Life is so ironic. It takes sadness to know what happiness is, noise to appreciate silence and absence to value presence.

We live in a continuum of opposites. Each side of every spectrum defines the opposite. As we approach either end of the continuum, we discover more and more about the opposite side.

The journey through life inevitably takes all of us to each of the respective sides of the continuum, whether we seek them or not. In our discovery process, we are afforded the opportunity to grow. In some cases, that growth overtakes us in ever increasing ways, regardless of our desire to learn.

When we are on the positive side of one of the continuum, we are reveling in that experience and seldom focused on the opposite end of the continuum. Whereas when we are on the negative side of a continuum, we are continuously thinking about the opposite side and wanting and hoping to be there.

These feelings of lacking are the rocket fuel that propel our internal momentum which catalyze our efforts to get over to the opposite side of the spectrum. Perhaps it is because of our exposure to the negative side of the continuum that we are able to find the resources within to galvanize our effort and behavior in order that we might experience what we are most lacking in that moment.

I find it interesting that sometimes silence is deafening. Sometimes the lack of stimulation can be overwhelmingly lonely and disconcerting, yet after being in a space that is overwhelmed with cacophony, our need for that silence could not be any more pronounced.

Spending too much time with even the best of people can breed its own degree of irritation and frustration, yet remove them from our presence and within a reasonable period of time, we will discover how much we really miss them being around.

We find a silver lining on a cloud because it represents the beginning of the transformation from one side of the spectrum to the other. Yet, without that cloud, sometimes the sunlight is so overpowering and hot as to make us wish for any shelter from the sun.

In recognizing the continuum of opposites and understanding our values placed on either side of that continuum, we are more capable of discovering our own internal harmony from which we may become centered and focused. 

Happy Wednesday!

They don’t lie to you because the truth will hurt your feelings. They lie to you because the truth might provoke you to make choices that won’t serve their interests.

A lie is an interesting construct. 

It starts with the proposition that the recipient is able to be deceived. 

The magician lies to you as they make an illusion happen right before your very eyes. They tell you something is going to happen and when it does, you are sold on the miracle of something that would be impossible. In that illusion comes the opportunity to plant a seed of a false truth in the mind of others, so as to convey the impossible. We are all willing participants in such an illusion and when watching a magician perform, we opt to suspend our belief in order to appreciate the excellence within which the magician performs. I personally have never explored magician’s secrets. I love the fact that when they are performing, I am able to be reduced to such wonder as to enjoy the incredible artistry with which they create the impossible… right before my very eyes.

Most lies are less benevolent than the magician. In most cases, a lie is formulated in the mind of someone who has an agenda. That agenda could be a plan to serve needs on the part of the person telling the lie, or to serve an agenda for those whom the liar is lying on behalf of. In either case, it is clearly an agenda, otherwise, who would waste time telling an unnecessary untruth?

The agendas vary from personal to professional to societal. Regardless of whom the lie is serving, its construct starts with the premise that in saying such things, another person or people will have an expected reaction to this lie. Those reactions are calculated by the liar to assist them in whatever is giving them cause to construct such a fallacy. In that calculation comes a wager that if they violate the truth in the course of the discussion, they will avoid whatever repercussion said truth would have brought upon them. 

Lies are more often than not taught by an older sibling at a very early age. In that moment, a younger child learns that their sibling avoided punishment by saying something to the parent that was not accurate. In watching this example, and seeing their sibling get away with whatever they did wrong, a formulation is created that lasts a lifetime. This is not regulated to a sibling, as it can be learned from a parent, a friend, a relative or from any form of media, be it a book, tv show, video, movie or other.

As we grow older, we witness countless lies, and eventually in a moment of need, we find ourselves resorting to using them ourselves. They may be very small lies, to avoid having to attend an event, or they may be white lies which are most often told to avoid hurting the feelings of another. They may take the form of self deception, in order to lie to ourselves about a truth we do not wish to face. Or they may be heinous in their origin and have a deeper reason that is designed to create an outcome of darker origin.

In the larger landscape of society, lies are told by the minute. They are proliferating at such a rapid rate with the advent of social media and YouTube, TikTok, and others as to leave us living in a world of massive untruths which serve countless agendas, far too disparate to delineate here. 

The deepest truth about a lie is that it is a tool. It is designed to hurt recipients and maintain a control that enables the originators of the lie to continue to act in their own self interests, while dominating others who are less fortunate to understand what is being perpetrated upon them. 

