Comments on "Loving the World As It Is" (below)

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"SIMPLY SUCCESS" - SHORT POST - September 4, 2007
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>Helping You Create What Matters MOST in Life and Work
Bruce Elkin: Life/Work Renewal Coach
Personal - Professional - Organizational
http://www.BruceElkin.com
Sent to subscribers only. Names are never shared or sold!
To leave list or change email address, scroll to bottom.
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Hi Folks,
A cloudy, misty day, slowly becoming sunny. Ah, sun! I'm grateful for every little bet we get during this year's damp, grey summer.

I got a lot of email sun as a result of last week's post on "loving the world as it is." I'd like to share some of it with you.
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From Chris Gower-Rees:

Bruce,
In all the time I've been reading your stuff, the first part of this email means the most to me. Why? Because I too want to change the world, and yet I realize that I can't, on my own, or even with 5000 others.

Your words resonated so well with where I've been in the last week or so, and in previous times. I too get down about the apparent hopelessness of trying when I read the news, yet I KNOW that really positive change IS happening in our world. I just need to focus on that and steer away from the stuff that allow to bring me down. I sense we're in the same age bracket - I'm 63. I'm a newbie documentary film maker, with one goal in mind - adding to the body of work that is helping to facilitate positive social change on this planet. I might be in touch to get you talking on camera, who knows.

Have a great day.
Chris Gower-Rees
Without dreams the world stands still
Today’s mighty oak is just yesterday’s nut that held its ground.
It is the drop that hollows out the stone
******

From Steve Weigner:

"I do not "have to" understand or change the world. I only have to love it." If I can do that, perhaps it will help me with understanding and change.

Bruce,
That was a terrific message (from your post on Wednesday)!

Like you, I have wondered what happened to the ideals of
social-environmental change from the 60's and 70's. There are days I think we as a society have come far and there are days I think the opposite. I am confused and more than a little frustrated at times.

My saving grace is the thinking that the deleterious affects of having a clueless president and administration is slowly coming to an end. I'm not trying to be cynical or political instead I am trying to remain hopeful that the next president and administration will have a different set of priorities. Perhaps then, the US can join most of the free world and work for meaningful social-environmental change.

But I know all change begins within...
Thanks for your words of wisdom,
Steve
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And this note AND short story from Sandra Shields:

Hi Bruce -
Funny, I had much the same conversation with a friend just last night. We were talking about hope and speculating that perhaps love was more important than hope in the big picture of carrying on with the process of engaging what can so often seem like a world gone mad.

Was great to read your reflections on the same theme this morning.
Many thanks,
Sandra
---
I wrote some notes on the conversation and they turned into a small vignette that I've tacked on below - thought you might find it interesting.
--

He pours a scotch that smells of caramel from the heathers of Scotland and leans back in his chair. He turns 60 this year. His quest to save the world started when he was in university and people were starving in Biafra. Images of emaciated children turned him into an activist and he has worked for community organizations ever since. The charity sector. Human services. The places where we sort out how to care for one another.

The scotch is smooth. No peat was used in the distilling so the earthy musk is missing and a sweetness rises in its place. He shakes his head. After forty years of working with people who want a world where everyone is included and nobody starves, he has learned the uncomfortable lesson that your worst enemies are often found among those who should be your greatest allies.

“And once there is money on the table,” he says, “watch out.”

He still believes in change but doesn’t think it happens overnight, though he won’t accept that as a reason for cynicism. He noses the scotch. He says the thing to be cynical about is the idea that you can change the world in five years. These things take time.

He went to Rwanda last summer. The trip made him think differently about hope. He wondered what it is that propels people to get up every morning in the aftermath of genocide.

The glass of scotch rests on the table now and he leans forward. He tells the story of a woman in Sudan struggling to carry her babies across a busy road to get them closer to an area where there were foreign aid workers. She was in the final moments of dying of starvation – there was no hope for her. Why was she carrying on? He asks and then answers his own question: she was carrying on out of love for her children.

He says maybe it isn’t hope we need to spur us on to change the world. Maybe it’s love.
---

Thank you so much, folks, for allowing me to reprint your comments. They show that many of us are thinking in much the same ways. And that there are both hope and love out there in the world. Keep talking to each other. There are more of us than we think!
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> ARE YOU DOING WHAT YOU LOVE?
Would you like to create what truly matters to you in life/work?
=========================================
I work with capable people who are stuck, stalled, or struggling with complicated life/work challenges. I help them develop the SKILLS, STRUCTURE, and SUPPORT to make the complex simple, get going again on what matters, and turn visions into reality!

