Category Archives: Philosophy

Tying Up Loose Ends: Food for Thought and Brief Hiatus

Since moving to the new domain (www.JeremiahStanghini.com), this has been the longest time between posts. The last post I wrote was on April 5th. The hiatus from posting will continue for a little while after this post because I’m working on the last requirements for finishing my MBA. There are about 3 weeks left until the end of exam period, so I’ve got a few papers/presentations to finish and a lot of grading of papers/exams.

Whenever I open my computer I see the list of posts that I’ve been meaning to write. In an effort to “clear out some mental space,” I thought I’d do what I’ve done a couple of times in the past and flush out my list of posts to write. In this way, the list will be fresh for when I come back (save for the few cognitive biases that I still want to write about). So, without further adieu, here are some of the things that I had planned on expanding upon. I hope you enjoy!

Cars and Transportation — It’d be really cool if they could *feasibly* develop a car that could transform. A car that could be a single-passenger when commuting, but it could expand/transform into 2, 3, or 4 seats when it necessary.

Political Ideology — What if a given political ideology’s thoughts/plans don’t work unless they can be fully implemented? And because there’s a split in Parliament/Congress, it’s worse. But what if when either party had total control, it’d be worse than this middle-ground between the two ideas?

LeBron James vs. Michael Jordan — A few weeks before the conversation about LeBron vs. Jordan started, I’d had it on my to do list to write about it. I was a bit peeved when the conversation started (without me), but there were some interesting (and some not) things written about it. I think it’s extremely difficult to compare players across decades. It’s akin to comparing players across sports! I remember a few years ago when there was talk that Alex Rodriguez would be the greatest baseball player ever. I think it’s safe to say that conversation has died down a little.

Fear of Public Speaking — I was thinking back to one of the first times I had to stand up in front of a group of people and give a speech. I don’t even remember what I spoke about — but I do remember one of the speeches from my classmates who did quite well (it was about the NBA dunk contest). As I watch some folks present in front of rooms, I can empathize with their nervousness. Heck, even I still get a bit nervous sometimes. One thing I’ve learned — it’s really about repetition. The more times I’ve spoke in front of groups of people, the less nervous I get the next time I go up there. (On a slightly related note: I’d say another key factor in minimizing fear of public speaking is the extent to which you’re prepared to speak on the topic. Read: know your stuff!)

Focus on Labor — I’ve never been the CEO or a highly placed Vice President of a company, but from an outsider’s perspective, I always have a hard time understanding the lack of focus on the labor force. At times, it really looks like labor is the key to success. If the labor force is well taken care of, production and profits tend to do well. It reminds me of that post I did about sustainability and pitchers. The relation here is that when management takes care of the labor force, it is with an eye towards long-term sustainability.

Life, Liberty, and Property? — Why is property so valued? What about nomads or North Americans who show us that land isn’t to be owned? What about animals? They don’t seem to own land.

Star Trek: Inheritance — This is an episode from the final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The gist of is that Data has to decide whether or not he’s going to tell his mother that she is an android (when she believes she’s a human). In thinking about this episode, I wondered about the ethics of telling someone they aren’t who they think they are. What about an adopted child?

Social Entrepreneurship — George Mason University‘s Center For Social Entrepreneurship has a massive open online course (MOOC) in social entrepreneurship. If you wanna learn about social entrepreneurship, this is a great place to start!

“I AM” — I saw the movie I AM quite some time ago and there were some cool things that stood out to me. I’ll be brief:

  • The HeartMath Institute — check them out! They’re doing some fascinating work.
  • Animals are more likely to cooperate than we may have first thought. There was a reference to a journal article about how a herd of deer decided to go in a given direction after hydrating at a water hole.
  • Rumi poetry is medicine for the soul.
  • I am continually amazed at the kinds of things that are correlated with Random Number Generators.
  • Did you know that the word “Love” appears 95 times in Darwin’s “The Descent of Man?”
  • A great quote that Desmond Tutu read: “God looked at me and said, all I have is you.”

And so that clears off most of my list. Look for a new post sometime in the next month, but probably not for the next 3 weeks. Happy end of April and early May!

Do Percentages Matter in a One-Time Decision?