If you are educated, and willing to dig deeper than what you are exposed to at face value, you will uncover so many lies as to make your head spin. You see them all over the news and watch as forces which hope to dominate society, battle for our very freedom.

Lies will enslave you, if you are not fully awake. They will destroy you if you are not cognizant of their potential existence. Keeping a strong vigil internally against them by always asking yourself, “what is the cause for this person or entity to be proclaiming whatever it is that they are proclaiming?” is your first best line of defense. If you are not always watching for who is lying and anticipating why they would lie to you, you are walking (most likely) directly into a trap that can be your ultimate demise.

Happy Tuesday!

Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.

J.K. ROWLING

Are you feeling like life is throwing you curve balls? Do you wonder how you are ever going to pull through?

It all boils down to your mindset. With your focus in the right places, you can (and will) overcome any obstacle in your path.

Rowling’s credentials to make such a statement speak for themselves….

Rowling sought government assistance and got £69 (US$103.50) per week from Social Security; not wanting to burden her recently married sister, she moved to a flat that she characterized as mouse-ridden. She later described her economic status as being “poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless”. Seven years after graduating from university, she saw herself as a failure. The “grinding effects of poverty, coupled with her concern for providing for her daughter as a single parent, caused great hardship”.  Early in the year, Rowling began to experience a deep depression and sought medical help when she contemplated suicide. With nine months of therapy, things gradually improved. She filed for divorce on 10 August 1994 and the divorce was finalized on 26 June 1995.

Rowling wanted to finish the book before enrolling in a teacher training course, fearing she might not be able to finish once she started the course. Secretarial work brought in £15 ($22.50) per week, but she would lose government benefits if she earned more. Rowling began a teacher training course in August 1995 at Moray House School of Education after completing her first  novel. She earned her teaching certificate in July 1996. Rowling later said that writing the first Harry Potter book had saved her life and that her concerns about “love, loss, separation, death … are reflected in the first book”.

Rowling completed Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in June 1995.  Her manuscript was submitted to twelve publishers, all of which rejected it. Barry Cunningham, who ran the children’s literature department at Bloomsbury Publishing, eventually bought it. Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, one of Rowling’s favorite memories was of Cunningham telling her, “You’ll never make any money out of children’s books, Jo.”

Every last aspect of your success comes from one single source. 

Your belief in yourself. 

Regardless of anything that anyone may say or do to convince you otherwise, belief in yourself is omnipowerful and absolutely critical to your success.

Everyone has moments of doubt. I am certain that as she lay in her flat with mice scampering all about, she must have had the most oppressive thoughts of despair and anxiety. There were moments where her faith in everything she had hoped to be must have been completely shaken to the core.

But, at the end of the day, the only reason she is the Queen of Children’s Literature is because she had the nerve to keep at it. Regardless of every last possible setback in her path, she found the courage and determination to press on. In the light of every negative feedback that the world around her gave her, she felt deep within that she was on the right path.

Is this an anomaly? I will let you decide.

But as a life perspective, it is as core a truth as they come.

Happy Saturday!

Without wisdom, knowledge is either useless or destructive.

Knowledge is defined as facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. 

As we progress through school, we are programmed to input knowledge using a host of methodologies. Reading, listening, watching, doing and reviewing. All of this ultimately leads to testing so that we may better prove both to others and to ourselves that we have absorbed the information.

Many topics provide us with knowledge of things that we feel we may never use. We can recite facts and figures, recount tales of the past, studies of others, and facts acquired by teams of people, but in a majority of cases, this knowledge has very little impact on our day to day lives. It may enrich us, stimulate us, give us cause to have greater understandings of the bigger pictures in life. But for the most part, it does not feed us, clothe us or put a roof over our heads.

Wisdom comes from deeper understandings. It is the soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgment. Wisdom gives us pause to consider. It enables us to process all of that knowledge and apply it properly so that we might discover deeper understandings from which we may provide for ourselves and our family.

As our education system in this country pressed ever harder towards knowledge-based curricula, our society turned out more fact-oriented students, who were less able to engage in the real world, because many of the lessons in wisdom had been reduced in favor of finding a one-curriculum-fits-all solution to process the masses. The casualty of such a plan is that the reasoning and logic that must be applied to the knowledge was so dramatically reduced that both inductive and deductive logic were less important to learn than the ability to recite facts and figures.