I can help you find what you love-and create a life that shows it!

> If you would like my fr.ee 7-page info package, e-mail me with "Coaching Package" as the subject at Bruce@BruceElkin.com
---------------




> READING & TALK at the SAANICH LIBRARY, Sept 26, 7 PM
===================================
On the evening of September 26, I'll be reading from and talking about my book Simplicity and Success. Here's the announcement from the Library website:

Bruce Elkin, author of Simplicity and Success
Before Oprah discovered a simplistic kind of simplicity in the form of The Secret, there was Bruce Elkin, an internationally respected life coach with over 20 years of experience. His book, Simplicity and Success teaches how to deliberately organize your life around purpose and values, about focusing on and creating what matters most to you in life and work. His book goes beyond merely decluttering: it helps you envision what you truly want to create when the clutter is gone. Applying Elkin's principles and practices will help you feel authentic, energized, full of vitality, and whole. Join us to hear Bruce Elkin speak and read from his latest book.
Bruce Hutchison Branch
Wednesday, September 26, 7:00-8:30 pm
>Please register by calling 727-0104 as seating is limited.
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> USEFUL WEBSITE AND PLANNING TOOLS:




>THIS WEEK'S QUOTES:
=================
At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done.
Then they begin to hope it can be done.
Then they see it can be done.
Then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.
- Frances Hodgson Burnett

"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing."
-- Theodore Roosevelt

"In each of us are places where we have never gone. Only by pressing the limits do you ever find them."
-- Dr. Joyce Brothers

"Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish."
-- Jean De La Fontaine

"Most of the things worth doing in the world have been declared impossible before they were attempted."
-- Earl Nightingale
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Do you need help with clarifying what you love most? Or creating a life that shows it. Let me know. I'm happy to help.

All the best!
Bruce
**************************************************
> BRUCE ELKIN:
Personal, Professional, and Organization Renewal Coach
>Call: 250.388.7210 www.BruceElkin.com Or Skype Me!
**************************************************
> View the current issue of my full newsletter at
http://createwhatmattersmost.blogspot.com/
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Loving the World, As It Is

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"SIMPLY SUCCESS" - SHORT POST - August 29, 2007
=======================================
>Helping You Create What Matters MOST in Life and Work
Bruce Elkin: Life/Work Renewal Coach
Personal - Professional - Organizational
http://www.BruceElkin.com
Sent to subscribers only. Names are never shared or sold!
To leave list or change email address, scroll to bottom.
**************************************************

Hi ,
I am back from my 2 weeks vacation, and digging out from under a small mountain of email and request for info and (yuk) sp.am.

I did not go anywhere, just stayed around here, and enjoyed walks on the beach, visits from old friends, dinner parties, and quiet time to read and think. It was a nice break, and I feel refreshed.

One of the things I like best about time off is time to reflect.

Sometimes my reflection is structured. I reflect on some issue, some goal, some idea, and write about it in my journal. I really dig around to try and get a handle on what it is I'm thinking about.

Other times, my reflection is more informal, less structured. Unconnected pieces (thoughts, ideas, events) float through my mind, and I think on each a little and let it float on.

Best of all are those times when the pieces suddenly assemble themselves into an insight. I see some new and/or different way of seeing the relationship between the pieces. I had such an insight during my time off.

It is hard to say when the pieces began to appear, but I will try.

First came a quote from Marx in a novel I was reading. "You do not have to understand the world," Marx said, "only change it."

Hmm? I thought. Is that true? Wouldn't understanding it help you change it? Hmm? I ponder it a bit and let it go.

Next, several days later, came a second piece -- a kind of cynical feeling that much of what passes for change and creativity in personal and organizational development is merely old wine poured into updated bottles. I have been at this "change" business for nearly 40 years, and I recognize the wisdom of the French proverb, "The more it changes, the more it stays the same."

This line of thinking, unchecked, could easily lead one to a sense of helplessness, even hopelessness and despair. Indeed, it did bring me down a bit, along with the unseasonable grey and damp weather we experienced.

The third piece came while walking along the path that overlooks the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Feeling down, I plodded along in a kind of blue funk caused by my cynicism about change, or lack of it.

I was thinking about hope, my hope. "Where, I wondered," did all that exciting hope for environmental and social change that energized me so much back in the 70's and 80's go?" I worried I might have lost my hope for change, and for the world.