I write a lot about decision-making. It’s clearly something that interests me. As a result, I often find myself thinking about how to make better decisions or how to help people make better decisions. That’s why I’m already up to Part 10 of that series on decision-making (and I’ve got at least 4 more to go). I’m not including today’s post as part of that series, but it serves as an interesting addendum. Meaning, it should at least give you something to think about. So, here we go!

As I said, I often find myself thinking about how to optimize decisions. Often times, when people are trying to make a decision about something in the future, there may be percentages attached to the success of a decision. For example, if you’re the elected leader of a country, you might have to decide about a mission to go in and rescue citizens that are being held hostage. When you’re speaking with your military and security advisors, they may tell you the likelihood of success of the different options you have on the table.

I was going to end the example there and move into my idea, but I think it might make it easier to understand, if I really go into detail on the example.

So, you’re the President of the United States and you’ve got citizens who are being held hostage in Mexico (but not by the government of Mexico). The Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff presents a plan of action for rescuing the citizens. After hearing about the chance of success of this plan, you ask the Chief what the chance of success is and he tells you 60%. The other option you have is to continue to pursue a diplomatic solution in tandem with the Mexican government. As the President, what do you do?

So, my wondering is whether that 60% number really matters that much. In fact, I would argue that the only “numbers” that would be useful in this situation are 100%, 0%, or whether the number is greater than 50 or less than 50 (to make sure that this is still three numbers, we could call this last number ‘x’). This sounds silly, right? A mission that has a 80% chance of success would make you more inclined to choose that mission, right? The problem is that 20% of the time, that mission is still going to fail. And my point is that since this is a one-time decision (meaning, it’s astronomically unlikely that the identical situation would occur again), there won’t be iterations such that 80% of the time, the decision to carry out that mission will be successful.

I suppose the argument against this idea is that in a mission that has only a 51% chance of success, there’s a 49% chance of failure and one would presume that there are more factors that might lead to failure with these percentages (or at least a higher chance of these failures coming to fruition).

I realize that this idea is off-the-wall, but I’d be interested to read an article in a math journal that explains why this is wrong (using reasoning beyond what I’ve explained here) or… why it’s right!

Quick Thoughts on “The Continuous Reinventing of the Machinery of Government”

I’m into the last semester of an MBA. For my last two electives, I chose courses that could serve me if I chose to be public servant or if I chose to get into the foreign service (I realize those aren’t mutually exclusive areas). My two electives are International Relations and Administration in Public and Nonprofit Organizations. The IR class is certainly challenging as I never had a political science class during my time as an undergraduate. The Public Admin. class has been really fun so far — I’m learning a lot about how the government functions (and doesn’t). I just finished reading one of the chapters for class tomorrow and I wanted to share a few excerpts and some thoughts. All excerpts come from Shafritz’s/Russel’s/Borick’s Introducing Public Administration, 8th edition, Chapter 3, “The Continuous Reinventing of the Machinery of Government.”

“More than 7 million Americans already live in such closed-off communities, and that number is expected to double over the next decade.” (p. 75)

“These new-fashioned feudalists, who are decidedly libertarian concerning the outside world, are surprisingly socialistic concerning the private, inside world of their gated min-cities.” (p.75)

This reminds of something I saw earlier this year. Glenn Beck wants to create his own city. I remember Jon Stewart doing a bit on Beck contrasting his anti-socialistic views for the outside world, but his downright socialistic tendencies when it came to being inside the walls of his city. This has a, “history repeats itself,” kind of feeling to it, doesn’t it? Not the Stewart bit on Beck, but that there’s a push (is there really?) to return to walled-off cities.

“Government entities, once established, tend to last a long time and not change easily.” (p. 79)

While understandable, it seems that there should be more innovation in the government, shouldn’t there? How can we get more innovation in the government, while carefully preserving those agencies that might quickly be lopped off before they’ve had the time to adequately effect the changes mandated of them?

“There is no federal Department of the Environment…” (p. 84)

Doesn’t this seem a bit unfortunate? Pres. Clinton tried to create this department under his administration, but — naturally — was met with opposition. I understand the fear of Big Government, but some things should transcend partisanship. The really twisted part — folks are calling for the Secretary of State to make climate change (!) his top priority! If there were a Department of the Environment, the Secretary of State could focus on other matters concerning the State. This issue seems misplaced. (Note: I should say that I still think it’s important for the Secretary of State to be concerned with climate change, but with a Department of the Environment, the issue would be more appropriately addressed.)

