This inspiring story shows how using what we have – or don’t have! – can lead us in positive new directions. It’s all about convergence of different kinds of capability coming together to produce a beautiful thing.
Zander’s next chapter starts with an excerpt from the film. Babe when the cow and the duck talk about the the disappearance of Roseanna who later turns up ons t a Christmas platter. The cow says that’s the way things are and the duck says the way things are stinks. We’ve often taken both sides of the argument.
The Zanders argue against resignation. When that is our attitude, even when we think we are moving forward we are often inserting language in the situation that attests to our belief that things won’t really work. I was amused the other day to hear someone say that in a month or two things are going to change when a new employee starts on the job. The look on his face shows that he thinks the scene can only get worse. He’s forecasting a downward spiral
Seeing the way things are doesn’t pretend that they are necessarily the way we want them to be. It’s our attitude toward reality that determines what will happen next. If we focus on everything that is wrong about the situation we draw attention to it and reinforce it. If we see that there actually are options, we can consider them in turn. Taking this stance has much in common with Appreciative Inquiry when one starts with what is positive in the situation. Those who have often been in the most dire of circumstances have yet retained the power to accept things exactly as they are and use that reality as their point of departure without judging it. Just doing so creates the momentum between where one wishes to go and where we are now. And there are lots of options to consider in all directions – just like a mind map
Canada’s Jack Layton, the federal politician who died this week all too young at 61 said it well in a letter that he penned just two days before his death.
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let’s be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.
Back to the best of Benjamin Zander’s Art of Possibility
He notes our everyday world has an immense focus on measurement – calendars, clocks, buzzers, alarms – that are largely calls to get on with it, to do more, to climb higher, to strive for success – or even just basically survive. When we say it’s a jungle out there, our reptile brain is sometimes more ascendant than we recognize. Look at any morning paper from the news section, to the sports section, to the business, section and even the style section – and it is mostly about winning and losing and exemplifies survival thinking.
The trouble with this approach, Zander notes, is that it provokes fear. We see it too in our need to acquire more to feel safe, to focus on scarcity and to drain the earth of resources. So he suggests that we ask ourselves how many of our thoughts relate to this measurement world.
Of course, knowing that a lot of them do results in new awareness. But it’s just an early step in the journey. There’s more to come.
This is a diversion from the notes on Ben Zander’s Art of Possibility but since I have just seen it for the first time today, it’s worth a look as an imaginative way to present an argument succinctly.