If we look at societies in which knowledge is paramount, but wisdom is essential, we observe a dynamic in the family that demonstrates that the focused discipline of maintaining a wise culture within the family will breed greater results across the board. In the cultures and households that value both education and wisdom, we find more engaged discussions at home, more concerned parents who interact appropriately with their kids and a general drive to succeed through application of “the wisdom of the ages.” In homes where this is severely lacking, we see exactly the contrary…. Higher crime, greater depression, overwhelming sadness for the quality of life that they must endure.

By the time we hit the world stage, we see the final aspect of our paradigm… knowledge without wisdom is destructive. Witness Putin. He is most probably very bright, but his wisdom is subject to scrutiny. In making the choices he is making currently, he has put hundreds of millions of people’s lives at risk, solely for a land grab that has very little importance to anyone who is not an oligarch, standing in the wings, waiting to rape and pillage the fruits of the labor of others. I know nothing about Putin or his upbringing, but I can surmise (using wisdom) that the values that his parents imparted to him as a child did not include compassion, empathy, or respect for others. Instead, he grew up being programmed with the morsels of anger, fury, judgement and entitlement that have led to him bringing the entire world to the edge of destruction, in a quest to pursue a greed-driven outcome that can only resolve in a lose/lose for humanity. Whether it is steroids that are driving him to this level of madness, or otherwise, we are all in a substantial predicament waiting to see how the world can bring this man to reckoning. 

In closing, I believe the greatest of gifts that we may give our children would have to be wisdom. One may argue that the greatest of gifts would have to be love, and perhaps that may be so, but I will still argue on behalf of wisdom. Putin, Hitler and Stalin may have felt loved by their parents, I do not know. But had their parents spent time giving them a grounded education with a foundation in humanity, compassion and an understanding of how others are thinking and working to make their lives a better place, imagine how different our world might be today.

Happy Friday! 

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act upon them?

This has always been one of my pet peeves in life. 

I went to bible study as a young boy. I studied for my bar mitzvah.  I spent several years of my life around people who valued the Bible and could quote sentiments and phrases from within. As I learned the lessons from the parables in the Bible, I was struck continuously by people who could quote a chapter and verse, but not actually implement that sentiment in real life.

At first, I thought it was an anomaly. But as I grew older, and saw more evidence of this not only within my own religion, but in others as well, it became apparent to me that this was more than an anomaly, it was a way of life. In studying filmmaking and watching how those sentiments were used to their greatest advantage, I realized it was not just my observation, it was clearly a norm. So by the time I saw The Godfather in the theater for the first time, it was very clear to me that there was an intentional “do as I say, not as I do” mindset.

That started my journey into alternate philosophy. I realized that it was not the passages in any religious text or book or torah that were problematic for me, it was the hypocrisy of some of the people who professed to believe in such high level beliefs and were not walking the walk that disturbed me.

If you have read any of my musings, I think you get a sense that I am working daily to absorb high level philosophy and share that with anyone who may listen. It is my own private experiment of working to change the world, one thought at a time. If I am taking the time to write about it and share it, I am spending equivalent time trying to live up to the standards that I profess. I make zero representation of being perfect in this regard. To the contrary, I am a continual work in progress. Some days are better than others, but, like everyone, I have my fallible moments in which I slip backwards and fail to live up the morals I profess to be opportune.

As a warning sign, any time I go to a first business meeting and the other party opts to share a lot of religious doctrine with me, my warning bells have been trained to go on instantly. This does not mean that what they are saying is offensive. To the contrary, many of the things they profess to believe in are very high level and worthy of respect and admiration. That said, it is has been a very consistent observation that those who are regularly invoking the name of the Lord in a business discussion, are statistically more likely not to live up to those religious doctrines. In fact, more often than not, they are much more likely to do exactly the opposite. 

If you have played Monopoly, you will understand that when I hear those words come out of someone’s mouth for no apparent reason in a business discussion, it feels like they are waving a “Get out of jail free” card at me. I start to cringe inside and wonder when the other proverbial shoe is going to drop.

To ensure I am not offending anyone who has deep-seated religious beliefs, I want to be very clear here. I respect you and your belief and if you are living up to that belief in a morally responsible way, I admire you even further. You are the reason why higher level beliefs exist. You are on a path to an elevated state of existence and I applaud your pursuit of such with everything I have got.

My grievance is with the ones who use all of the phrases and nomenclature to garner respect from people who follow such a belief system but do not actually practice what they are speaking of. And the ones who use it as a disguise so that they may victimize other human beings as a result of their belief (or feigned belief) and leverage those holy words as weapons to hurt others are clearly a danger to the rest of society because they are operating on two levels, just like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. At that point, they are no more holy than Michael Corleone being asked, “Do you renounce Satan?” To which Michael replies, “I do.”