~

There are almost 90,000 (!) governments in the United States when you include county, municipal, towns, school districts, and special districts. (p. 86)

~

“Because few citizens ride horses to government offices today, it would seem to make a lot of sense to combine many counties and thus realize substantial savings from having fewer county clerks, county sheriffs, county courts, and so on. But which clerk, sheriff, or judge is going to quietly resign?” (p. 88)

This seems like a really important point. It seems to parallel a problem that is often faced in business — short-term profits vs. long-term gains. In this case, it would be taking short-term losses for long-term gains. If the government bought out those employees in areas where it were merging governments, there would likely be a substantial price tag. Although, in doing so, many (theoretically) efficiencies would be realized. Similarly, there would be a great deal of potential entrepreneurs (in those people who were just bought out). Of course, this is hastily laid out here, but it’d be an interesting proposal to have fleshed out.

~

I find it odd that special districts have quadrupled since 1942 (now over 37,000), but school districts have shrunk by 90% (from 108,000 in 1942 to approximately 13,000 today). (p. 90-91)

~

“Congress has never drawn — as the Brownlow Committee would have liked — a dichotomy between politics and administration.” (p. 105)

“Members thrive on bureaucratic red tape and the opportunities it creates for constituent service. This is why the ombudsman/ombudswoman movement has never gone very far in the US. This function is happily, even joyously, performed by the elected representatives. It is quite literally what their staffs spend most of their time on — because it is the key to reelection.” (p. 105)

Something’s wrong with this picture — assuming that the authors are correct in their assessment (in that this is what most members spend their time on). It reminds me of an idea I’ve heard before where those elected to Congress were only allowed 1 term (2 years) or something like it.

“To reinvent government, you must also reinvent Congress.” (p. 105)

Great idea! How do we do it?

“Privatization is almost always predicated on assumptions about public sector versus private sector efficiency and productivity rates. The burden of proof is often on public sector managers to explain why they are not inferior to private enterprise managers and why they should retain their functions in the face of private sector alternatives. Perhaps no responsibility is greater for public managers today than developing the evaluation and management assessment tools needed to assure critics that public sector programs and enterprises are being managed efficiently and effectively.” (p. 106)

This reminds me of the Project Management class I had this past Fall. The professor would often take us to the dashboards of the federal government showing us those projects that were on-time, behind schedule, under budget, over budget, etc. I wonder if this elaborate check/balance came as a result of those folks who were trying to prove that the public sector was efficient.

Maybe the burden of proof shouldn’t lie with the public sector. Maybe it should be more a of a philosophical debate. Do we think that these services should be provided by the private sector or by the public sector? And then take action from there.

The Deepest Principle in Human Nature is the Craving to be Appreciated

At the tail end of my trip last week, I stopped in Charleston, SC. While there, I was happy to enjoy some of the local cuisine, along with the sights and sounds, but I was also pretty excited to watch the Golden Globes. I always like to watch the award shows when I’ve seen most of the movies. Having seen a number of the movies that were nominated this year (Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Life of Pi, Django Unchained, Argo, etc.), I was really excited. It feels like I’m more connected to the awards, somehow.

After watching the show, I couldn’t help but reflect on society at large. In particular, I thought about the lack of appreciation we show each other. That is, how many more award shows are there? A few big ones come to mind: the Oscars, the Grammys, the AMAs, the CMAs, the VMAs, the Golden Globes, the Emmys, the Tonys… and from there I struggle to think of many award shows that are on as large a scale. Of course, we could include the sports awards ceremonies, too — so the ESPYs and the NHL awards. And some folks might argue for the All-Star games.

This might be strange coming from a Canadian. In Canada, after you win an award, the culture dictates that you go and put it in your bag, so you don’t make anyone feel bad for not winning. In the US, however, that’s not the case. Nonetheless, it still feels like the US (and the world?) could do with some more appreciating of each other.

~

Did you ever conduct a science experiment when you were in grade school about some sort of vegetable growing better to classical music? That stuff really works. Did you know that most vegetables/fruits are made up of water? And did you know… that most of the human body is made up of water? Can you see where I’m going with this. The words we use to communicate with each other matter. If something as simple as classical music can help vegetables grow, don’t you think that words of appreciation will be greatly beneficial to the people around you?

