Tag: Actions

Focus and Action

Posted on by jabittan
Last night I was having a group discussion that focused on how hard it can be to make the most of our time and to do what we know we ought to do.  I added to the conversations quotes from Marcus Aruelius and Colin Wright focusing on how we think about things in our daily lives, and how we decide what actions and decisions to make. Aurelius wrote, “It is not right to vex ourselves at things, for they care nought about it” and Wright included in his book Act Accordingly, “Far more than just a phrase, acting accordingly is a framework for decision-making that places importance where it belongs…” These quotes combined with an idea of self-awareness which I shared with the group to help highlight the power of our own mind and thoughts in relation to objects and actions in our lives.  The quote from Aurelius’ Meditations that I have for today would have been a useful addition to the quotes above in last nights discussion, “Attend to the matter which is before thee, whether it is an opinion or an act or a word.  Thou suffers this justly: for though choosest rather to become good to-morrow than to be good to-day.”

 

What the original conversation focused on is the challenges we face as we make the right decisions in the day. It can be easy to settle into a routine that is relaxing and comfortable. When autopilot takes over we reduce our thought process and fail to tap into intentionally use the time that we have.  This takes away our responsibility for our actions and may reduce our stress, but it prevents us from improving ourselves and striving to become something greater. The quote from Aurelius that could have been added to last night’s conversation focuses on the improvement we can experience when we become present in our actions and focus on what we are currently doing.  If we shift our focus and think about growing today and improving ourselves now, we will be better off not just in the future, but in our present moment.

 

The key to taking action in the current moment is to build a practice of self-awareness, reflection, and presence. Recognizing where we are and being able to consider the actions available to us can help us be more productive.

Satisfaction in a Good Act

Posted on by jabittan
As a stoic, Marcus Aurelius believed in self-awareness and growth through a deep reflection and understanding of ones thoughts. His book Meditations in many ways serves as a manual for how to think about and approach the world as a stoic. His book was originally a place for him to collect the lessons of his life so that he could continually return to thoughts of how he could live better.  He stresses a sense of contentedness with the present moment, and provides examples where we can shift our thoughts to be more fulfilled with the experiences, and lives that we live.

 

Regarding doing good acts and how we should view our actions when we are doing something positive Aurelius wrote, “When thou hast done a good act and another has received it, why dost thou still look for a third thing besides these, as fools do, either to have the reputation of having done a good act or to obtain a return?”  What the Emperor was expressing in this section is our desire to have others recognize our positive actions and praise us for them, and our desire to benefit from our good deeds.  He is challenging this desire of ours and suggesting that we should simply be happy knowing that we have done something positive for another person.  Building this sense of contentedness requires self-reflection and awareness to recognize our thoughts and desires for good karma or recognition.  His passage seems to say that doing good should always be enough to satisfy ourselves and our desires. Seeking out a return on our good deeds will not decrease the positivity that we provided to the world, but it will put an undue stress and burden on ourselves, and may cause us to be looked upon by others less favorably.

 

This quote aligns with the thoughts and recommendations that Aurelius presents throughout Meditations. He encourages us to be content with ourselves and not strive to take action for the purpose of impressing people who are alive or will be alive in the future.  Staying present and focusing on the moment in which we live will help us be more genuine in our actions, and will help us maximize our decisions.  Building in a sense of self-awareness and abandoning our need for reward or recognition in social settings can allow us to better align our actions with our values.  I think that Aurelius would agree with the idea that we would see more positivity in our own lives grow from our good deeds when we do not look for reward or take action with the hopes of receiving reward or recognition.

Marcus Aurelius on Brevity

Posted on by jabittan
In his common place book, published after his death with the title Meditations, Marcus Aurelius continually returned to the idea of our death and the short period of time that we spend on Earth.  He had a very realistic sense for how short our time here is, and how we should think about that time.  Our mortality can be a difficult subject to think about and focus on, but Aurelius was in many ways fascinated by the recognition of his mortality and what that meant for the life he lead.

 

Aurelius wrote, “Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.” In his quote he is showing that not only is our life short, but the lives of those who will remember us are also short. Not long after we have passed away, those who follow us will pass away. Living for legacy and trying to live to be remembered and venerated for eternity is a wasteful approach to life because you will never be able to control what is remembered and exactly how you are remembered.