Happy Tuesday!

It is our choices that show what we really are far more than our abilities.

JOHN WOODEN

Coach Wooden was a legend in my town as I was growing up. My dad was a Bruin, and I knew I wanted to go to film school there. John retired two years before I got there, but you could not be in this town and not know of him. He was the definition of a solid human being, with morals, values and dedication to his craft. He was classy and not flashy. But his record clearly spoke for itself….

During his tenure with the Bruins, Wooden became known as the “Wizard of Westwood”, though he personally disdained the nickname. He gained lasting fame with UCLA by winning 620 games in 27 seasons and 10 NCAA titles during his last 12 seasons, including seven in a row from 1967 to 1973. His UCLA teams also established an NCAA men’s basketball record winning streak of 88 games and four perfect 30–0 seasons. They also won 38 straight games in NCAA tournaments and 98 straight home wins at Pauley Pavilion.

We face a lot of difficult choices in life. The older we get, the more we reflect on some of those choices with pride and others with displeasure. Choice comes at us thousands of times per day. Most are made subconsciously, others require time and focus.

When we are rash in our choices, we are often times caused to reflect on how poorly our decisions were made, and given ample opportunity to grow as a result. Whether we opt to learn and grow is really the essence of what John speaks of in this aphorism.  He would have been the first to explain that we are imperfect beings, all working to continuously improve, so I am certain that he said this in reflection of how each of us grow from the mistakes we made so that we rarely, if ever, make them going forward. 

His approach to coaching reflected that mindset, and caused a Los Angeles dynasty to continue to gain steam as his methods and approach to people proved their merit. In reading his quotations and contemplating how he must have approached life, my admiration for this man stems less from his winning streaks, and more from how he must have clearly understood the human mind. Where he applied his values, and how he could so adeptly communicate these ideas to his ever changing teams.

When we are cautious in making choices, and opt for ideologies such as kindness, over wealth, and use perspective over impulse, our choices are much more likely to pave the road for our happiest possible journey. Choices reflect on attitude, which is the one string we have to play upon. They determine a majority of our health issues, career opportunities, and relationship potential. Choices give us opportunity throughout every day to evolve, improve and grow.

We all believe we make wise choices, and when we discover we have erred in that regard, then we are given a chance to wake the hell up and stop driving through life on autopilot. If we are blessed with great ability, but we make the wrong choices, life can do a complete turn around. One of the most riveting examples I witnessed first person in this regard came when we were going to do a music video for one of Michael Jackson’s cousins. They were in a group and they were damn good. We worked on the ideas and planned out the video and a couple days before shooting, one of the cousins in the group held up a liquor store and got arrested. The project disappeared. We saw how talented these kids were, they would have gone the distance. But for the wrong choice, history was altered.

I reflect often on choices I have made and this stimulates me to make less rash choices going forward. Sometimes it works, and other times, I find a pint of ice cream in my refrigerator, although those moments are far further apart than in years past. On my walk this morning, I walked by a Tesla that had a Diet Coke in the drink holder and flashed back to when that used to be me. I do not think I have had a soft drink in over 5 years now.

Choices are what will make or break you. And if you want to be stellar like Coach Wooden, you need to be reflecting on every major choice you have made and will make and be certain that you are making the right one…. Oh and having Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul Jabbar) and Bill Walton on your squad doesn’t hurt either!

Happy Wednesday!

When someone does something wrong, don’t forget all the things they did right.

Have you ever made an error that was genuinely small in the larger scheme of things and discovered that it permanently soured a business or personal relationship?

Do you remember those feelings of intense disappointment, frustration or anger at how everything else that you had done or been for them was instantly erased in the heat of a moment?

I think everyone has had moments like this… a feeling that no matter how hard you tried, no matter to what extent you were willing to venture, in the end, it did not amount to a hill of beans in the mind of the other party.

Conversely, can you remember when you did this to another person?

Those moments are considerably harder to remember. This may, in part, be due to the fact that we have never done this to another person, ever…. OR…. It may be due to the fact that it does not hurt us as much when we opt to behave in this manner when the tables are turned.

Exploring that thought for a moment… does this happen because we are callous, shallow human beings? Perhaps. Or… it may happen because we are quick to make judgments that have lasting permanence and which are just painful or hurtful to the other party, same as when it may have happened to you.