~

So, while I won’t be organizing an awards show anytime soon, there are still ways that I can be appreciative of the people around me and in my environment. For instance, whenever I ride the bus, I almost always thank the driver upon de-bussing. Do you? How about if someone holds the door open for you — do you say thank you? Do you hold the door open for other people? If you take the time to look, I’m sure you’ll find that there are infinite opportunities for you to show your appreciation.

Note: The title of this post comes courtesy a quote from William James.

Instead of Resolutions, Make New Year’s Challenges

I may be a bit late to the party in writing about New Year’s Resolutions, but I did want to share with you a philosophy that I think you may find useful. When was the last time you made a New Year’s Resolution that you actually stuck with — for the whole year? If I’m being honest, I can’t think of one resolution that I stuck with the whole year, but then again, I can’t really remember any resolution I’ve made.

So, I submit — make a New Year’s Challenge!

First, there’s the language. A challenge is much more inviting than a resolution. (Am I right?) Second, do you know the definitions of these two words? Resolution:

A firm decision to do or not to do something.

While challenge means:

A call to take part in a contest or competition.

I don’t know about you, but a challenge — by definition! — is much more inviting. In fact, the idea of a resolution (in this context!) kind of seems a bit out there, doesn’t it? The sheer inflexibility of it nearly makes it an impossibility. It’s not fair to you to put such a stringent barrier on yourself. It’s no wonder that people fail to keep their resolutions — our ideas change all the time!

There’s another piece to this that I think is important: skills. A challenge to learn a new skill could certainly be compelling and it may expand one’s awareness. I remember last new year’s I signed up for CodeAcademy’s challenge to learn how to code. I know I didn’t finish it, but I got pretty far and it did re-jog my memory on some of the coding I’d learned in high school.

If you’re going to challenge yourself to learn a new skill, be sure to take it easy on yourself and be mindful of how you position this challenge. For instance, I’d like to learn how to play the guitar and the piano, and learn a couple of languages. It would be pretty silly of me to try to learn all of those all at once (although, some might argue that the reverse). I’m setting myself up to fail on some of these challenges. Like I said, it’s also important how I position these challenges.

For instance, it’s a bit ambiguous to say, ‘I’m going to learn Spanish or French.’ What does that mean? Do I want to be able to converse with strangers, order off of menus, work in the French government, etc. Instead of placing these kinds of targets, I’ve decided to just plan to practice French for 30 minutes a day (or 30 minutes a day during the week). This way, my skill will improve and I won’t have a vague target in the future. (As a brief aside: I’m still trying to decide between Memrise and Duolingo for practicing the new language. I may just alternate between both.)

What challenge(s) will you have for the new year?

Be Yourself: Erring on the Side of Authenticity

I’ve had very spotty internet connectivity over the past week or so and that’s why you haven’t seen any new posts from me for a while. I’ll continue to have spotty internet connectivity probably until next week, but there’s something I wanted to say before I got back into writing regularly here.

Just before the new year clicked over, someone passed along the trailer for Seth Godin’s new book. I’ve included it below:

After watching that trailer — it made sense. While I’m not necessarily an artist, I think the message that Godin is promoting is important: there is a bias for the middle road. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that, but that bias to the middle road does come at a price. I’d say that this is something that I certainly have been mindful of with the things I’ve written about online. Some may point to my series on psi phenomena (telepathy, precognition, etc.) as evidence that I’ve long since blown past the middle road, but when I wrote those posts, I was careful to make sure that I cited a litany of scientific studies supporting the existence of such phenomena. Others may point to posts like the one I’ve written about hugs instead of handshakes, but that doesn’t seem like it’s too far from the middle road.

Regardless of who points to what, I wanted to say — today — I’m declaring that I’m going to err on the side of authenticity. What does that mean? Well, in the past, I may have shied away from sharing his opinion or that opinion — especially because it’s online! — ‘and things online are forever.’ I’ve come to realize that this is silly. Yes, I’ve read all the things out there about how the pictures you post online or the things you write about online could prevent you from getting job-x or job-y. I understand that, but I still think it’s important to strive to learn. How can I expect myself to grow/learn, if I don’t share some of my sensitive ideas and open them up for discussion and debate? How can I expect to have these ideas challenged and improved? I certainly can’t.