 

Throughout meditations Aurelius writes about living in the present and being content with the life that you have. By focusing on our thoughts and changing the perspectives we foster, we can better understand our place in the world and our motivations.  Accepting that we will have an end, and that our memory will be forgotten is difficult, but it is an honest reality that we should embrace.  When we accept our mortality and the brevity of our lives, each moment can become more important and special, helping us better use our time to improve the direction and focus of our actions.

Interactions

Posted on by jabittan
Fred Kiel lays out his ideas and definitions of morality in his book Return on Character, his business book where he lays out the idea that in order to be truly successful in todays world companies must find leaders with strong moral character.  Much of his book focuses on relationships and the types of benefits that a leader and leadership team with strong moral character can bring to the relationships of everyone working within an organization, and the benefits that brings to a company as a whole. As part of this idea, Kiel dives into morality, and what it means to develop morality within a corporation or company today.

 

One of Kiel’s interpretations on morality relates to the way we see other people and interact with them, “Each of us constantly makes decisions about how to interact with other people, and each of those decisions has the potential to either harm or enhance the other person’s well-being.” This is a simple idea about how we can interpret and see the world and Kiel explains that what we are more moral when our actions help the well-being of others, and we are immoral when our behaviors detract from the well-being of others. This is a good starting point for describing the importance of character in relationships and business, because on an individual level it is easy to asses whether or not we are acting with the motivation of helping ourselves at the expense of others, or if we are acting in a way that is meant to help everyone as much as ourselves.

 

I recently listened to a podcast from the Transistor Podcast from PRX in which they discussed Theory of Mind which states that we are constantly interpreting what others are thinking and feeling, and we are able to recognize that others outside of ourselves have their own emotions and thoughts about any given situation.  I think that Kiel would argue that it is important for us to work on our Theory of Mind to build our ability to recognize the thoughts and feelings of others so that we can have better interactions with those around us.  The idea laid out by both the Transistor podcast and by Fred Kiel aligns with Colin Wright’s ideas presented in his book Considerations. In Considerations Wright posits the idea that we move through the world without being present in the moment as much as we should be, and he writes that we do not take the time to truly be considerate of other people, our good fortune, and of the world around us which shapes our interactions with people and our environment.  By being aware of our Theory of Mind and working to be more considerate of those around us, we can improve our character.  With our improved character and better relationships and interactions  we can begin to be a more rewarding person to be around, and in a business sense, our character generates a return that can be felt and measured within a company.

Reason, Action, Passion

Posted on by jabittan
While describing effective altruists, author and philosopher Peter Singer makes a distinction in the philosophy of reason and how we can look at effective altruists.  Singer establishes that effective altruists, or those who seek to do the most good that they can possibly do out of a sense of value for all people as opposed to seeking to do the most good they can do out of religious convictions or warm glow sentiments, empathize with all individuals across the globe because they are able to recognize the shared value in all humanity.  An effective altruist is drawn to help those who are in the most need and those who can be helped the most efficiently. Singer argues that their actions result from a strong sense of moral reasoning derived from the individual faculties of mind of effective altruists.  Moving in a very philosophical direction to examine the views of effective altruists Singer writes,

 

“The strongest objection to the claim that reason plays a crucial role in the motivation of effective altruists comes from Hume’s influential view that reason can never initiate an action because all action starts with a passion or desire … This is, in modern parlance, an instrumentalist view of reason.  Reason helps us to get what we want: it cannot tell us what to want or at least not what to want for its own sake.  To argue that reason plays a crucial role in the motivation of effective altruists, we have to reject this instrumentalist view of practical reason.”

 

At the end of the quote above Singer states that we need a different view of rationalization to be able to understand the actions of effective altruists.  The view reflected by Hume would suggest that effective altruists are truly only motivated by the warm glow we receive from helping others. He would argue that we receive an incentive to live altruistically because of the rewards generated by our actions. Singer on the other hand would argue that we would recognize these incentives only as byproducts of a positive lifestyle, and not the underlying goal for our actions.