In seeing today’s aphorism, I reflected on some of the times this has happened to me and some of the times, I have behaved equally poorly in making a summary decision about a friendship with another. I do not think either perspective (victim or perpetrator) in my experiences is black or white. In the times I feel victimized, I reflect on how my action made the other party feel and recognize that I motivated their behavior. I may not like it that every good thing I did prior to that moment was instantly being discounted, but if I am honest, I must also own the action I took that gave them cause to feel that way.

Conversely, when I reflect on summary judgments I have made on other relationships that I have allowed to terminate, I must also reflect closely on the variables in their world that gave them cause to do whatever they did that made me wish to let that relationship end.

In both perspectives, the issue is neither black nor white, but in reality, a shade of grey in-between. 

It would be easy to close this out with a summary about always taking the high road, always being forgiving, always looking beyond something to the greater picture, as those are all good conclusions. But sadly, life is not black or white, and sometimes those conclusions are insufficient. Sometimes, the reason they give you to let your relationship end is justifiable cause to sever ties immediately. Sometimes, after reflection, we may surmise that there are or were mitigating circumstances that gave way to this moment, and we might find some deeper compassion with which to view their behavior.

My take away from all of it is to take a deep pause before making any such decision, and most certainly, do not do it in the heat of the moment. Instead, might it not be better to find strength to compartmentalize such a feeling and allow it to just exist within us, across a span of at least a few days, so that we might contemplate such a monumental choice under a variety of frames of mind? If we allow some time and distance to pass, we are more likely to make our decision under wise counsel, even if such counsel is only our own mind. And, in the course of working to become more evolved ourselves, are we not wiser to find time to remember all of the qualities about someone or some entity that you are ready to jettison out of your life, in order that you may give them the same fair consideration that you would hope that they or someone else might extend you, were the tables turned?

Happy Sunday!

I can’t be your mentor without occasionally being your tormentor can I?

I recently discovered Ted Lasso, and started binging the show. It is an adorable show, well worth the time to watch! I heard this in one of the episodes last night. It was used as a throw away line, but the essence was so obviously important and gave me an inspiration for my thoughts for today.

In the course of mentoring another person, we are taking on the role of watching, evaluating, commenting, and collaborating with them in order that they may improve their skills and qualities.

In my life, I am perpetually both the mentor and the mentee, depending upon the topic. As much as I enjoy helping and teaching others, I am insatiably curious and that drives me into new territory all the time. For example, many people are discussing Web 3 as if it is a specific thing.  In reality, it is a lot of things that are happening concurrently as the world evolves. So the only way for me to really understand the term and associated tech and experiences is to research the hell out of it and write my own white paper so that I am forced to learn. Then, with added knowledge, I can join discussions and hope to at least keep pace with others who bandy about that term as if it were a fully defined variable. Those discussions become my chance to find mentors who will take the knowledge I gain and comment on it such that I might have an even greater understanding.

When you are working with someone who really looks up to you and hopes that you will impart some of your knowledge, you must recognize that this assigned duty that they have given you is not just a friendly attaboy role. It is a duty to which you must live up to. This comes with watching how they are learning, and to find tactful commentary on those experiences such that the mentee grows efficiently in the experience. 

There is a gentle art to discussing such topics with a person who is looking up to you. They want so badly to understand some of the things you take for granted. They may ask questions (repeatedly) that appear perfunctory to you and even if you are exhausted and short of patience, those are the moments you must find the extra internal discipline to maintain your presence and be the person they are hoping you will be for them.

Depending on the mentorship, there are tasks you will assign them that they will not like, nor appreciate. In your mind, you know that there is method to the madness. In the Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi teaches Daniel how to move his hands using the wax on / wax off lesson. Almost all of us remember this scene. It seemed superfluous to us as an audience. Until later we understand that he has learned how to move his hands in the “cut technique” which is one of the most efficient and effective skills you can learn in Karate. 

Teaching is a joyous experience. I try to spend a portion of every day engaging with someone who wants to learn how certain things are accomplished and working with them to hone those skills wherever they may. 

If you opt to mentor another, recognize that you must be both patient as well as disciplined in your approach so that they have ample opportunity to learn without aggression, but also must live up to a standard of excellence that they must discover deep within themselves.

Wax on. Wax off.

Happy Wednesday!

Sometimes being a nice person doesn’t get you loved. It gets you used. Or does it?

We have all felt used over the course of time. It is part of life whether we like it or not.