When I started writing on the internet, I had this idea in mind. That is, I was mindful that my ideas in this moment, on January 8th, 2013, might not be the ideas that I have on January 8th, 2014. As a result, I wrote a bit about it in my disclaimer:

I am the creator of this blog and my perspective of five years or five minutes ago do not necessarily reflect my views right now. My thoughts, opinions and viewpoints will change as I learn, grow, and develop my understanding of the world. Therefore, I reserve the right to allow my viewpoints to evolve and to change my thoughts, viewpoints and opinions over time without assigning any reason for such changes.

I truly believe this and hope that those who may look to things I’ve written in the past and try to hold it against me will realize that I fully expect that my ideas will grow, shift, and change. This seems important to make note of because who knows, I may yet one day run for public office and I could totally imagine a clever reporter digging up things I’ve written in the past with glee showing that I was, in fact, on the “other” side of an issue that I may be staunchly for (in that present day). Who knows what the future holds.

I know one thing’s for sure, the kind of change that I want to be part of on a global scale certainly won’t be made by me (or others) erring on the side of the middle road. So long as I’m true to myself — authentic — and keep to my ethics/morals, I feel confident in standing up for whatever I’ve said.

So — this is not to say that I’m going to start advocating some extreme positions in tomorrow’s post (or even the next day’s), but I will, as the title suggests, err on the side of authenticity. I hope you’ll join me in this learning experience — maybe we’ll be able to teach each other something.

If You Want to Be Happy, Tame Your Expectations

I wanted to finish 2012 with what I think is my biggest “insight.” That is, the thing that I felt taught me the most about myself and other people. As you know, if you follow me on Twitter  Facebook, or read what I write about here (follow button on the right-hand side!), I like to learn. I think that learning doesn’t end once you leave school (whether we like it or not) and I think that learning about ourselves never ends.

I’ve certainly came across quite a few techniques, perspectives, and ways for being in the world and handling stress. In particular, I think that Byron Katie‘s The Work can be quite powerful. While I’ve never attended one of her seminars, watching the videos of people “doing The Work” can have its own cathartic experience.

I’ve noticed that one of the revelations I’ve come to this year is very similar to what Katie has said, but I still feel it to be slightly different. It’s the idea that our expectations about the world are what cause us stress, unhappiness, and you name it. I’m speaking very abstractly, so let me give you a concrete example.

Let’s say I’m having a problem with a coworker. Let’s say that coworker does something that I don’t like. Why does this upset me? Without getting into any psychological underpinnings and staying right at the surface, it’s simply about my expectations of what that coworker should (or shouldn’t) be doing that’s causing me trouble. How? Well, assuming you believe that each human being is entitled to their own autonomy, they have free will to do as they please (within the law, I suppose). If the person is acting in a way that displeases me, it’s probably because I expect them to be acting in some other way — and they aren’t. Again, still kind of abstract, so let’s make it really concrete.

Let’s say that this coworker (by the way, this example works for family, friends, spouses, pets, pretty much anything), has a particular way of answering a question with a question. And let’s say that I find this really annoying (in fact, I’d find it intriguing, but let’s go with annoying, for now). Every time I see this coworker, I’m going to remember that this coworker asks me questions whenever I ask them questions — so it’s going to make me unhappy, just seeing this person! If I happen to need to ask them something and they ask me a question back, I might begin to feel angry. Why am I feeling angry? Simply because my expectations are that this coworker should not ask me questions when I ask them questions. Should this really matter? No! This coworker can ask me questions when I ask them questions — they’re certainly allowed to do that.

Let’s try another example for which I’m sure we can all relate: traffic. Have you ever been sitting in traffic, late for something? I know I have. While sitting in this traffic, do you ever notice that sometimes people will try to “jump the line?” Does that bother you? If I’m being honest, this has certainly bothered me at times. Why should this bother me (or you)? Well, we expect that people will be kind and wait their turn right. We expect… Oh boy — there it is again! Expectations! If I didn’t have expectations that people wouldn’t try to jump the line, this wouldn’t make me upset. I might think, ‘Oh, maybe they’re in a really big hurry. Maybe someone they know is in trouble and they’re trying to go save them.’ It’s really impossible to know why someone would try to jump the line in traffic, so far be it from me to expect something from them in the way that they behave to the other drivers.

