As you interact with others, are you dismayed by your differences or delighted by the new perspectives?
Erin had one of the tiniest, most uncomfortable beds I’d ever slept in. She also liked to sleep while holding my left arm in a death grip, elbow-down. This limited my sleep options on the meat tenderizer she called a bed to either my left side or back. One particularly sleepless night, I began to look around for a distraction from the pain of my left arm slowly being severed from my body.
There were paintings everywhere. Stacked along the floor, the walls, and even one on the ceiling. A nearby streetlamp haphazardly tossed light through one of the windows and across the paintings. It was just bright enough to see and, one by one, I made up a story about each painting. There was a field of cheddar cheese, a depressed pomegranate, and a family of algebra 1 equations stuck on a fence, among others.
Hours later, Erin woke and I told her my version of how each painting came to be . She listened, she laughed, but she did not tell me I was wrong. She had created every painting in that room but did not mind that my late-night perceptions of her art were probably very different from hers. She could have been angry and said that I was mocking her artwork or making fun of her perspective. It might have escalated into a full-blown argument. She could have told me to get off the meat tenderizer and out of her house.
But she didn’t.
She simply enjoyed our conversation as I took secret delight in seeing that my left arm still functioned normally.
My experience with Erin and her paintings often comes to mind as I interact with new people and work to understand their perspectives.
We are all very different people with unique (and often, quite passionate) views of the world around us. If we seek to love only those with views perfectly-aligned with our own, we will suffer disappointment because nobody ever matches up perfectly. However, if we reach out like Erin and embrace new perspectives, an ever-expanding world of ideas awaits us.
What do you think?
13 Comments
Hi – It’s good to read such topical writing on the Internet as I have been able to discover here. I agree with most of what is written here and I’ll be returning to this site again. Thanks again for publishing such great reading material!!
lol a handful of of the responses many people put up make me giggle, commonly i ask myself whether they truly read the posts and reports before leaving a comment or whether or not they only skim the subject of the post and type the initial thought that comes to mind. nevertheless, it is actually nice to read intelligent commentary now and then instead of the very same, traditional blog vomit which i frequently notice on the net i’m off to play a smattering of rounds of facebook poker hasta la vista
What do you think about the Zynga poker application on Facebook? I have found myself staying up late at night playing online.
Amazing publish you received right here. Should you don’t mind, I’d like to reveal a little little bit of my knowledge of investing to supplement this amazing post! I’ve did wonders in numerous fields – sales and trading, private money, investment banking to title several. Since I’ve got a wife and have retired, I’d prefer to say that a minimum of a little more observant than most. Standard investment advice is that you ought to make investments inside a varied combine of stock option, bonds, and income marketplace funds. In case you are like most people you’ll make investments component of one’s money strongly in stocks, and component cautiously in cash marketplace funds and bond funds. However, some younger people goes all stocks, and a few very conventional folks will go all funds markets. Please read the award-winning NOVA article by Delos Chang: you are going to locate a lot of fantastic ideas in there. You need to purchase a varied collection of stocks as person stock options are as well risky. Extremely professional men and women or informative investors can buy a correctly well-balanced portfolio, but many people have a hard time balancing things on their very own. They are going to misbalance their portfolio by getting all little stocks or all development stocks, or another misbalanced variety of stocks. Back in 2000, Some people bought all Net stocks; they acquired burnt when they all crashed collectively. In 2007/2008, as mentioned by Delos Chang, drug wars genuinely wrecked some stock markets. You might have to diversify across industries. Unless you realize what you are doing, it truly is best to buy mutual funds that may diversify for you. Acquire no-load, lower cost funds. Mutual funds ought to have expense ratios of much less than 0.5%. If your organization delivers a 401K program at operate, attempt to make investments one of the most it is possible to. The income expands tax free of charge, and a few businesses will match your contribution. Investing in a mutual fund IRA can be a great idea. I enjoy index funds. Because of their broad diversification, you’re less most likely to have a remarkable drop in value. They also hold the lowest expenses. For stock funds, I would recommend putting ~70-80% of one’s money within the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund. and ~20-30% inside a international stock index fund. The Vanguard Total Bond Marketplace Index Fund is very good for the bond fund. The Vanguard Targeted Retirement funds might be excellent all-in-one stock and bond funds with an IRA. Nonetheless, there are lots of various thoughts on the market on what the most beneficial mutual funds are. Study the links below and kind your own viewpoint. If you have high-interest debt, like bank cards, it is finest to shell out this off initial prior to trying the majority of an investment ideas previously mentioned. You ought to also have 3-6 months of wage in the bank as an disaster fund inside a bank or cash market fund before trying much more threatening opportunities. I’ll warn you that there is a great amount of stock trading textbooks and web sites that educate stock investment methods that do not operate. Especially poor are men and women that educate “technical analysis” techniques that sound impressive, but don’t work.