We extend ourselves to others in ways that we expect will generate appreciation and reciprocity, only to discover that our expectations are unfounded and the other party is not even remotely as appreciative as we might have hoped.

Who is wrong in that situation?

In my life experience, I have to be honest and say that both parties are wrong. 

Let’s start with expectations… Going out of your way to be nice…. What does that even mean? At face value, “going out of your way” means that you are doing something that you would not normally do in the course of a normal schedule or routine. So, by inference, that means we have extended our time on behalf of this effort. Large or small, the effort is the effort… and in our mind, we feel that we have delivered something of value to the other party. In the deliverance of that value, we are expecting an acknowledgment. Our expectation is that upon our having been kind, courteous, considerate, chivalrous or any other adjective of your choosing, we should be rewarded with a minimum of a thank you, and a maximum of anything above and beyond that.

Right there is the fault that lies on our doorstep, not the other party. To do something kind for another person is part of what makes us rich in life. Richness is not constructed of cash or material items, but rather, from the continuous expression of whom we truly are as people. We are not taking our wealth to the afterlife. We are only leaving that feeling that we created in others for them to remember us. My father is 21 years into the afterlife and in an instant I can remember how it would make me feel walking down the street with him prior to starting my work day and chatting about life, love, fears and triumphs. I can hear his words of praise and his words of caution. I can feel him in my inner being with zero effort. He is always just there. And I adore him for that and always will.

So to be a nice person and to extend ourselves to others is a personal gain. It has zero to do with their acknowledgement or appreciation. Take the model where you donate to a reputable cause to help improve the lives of an endangered specie, like an elephant subject to ivory poachers, so that they may continue to thrive. Those elephants whose tusks you are saving, and by inference, their lives, will never respond to you. You will only have that feeling in your heart that you are who you are and that they are having a better go of it because of your contribution.  So why then does it matter so much if a kindness extended to another human being is not reciprocated with warmth, gratitude and appreciation?

The answer, my friend, is because you are accustomed to that response. It makes you feel good. So if you go the extra distance to be supportive of another, just because they are proximal to you or able to communicate with you from wherever on Earth they happen to be, you are attaching a need for their response to validate your kindness. The elephant did not respond and you are ok with that. So when a person does not respond, we feel cheated and by extension, used.

This is not to say that other people will not use you. For certain they will. It is human nature. But the two are not inextricably intertwined. If you are kind and you are generous of monetary, emotional or other kindnesses, that makes you a special human being. Their reaction to your kindness is truly immaterial. Their reaction does not make you any better of a person, nor should it. A kindness should be extended because it is the right thing to do.

When people leverage your kindness and do something that is contrary to what you would expect and leave you feeling used, it is most wise to see that as that other person’s shortcoming. Perhaps they are not as evolved as you would have hoped, and as a result you are left feeling abused and hurt. Those are natural feelings and we all feel them. But I believe the secret to this conundrum is to recognize that everyone is so different that to expect any one person to behave exactly as you may presume, is most likely a hollow chamber in which your echoes of disappointment will resonate with zero value.

We are also inclined to interpret the behaviors of others through our own life filters. We see others and presume that they see the world the same as we. But if you watch the world at large, it is obvious that this could not be further from the truth. In reality, with billions of people on this planet, the odds that any of them see the world exactly the same as you, are overwhelming stacked against you.

If I told you I am above feeling used in these situations, I would be lying. We all have our Pavlovian responses programmed into our being. If you get someone a gift, and they open it, you are hoping to see joy on their face. But when your gift is a fruitcake at Christmas and they wanted a gift certificate to Playstation, you are not going to see that jubilant response you are craving.

So my final point is this…. If you are determined to be a nice person (which I believe you should be), then learn to extend your kindness for your own benefit. Not for the response. You can tell the funniest joke to the wrong person and their response will be flat. It does not make that joke any less funny, nor does it make your delivery flat. It means it was a wrong joke for that person. If you are a kind human being, you are populating your karmic bank with capital that will unquestionably return to reward you in unforeseen ways. If the party to whom you are going out of your way to be kind responds as you might have hoped, then that is strictly a bonus. But if you do the kindness, solely for the expected response, you are setting yourself up for a disappointment, and sadly, whether you like it or not, that one is on you.

Drop the expectation, and just be kind for kindness sake. 

You will be happier if you learn to do this, and your kindness might actually be appreciated by the other party far more than you might imagine… it may just be that they are not adept at showing it.

Happy Friday!