silence. In my newly established Man Cave, I can create this luxury a bit more readily, at least that has been my experience to date. All in all, it is possible to be someplace quiet.

Oddly, what breaks the silence is the inevitable chatter of the voice inside my head. It’s not a disembodied voice, some sign of mental illness. No, it’s much more pedestrian than that. It is, quite simply, me. My brain doesn’t chill; it just goes and goes and goes. I used to think the phenomenon was unique to me, but I have met enough people who get what I am talking about to know that most people have an inner voice that is constantly rambling. It wasn’t until reading Eckhart Tolle that I came to learn the nature of that inner voice.

Eckhart calls it “the ego,” and it is simply the part of your mind that is tied to the physical plane, to the world of form. You higher self, your TRUE self, is a consciousness that is apart from the ego. The ego is a series of thoughts and processes; consciousness is one’s spiritual, universal essence. When the world around us is silent, the ego grows uncomfortable. It is tied to the external world, so it needs to be grounded in external stimulus to keep a sense of itself relative to the rest of the world. So, the ego talks. It reminds of you of things that happened during the day. It comments on the temperature. It reminds us of all the things we didn’t accomplish today or that must be accomplished tomorrow. In the absence of outside stuff it creates inside stuff. That’s the nature of the ego.

In silence, we should strive to quiet the ego. If we can quiet the ego, our consciousness can take over. The words and the chatter distract from the true nature of our connection to the universe. It keeps us from knowing our interconnectedness to everything around us. They say that the universe is made of something like subatomic strings. How would we know? We’re too busy thinking about traffic tomorrow morning. Traffic will come, no matter how much or how little we think about it or worry about it. What won’t last forever is this momentary, conscious connection to the vibrations and energy patterns of this reality. It will slip away, eventually, as the details of surviving day-to-day take over again. Is it really worth sacrificing the potential to gain true insight into the nature of existence and reality just so you can sweat tomorrow’s weather?

Then again, I could be full of shit. Sure, but what if I’m not? Traffic or Transcendence?

Here’s a pretty difficult exercise. It is nowhere near as easy as it would seem.

Go outside. Take a seat somewhere that lends itself to inner reflection. Sit quietly, by yourself, and breathe deep. Allow yourself to feel the loosening of you muscles, your joints, your stress. Allow your mind to become clear and calm. Once you have achieved a state of mental and physical relaxation, begin to look around you. Take the world in through your eyes, your ears, your nose…experience the world around you using all of your sense. Now, look around again, studying everything in detail.

Try to do all of this without labeling a single thing.

Go ahead; try it. You will most likely find that you will hear your voice in your head labeling everything and anything you take in. It is one thing to know what a thing is when you sense it, it is quite another to know what it is and insist of calling out its name. I know, it sounds goofy. Just try it.

Let me know how it goes. I’ll tell you how the experience went for me.

Share yours, and I’ll share mine.

I was asked recently why I say “the Universe” and not “God.”

That’s a good question.

But it’s irrelevant. I’ve already ranted about labels in an early post. So, things being what they are, I get to choose my labels. After all, I’m the one doing the writing!

Instead, I would much rather focus on everything that I have to say up until the term “the Universe” is needed. Maybe I mean the physical universe. Maybe I mean the metaphysical Universe. Maybe I mean the poetic, philosophical Universe. Maybe I mean the spiritual Universe or the Supreme Absolute. Besides, depending on context, why not leave it open to interpretation? Remember, I don’t have the answers, I just have my answers.

My answers. My Universe. Yours, too. Everyone’s. Regardless of what we call it, I share it with you.

Reactions are funny things. They tell you a lot about you: what you really feel, what you really want, and how much you value or care for a specific thing. It is easy to experience a reaction and allow learned pathways to take over. These work both ways. You can let positive pathways take over, or you can let negative pathways take over. Either way, changes are that the facts of the situation are overlooked. Chances are attribution, wishful thinking, and pain bodies are at work. Instead of flowing with emotional reactions, it is probably a wiser decision to allow the emotion to run its course, uncover the truth about you, then leave you armed with information, calmed, and ready to respond consciously. Conscious, in-the-moment action is the kind of action which probably should always aspire to take. I believe it opens up many more positive potential outcomes. And it helps guard against bad decisions…or, shall we say, decisions with many more negative potential outcomes.

This topic of choosing how to react keeps coming up.

Conversely, I can take things I learn at home and apply those to work. For example, through the Love and Logic Institute, I adopted the following:

Six Ways to Help Your Children Remain Open to Discipline

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Focus mostly on our children’s strengths rather than their weaknesses.
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Smile at them as often as possible. If your eyes light up when they enter the room, they will take note.
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Write them little notes that tell them how much we adore them.
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Greet them each day with a hug or a high five.
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Make sure that they overhear us talking about how much we love them.
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Deliver our Love and Logic with great empathy, calmness, and sincerity.

While I am not an avid practitioner of all six right now, my goal is to balance them better. When I do engage in any of these, I see the results instantaneously. For example, my oldest loves notes. It’s been a while since I’ve written him one, so that’s a mental note for myself. However, when I do write them, he keeps them. A simple sentence or two is enough to make his little heart glow. Similarly, I smile at my boys every chance I get, and I always get a smile back. It lets them know that I love them. I’ve experimented on them and stared without a smile. This has the expected effect on them. Their smiles disappear. They stare back, wondering what’s going on. Inevitably, they ask, “What?” So, a simple look is a powerful, non-verbal form of communication.

I’ve taken those six principles and modified them for the workplace. I shared them with several of my peers…more than once, actually. They look like this:

Six Ways to Help Your Employees Remain Open to Coaching

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Focus mostly on their strengths rather than their weaknesses.
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Smile at them as often as possible. If your smile when they enter the room, they will take note.
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Write them notes that tell them how much we appreciate them.
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Greet them each day with a hug or a high five. I recommend a genuine greeting. (Hugs from me don’t go very far here.)
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Make sure that they overhear us talking about how much we appreciate them.
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Deliver coaching with great empathy, calmness, and sincerity.

See? It doesn’t take much to learn a lesson at home and apply it at work. And vice versa.

So, do I really believe that leading people is just like parenting? No, I don’t. However, I do firmly believe that there are many similarities, and, more importantly, I believe that what I learn either at home or at work can be used either at home or at work.

The simplest example goes like this. I get frustrated at home. I raise my voice. My kids feel bad when I do. It affects their motivation. I raise my voice again. My wife asks me, “Do you talk to your team like that?” Begrudgingly (and not always instantly), I concede to her point. If I can’t get away with something at work, why on Earth would I feel like I can get away with it at home, with the people that I love more than anything else on the planet? I’ll take that up a notch, too. It’s not that I can’t be a belligerent ass at work. Rather, I choose not to be one. Even in this kinder, gentler workplace, there is plenty of belligerent assness to go around. I made the choice, though, that I would not be that kind of leader. At work. At home, there’s a different set of rules at work. Interestingly enough, some of those rules allow for ass-like behavior. And the results? Not so great.

Sometimes, we refuse to take what we learn in one setting and transfer it over into another. And THAT is precisely my point. It’s not only OK to do that, I would argue that it’s advantageous AND prudent to do it. Why? Because the 10,000-hour rule applies here. Remember that? It’s the rule that states that, in order to become a master at something, the average person must practice that skill for approximately 10,000 hours. That comes out to about four hours a day, every day, for ten years. So, logically, if I practice assless parenting and assless leadership, I will effectively remove most traces of assness from my approach to dealing with people in tough situations in about five years.