 

Ultimately Singer is trying to place reason and rationality above emotions such as passion and desire.  For me this has always been a tricky area to disentangle.  We are very skilled at rationalizing our behavior to fit the reason we want our actions to be centered around. While Hume is arguing that our passions are what truly drive us at all times, singer is arguing that our passions grow from our reason.

The Impermanence of Failure

Posted on by jabittan
Throughout much of his writing, author Colin Wright tends to focus on our thoughts and the ways in which we react to things.  He frequently writes about self awareness and the ways in which our interpretations of our situations affects our thoughts and reactions. By becoming a more aware person and being able to control our thoughts we are able to have more positive reactions to the world around us.  In his book Considerations he writes, “Very seldom does failure have permanent repercussions. Unless you allow it to that is.  Many of the negative consequences of an action tend to result not from outside forces, but from our own negative thinking.”

 

I think this quote shows the power of self awareness and the power of controlling our thoughts. When we are able to recognize how we are thinking and feeling about any given event, we are better able to control our thoughts and shift them in a positive direction. When we are able to do this, we are in many ways able to chose our reactions and the ways in which we act.

 

To me the part that stand out the most from this quote is the last few words about negative thinking. By building self awareness and focusing in on our thoughts we can reduce the amount of negative thinking in our lives in all situations. Recognizing how your are thinking and acting allows us to see when we are over emphasizing small problems. For me, being able to recognize when I am letting something unimportant impact me in a negative way has helped me feel better about myself and my situations on a daily basis.

 

When it comes to failure, recognizing what Wright is discussing can be huge, especially in our professional careers.  We tend to fixate on things we have not done well, and we do not remember the positive parts of our workday.  When we dial in on the negative we build self doubt and cling to fears. What Wright is showing when with this quote is that others won’t remember those failures as long as we will, so it is not worth lamenting over those failures. If we do not learn to control our emotions and thoughts then all we gain from failure is a negative self impression and fear. Practicing self awareness can help us shift those thoughts so that we do not hang on to a past failure and allow it to become  a roadblock as we move forward.

Every Action Counts

Posted on by jabittan
Spiritual leader Ram Dass wrote a letter to James Harmon for the book, Take My Advice, and in his letter he quoted Mahatma Gandhi by saying, “What you do may seem insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” Dass continued on adding his own idea about Gandhi’s quote, “It is important for yourself, as well as for the balances in the world.”  This quote resonates with me because it is very easy to feel like a small, isolated, and powerless individual in such a large and complex world. However, approaching the world from the standpoint of this quote, all action seems to have meaning, even if it is small and nearly unnoticeable.
This blog may go unnoticed and it may often feel insignificant for me. However, when I take the approach laid out by Dass, I see that the blog serves a higher purpose than attracting attention or representing me.  The blog gives me a chance to reflect about important ideas and work over my thoughts. It helps me return to ideas that I had come across in reading, and as my mind reprocesses ideas I gain a greater mastery of those ideas.  Dass would argue that these little steps help me fortify my mind in what ever direction I happen to read and study, which in the end establishes my position on the universal balance beam of understanding vs. ignorance for whatever it is I write.
I think a metaphor that can apply to what Dass is explaining using Gandhi’s quote would be the image of a hanging balance scale.  If we compare positivity and negativity, in a broad sense we can imagine the scale has one bucket on each side, and each side is being filled with sand.  Every act of kindness in the world becomes one grain of sand dropped into the bucket on the left, and each act of negativity becomes one grain of sand dropped on the right.  Our actions of holding a door open for someone, picking up a soda can off the street, or becoming more self aware of our actions towards others will build up the sand pile on the left, and increase the amount of positivity being weighed on our balance scale.  However, if we assume that every action is meaningless and allow ourselves to disregard negative activity because the action feels insignificant, we inadvertently pile more sand onto the negative scale. Off hand comments, lazy acts of pollution, and a disregard for the feelings of others are all tiny grains of negative sand that build up and depress the world with negativity.
Thinking about working towards a positive tilt in the universal balance of good and evil gives our lives and actions a new meaning.  Rather than focusing on how small our actions seem to be, we can think of whether or not our actions add value to those around us or the universe in general. If it is unclear how our actions add value, then we can at least ask if our actions become a grain of sand on the positive or negative side of our balance.  These tiny actions can add up, and help us create a life that leans towards positivity, or whatever attribute we seek.