FootprintsintheWind.com

I do not have to argue and fight, merely invite.

:- Doug.

There are many ways to bring people together on a project, yes? We can command them, manage them, lead them. We can educate them, give them best practices, show them slide shows. We can poll them, collect their ideas, feed back to them what they said. We can invite mobs, inspire the people, use propaganda. Or we can invite them to engage their highest and best.

:- Doug.

If humanity is so brilliant as individuals, what might we do if we put us together? What experiments might we try?

:- Doug.

What have you observed…of people engaged together in a common pursuit, the kind where they are leaning in and ideas are firing?

:- Doug.

I think about one thing and read about many. This keeps my mind freshened, my spirit winging.

:- Doug.

What we have here is a failure to initiate community imagining.

Last night a young couple told our little group their frustrations trying to get a home of their own. “We looked into Habitat for Humanity, but because I have a court judgment against me, they turned me down.”

Much later someone in the group asked “What if we pooled our money and loaned you enough to pay off the judgment? Then you could qualify for Habitat.”

What we had here was a failure to initiate community imagining.

Many of our problems today cause us to suffer for this same reason: a failure to imagine. In community we can imagine more and better. We can get past impasses small and sometimes large. We can get past fighting to common ground. We can become larger than our problems.

Let us invite our community together to imagine….

:- Doug.

First we calm our minds; then we can watch how we work.

Invitation, going round the circle, defining or reaching agreement on our task are us doing the first; seeing how we work enables us to work together (our primary task) and get something done (our secondary). The process gives us us. We can now embody us in world.

Together becomes verb; together becomes larger than the sum of the individuals by an order of florescence.

Together we: calm our minds; gain insight. Insight shows us our habit of seeing ourselves as if we were separate, and helps us break free.

:- Doug.

We are caterpillars to the power of butterflies. If we wish.

:- Doug.

It is possible for us to have a better world, a better living. Most of the time we just don’t want to work that hard, we don’t want to give out our energy. Why? Our other activities take so much of our attention and energy that we have little left.

But if we only knew that our energy comes from energy expended towards other life!

And there is the element of fear of letting go of this bar to grab the higher. We can have more life: it only requires that we give some of it to someone else.

It is worth experimenting.

:- Doug.

Life is—leaning in.

:- Doug.

Read no more this evening: it might get in the way of your thinking progressing.

:- Doug.

People come alive!

:- Doug.

Where is the life in this? Is what is happening increasing or decreasing life?

:- Doug.

I don’t generally work from goals. I work from principles. Bigger things.

:- Doug.

When was the last time you saw people come alive? This is what matters.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 969

Touch: a mini embrace

Please pass it on.

© c 2009, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Humanity is either rising or falling—there is no balancing in place. There is no standing all day on one toe. There is an up that continues up, and it is called humanity. But it is not sure unless you accept the invitation, unless you start inviting.

:- Doug.

We cannot live all our lives in intensity, but we can stretch ourselves more, and we can have more life.

:- Doug.

Which has more life—a question or a story? A joke or an explanation? A sneeze or blowing your nose? A crying jag or reciting a memorized passage? A power point presentation or a mother scolding her child after a scare? Rank them from most to least living.

:- Doug.

It is harder for some people than others to accept that whatever emerges is the onliest thing, the one that meets us. Whatever happens is whatever happens.

:- Doug.

How slow can you go?

:- Doug.