But, just as I was thinking about this, a young man and woman ran by me looking fit and healthy and full of energy. And a woman with a young toddler who was just learning to walk on his own approached me on the path.

Suddenly, a couple of things became very clear to me, which, when I reveal them, might not strike you as profound. But they were to me.

First, I realized that I did not "have to" change the world. Nor did I have to do it all by myself. And it probably was not it going to get changed, for good, in my lifetime. Change, I realized is a continuous process, happening always, at all times.

Young people like the two runners and the toddler would work after I was gone to make many of the same changes I worked to make. And the effects would be cumulative. They would grow over time.

Change, I clearly saw, was an intergenerational thing, not unlike the building of the great cathedrals of Europe -- a challenge handed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years.

I realized the visionary society that I aspired to was probably not likely to be made reality in my lifetime, and that was fine. Others would work to create it in their lifetimes, and empower their children to work toward change in their lifetimes. I felt comforted by that thought and the blue funk began to lift.

Then the second insight surfaced.

Marx was wrong. More important than understanding or even changing the world is LOVING it. I could see that the toddler loved his world. He reveled in it, reaching out, grasping for it, delighting when he left his mother's hand and two-stepped over to a leaf, or tried to pat a passing dog.

Suddenly, all the pieces formed into one insight: "I do not "have to" understand or change the world. I only have to love it." If I can do that, perhaps it will help me with understanding and change.

Although it remained grey and dreary outside, in my mind the clouds cleared, the sun streamed through, and my spirits lifted. I felt renewed, and revitalized by the thought that my main challenge, my main task was to work on loving the world as it is, and myself in the world, as I am.

I gotta tell you, it has made a lot of difference in my outlook, and in my experience. Everything feels energized and engaging now.

I feel like the active creator I have been in the past, and will be in the future. I am excited about that future, and looking forward to doing my part to create it.
-------------------




> ARE YOU DOING WHAT YOU LOVE?
Would you like to create what truly matters to you in life/work?
=========================================
I work with capable people who are stuck, stalled, or struggling with complicated life/work challenges. I help them develop the SKILLS, STRUCTURE, and SUPPORT to make the complex simple, get going again on what matters, and turn visions into reality!

I can help you find what you love-and create a life that shows it!

> Fall is fast approaching. And fall is a great time to re-assess purpose, direction, and action. I have a couple of spaces open for September, and am interviewing for late September and Oct/Nov now. If you would like my fr.ee 7-page info package, e-mail me with "Coaching Package" as the subject at Bruce@BruceElkin.com
---------------




> READING & TALK at the SAANICH LIBRARY, Sept 26, 7 PM
===================================
On the evening of September 26, I'll be reading from and talking about my book Simplicity and Success. Here's the announcement from the Library website:

Bruce Elkin, author of Simplicity and Success
Before Oprah discovered a simplistic kind of simplicity in the form of The Secret, there was Bruce Elkin, an internationally respected life coach with over 20 years of experience. His book, Simplicity and Success teaches how to deliberately organize your life around purpose and values, about focusing on and creating what matters most to you in life and work. His book goes beyond merely decluttering: it helps you envision what you truly want to create when the clutter is gone. Applying Elkin's principles and practices will help you feel authentic, energized, full of vitality, and whole. Join us to hear Bruce Elkin speak and read from his latest book.
Bruce Hutchison Branch
Wednesday, September 26, 7:00-8:30 pm
>Please register by calling 727-0104 as seating is limited.
----------------



> USEFUL WEBSITE AND PLANNING TOOLS:
=============================
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* THE ACTION PLAN TOOL KIT can make designing and
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>THIS WEEK'S QUOTES:
=================
"We can do no great things, only small things with great love."
-- Mother Teresa

"Go to the truth beyond the mind. Love is the bridge."
-- Stephen Levine

"All the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble... They can never be solved, but only outgrown. . . . (In patients,) this "outgrowth" proved on further investigation to require a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest appeared on the patient's horizon, and through this broadening of his or her outlook the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms but faded when confronted with a new and stronger life urge."
- C.J. Jung

"Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, only with what you are expected to give... which is everything."
-- Katharine Hepburn
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Need help with clarifying what you love most? And creating a life that shows it. Let me know. I'm happy to help.

All the best! See you later in the month.
Bruce
**************************************************
> BRUCE ELKIN:
Personal, Professional, and Organization Renewal Coach
>Call: 250.388.7210 www.BruceElkin.com Or Skype Me!
**************************************************
> View the current issue of my full newsletter at
http://createwhatmattersmost.blogspot.com/
-------------------