So, if I had to choose one thing to offer you from 2012, moving into 2013, it would be your expectations. Notice when you get upset/angry about something and try to discern what it is that you’re expecting should be happening in that situation. If you want to take it a step beyond, try to tame that expectations. Though, for starters, I think it’s important to notice what it is that you’re expecting in a situation. From here, you’ll certainly be well on your way to determining the root of your unhappiness.

Love it or Hate it: Cloud Atlas is Worth Seeing

Cloud AtlasA little while ago, I mentioned that I’d seen a bunch of movies recently. One of those movies: Cloud Atlas. I rather liked the movie and think that you should most definitely consider seeing it. I tend to like the kinds of movies that Tom Hanks is in and I thoroughly enjoyed The Matrix trilogy. Yes, Tom Hanks was not in the The Matrix, but two of the directors (there were three) and producers  (there were five), also directed/produced The Matrix.

I really like movies that make you think and The Matrix certainly did that. In fact, from Wikipedia:

The Matrix makes numerous references to recent films and literature, and to historical myths and philosophy including Buddhism, Vedanta, Advaita Hinduism, Christianity, Messianism, Judaism, Gnosticism, Existentialism, Nihilism. The film’s premise resembles Plato’s Allegory of the cave, René Descartes‘s evil demon, Kant‘s reflections on the Phenomenon versus theDing an sich, Zhuangzi‘s “Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly“, Marx’s social theory and thebrain in a vat thought experiment. Many references to Jean Baudrillard‘s Simulacra and Simulation appear in the film, although Baudrillard himself considered this a misrepresentation.

A movie that invokes that much has to make you think. In fact, if you get the chance, I’d read the interview between one of the directors of the Matrix (Larry Wachowski) and Ken Wilber, who has done a great deal to forwarding the integral movement.

Anyway, back to Cloud Atlas. The movie weaves together a bunch of different stories and some of the actors overlap between the stories (paying homage to the idea of reincarnation). Some of the stories are quite powerful and address issues that society has struggled with or is still struggling with. There are two quotes that I came across from one of the directors (Lana Wachowski) that I think are worth keeping in mind when reading reviews of this film (or The Matrix, for that matter). Here’s the first:

As soon as they encounter a piece of art they don’t fully understand the first time going through it, they think it’s the fault of the movie or the work of art. They think, [dramatic voice] “It’s a mess.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.” And they reject it, just out of an almost knee-jerk response to some ambiguity or some gulf between what they expect they should be able to understand, and what they understand.

And the second:

There’s really complex ideas in the [Matrix] trilogy. [Laughs.] We think in some ways, it’s the most experimental, complicated trilogy ever made. And it’s frustrating to see people try to will that to not be true. But we know it’s true. And in the same way, people will try to will Cloud Atlas to be rejected. They will call it messy, or complicated, or undecided whether it’s trying to say something New Agey-profound or not. And we’re wrestling with the same things that Dickens and Hugo and David Mitchell and Herman Melville were wrestling with. We’re wrestling with those same ideas, and we’re just trying to do it in a more exciting context than conventionally you are allowed to.

Every Child is Gifted: Why Nurturing is so Important

I came across an op-ed in the NYT from September arguing that, in America, there is too much focus on raising the floor (of education) and not enough focus on raising the ceiling. Meaning, there’s more focus on bringing up the “weaker” kids and not much focus on the “stronger” kids. I was fortunate enough to be born and raised in the Greater Toronto Area, so during my formative years, I was in school in Ontario (Canadian education, from what I remember, is known for being better than American education).

The op-ed goes on to describe how it is for those young students who are really smart, but because they go to public school, are prevented from getting the kind of education that will challenge/inspire them. Again, I didn’t do my K-12 education the US, so all I’ve got to go on is what I’ve heard/read. I do remember seeing Waiting for Superman and that painted a rather dire picture for some States).

The op-ed’s main thesis is that there needs to be a focus on these high-potential kids. Because their parents didn’t have the funds to afford private education doesn’t mean they should be prevented from getting a solid education.

I think that’s an argument that most people would agree with — to some extent. I’d like to make a different point, though.

It might seem a bit clichéd to say that, “every child is gifted,” but this is something that I truly believe. How? We are all gifted in a different way. Some folks may be more talented in kinesthetic activities and some may be more talented in musical activities. I certainly think that we all have the capacity to develop these talents, but I also think that some folks are born with a predisposition to certain talents. (I don’t know that I agree with it fully, but Gardner’s multiple intelligences is a good starter for what I’m talking about.)

So, if we’ve got all of these predispositions to talents, how come they don’t necessarily show up? Well, I would argue that it’s nurturing. Parenting is a monumental responsibility. Caring for and nurturing a little being is one of the noblest things one can do. I won’t go too deep into parenting philosophy in this post, but suffice to say, I think a great deal of responsibility falls on the parents to nurture those talents within their kids (major caveat: like there are predispositions to talents, I don’t doubt that there are also predispositions to “non”-talents that might make nurturing a bit more difficult). I’m not here to criticize how some people parent, but I do want to emphasize that all children are talented. It may just take a little extra effort to ferret out those talents, if the child had not been nurtured in a way that allows the child to be comfortable/confident in those talents.

Three Lessons from The Hobbit: On Doing What You Can, Having Faith, and Demonstrating Leadership

The Hobbit: An Unexpected JourneyA few days ago, I went and saw The Hobbit. (Really liked the HFR, by the way.) I don’t remember if I read The Hobbit in high school, (my guess is not), so the story was completely new to me (aside from being a good representation of the hero’s journey) — just as The Lord of the Rings was when I watched the three movies. (Trivia: LOTR is not a trilogy, even though it is often referred to as such.)

Anyway, as I was watching, there were a few instances I noticed that could serve as quintessential lessons. Given that The Hobbit is a good example of the hero’s journey, it’s not surprising that there’d be great lessons to be found in the story. Of course, if you haven’t seen the movie…

*SPOILER ALERT*

The three instances I’m going to share all happen within — essentially — the same scene. If you’ve seen the movie (or read the book), you’ll probably know what I’m talking about.

The first instance comes courtesy our good friend — Bilbo Baggins. It takes place right near the end of the film when Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves are stuck in the tree. Gandalf and the dwarves set the trees on fire to scare off Azog and the Orcs, but it doesn’t work. Thorin (who is to be the leader of the dwarves), descends from the tree to try to fight with Azog. As was to be expected, Azog dominates Thorin and Thorin is about to die. Bilbo — seeing this — and noticing that no one else in the trees looks like they’ll be able to help, descends from the tree to come to Thorin’s rescue to stave off imminent death.

So, the instance that I’m talking about is Bilbo doing what he could do at the time. He knew there was no way for him to be able to take on all the Orcs by himself, but it was clear, in the moment, he was the only one that could have saved Thorin from death. Bilbo had to have faith that by him doing what he did, the other dwarves could then free themselves from the tree and then come to the rescue of Thorin and Bilbo.

Lesson #1: Even though you can’t see how things will turn out, it’s important to do what you can in the moment.

The second instance also comes from this scene. While the dwarves are stuck in the tree, Gandalf catches a butterfly and whispers to it. This proves important because after Bilbo saves Thorin from Azog, a group of eagles comes to the aid of the dwarves. The eagles pick up the dwarves in their talons or swoop them onto their backs and fly off with them. While this is happening, most of the eagles are pulling the dwarves from the tree. Gandalf wasn’t pulled from the tree. In fact, he was the last one to be rescued from the tree and he wasn’t even rescued. As the tree’s roots are being pulled up from the ground, Gandalf has to jump off the cliff… and have faith that one of the eagles will fly by and pick him up. Of course, he did — and an eagle did.

Lesson #2: Even though you can’t see what’s in front of you, sometimes you have to have faith… and jump!

The last instance occurs afte the eagles have dropped off the dwarves, Bilbo, and Gandalf far from the clutches of the Orcs. While on this rock, Thorin says something to the group (and Bilbo), about the fact that he should never have taken him on this quest. And then he says something to the effect of, ‘I’m so glad I was wrong.’ I may have the wording or the bits and pieces of this wrong, but the point I wanted to highlight here is that Thorin was wrong, he knew it, and he admitted it.

Lesson #3: When you’re wrong, don’t be afraid to say so.