Author: Rick Bellingham

 “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.”  John Maynard Keynes “Old friends pass away, new friends appear.  It is just like the days.  An old day passes, a new day arrives.  The important thing is to make it meaningful:  a meaningful friend or a meaningful day.”  Dalai Lama “We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”  George Bernard Shaw Read More

I joined the Army in 1967 identifying as an IBMer and was honorably discharged in 1970 feeling more like an SDSer. (Student for a Democratic Society).  I interviewed for a job at IBM before I started basic training at Fort Knox in the hopes they would keep me in mind when I got out.  The Army told me they would send me to Monterrey, California for 6 months of German language training and then on Read More

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others.  And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”  Dalai Lama “Service is the rent we pay for being.  It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.”  Marian Wright Edelman In my work with organizations, I am often asked to facilitate strategic planning sessions.  I always start the process with three questions: Why do you Read More

Come gather ’round peopleWherever you roamAnd admit that the watersAround you have grownAnd accept it that soonYou’ll be drenched to the boneIf your time to you is worth savin’And you better start swimmin’Or you’ll sink like a stoneFor the times they are a-changin’ Bobby Dylan In 1988, I spent a couple of weeks investigating the health and safety infrastructure in China because my employer at the time, Northern Telecom, was working with the Government of Read More

“Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer.  I feel stronger for confession.”  Mahatma Gandhi In a recent Krista Tippett interview with Elaine Pagels, Krista asked Elaine what great books she had recently read.  One of them was A Confession by Tolstoy.  I immediately purchased it on Kindle for $.99.   It was the best buck I’ve spent in a long time.  As a relevant Read More

Several years ago, I joined a rafting expedition down the Zambezi River in Zambia, Africa.  The Zambezi is known to have the best category 5 rapids (most dangerous) of any river in the world. Our expedition had two rafts with six people on each raft.  Each raft had an expert guide and was accompanied by a safety kayak in case a raft capsized.  We were all warned about the alligators, hippos, potential for accidents, and Read More

I don’t know where this post is going.  I’m just going to get started and see what happens.  Let’s explore some paths to peace that may lead to a better place. As is likely true for most of you, I’ve been feeling assaulted lately by the continuous bombardment of bad news.  I read the New York Times and find very little uplifting news.  Quite the opposite.  I hear about: Corporate exploitation Pharmaceutical misrepresentation FBI/CIA machination Read More

“When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.”  Victor Hugo   “A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past.”  Fidel Castro   “Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.”  Alice Walker   Given all the disinformation proliferating in the world, it seems to me that we should be more concerned with convolution than revolution.  Are we living in the midst of the next Read More

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” Jimi Hendrix “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” Albert Einstein “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” Mahatma Gandhi “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” John F. Kennedy “You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” Virginia Woolf “We can never obtain peace Read More

“There are four questions of value in life:  What is sacred?  Of what is the spirit made?  What is worth living for and what is worth dying for?  The answer to each is the same.  Only love.”  Lord Byron “Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.”  Franklin D. Roosevelt “Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.”  Joseph Campbell “Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles Read More

“A life that doesn’t know possibility takes in only half the truth.”  Pico Iyer “I’m being rowed through paradise on a river of hell.”  Haga Shahid Ali “Once in a lifetime, hope and history rhyme.”  Sophocles A mentor of mine, Dr. Bill Anthony, told the story of his experience teaching psychology at Boston University.  Bill was the Director of Psychiatric Rehabilitation there and taught graduate and undergraduate classes to students who aspired to be in Read More

We are all familiar with the bias that strategic plans are a waste of time.  Many people hold the belief that too much time and effort are invested in developing strategic plans because, after they are done, they are put on a shelf and collect dust.  The reason that this belief is so widely held is because it’s often true.  The plan becomes a static document that quickly loses its relevance as conditions change.  It Read More

When does an iteration become an aberration?  That’s the question I’ve been struggling with for the past few months. Aberration is defined as a departure from what is normal, usual, or expected – typically one that is unwelcome.  An aberration is something strange that rarely occurs, for example when the thermometer tops 90 degrees in January in Minnesota.  Although, given the acceleration of climate change, that may turn out to be more of an iteration Read More

“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today.  No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.  This means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fiction way of thinking.”  Isaac Asimov “Man is something that shall be overcome.  Man is a rope, tied between beast Read More

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customers so well the product or services fits them and sells itself.”  Peter Drucker “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”  Mahatma Gandhi In these turbulent and stormy times, sailing can be perilous.  Who knows when a rogue wave in the form of some technological disruption may capsize your boat?   At what point might a tsunami of Read More

“I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.” Brene Brown “The highest ecstasy is attention at its fullest.”  Simone Weil “The way we experience the world around us is a direct reflection of the world within us.” Gabrielle Bernstein “Without reflection, we go blindly on our way.”  Margaret Wheatley Ezra Klein recently wrote a brilliant column in the NYT Read More

My family and friends would tell you that I have a hard time sitting still.  I’m always looking for the next adventure.  “Hey Gary, do you want to go for a bike ride?”  “Are you ready, Bobbitt?”  “Mobilize Ezra, let’s go!”   And my after dinner favorite, “Ok, time to leave – people are waiting.“ My poor family has never seen an encore at a concert because I’m halfway to the parking lot before the last Read More

How could we function without the first 7 letters of the alphabet?  We couldn’t write great novels.  Speech would be nearly impossible.  Most of us could no longer write our own name. And yet, that’s exactly like what’s happening to the world as it ignores the critical crises that are killing us.  We are so distracted by culture wars and political noise that we have lost focus on the existential threats we are confronting.  These Read More

“Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”  Oscar Wilde “It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.”  Yogi Berra “I believe that two people are connected at the heart, and it doesn’t matter what you do, or who you are or where you live; there are no boundaries or barriers if two people are destined to be together.”  Julia Roberts “A healthy social life is found Read More

“The first rule of sustainability is to align with natural forces, or at least try not to defy them.” Paul Hawken “When the soil disappears, the soul disappears.”  Ymber Delecto “You never change things by fighting the existing reality.  To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”  R. Buckminster Fuller “What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a minor reflection of what we are doing Read More

“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone.”  —John F. Kennedy This upcoming, mid-term election is a battle of narratives – in many ways, a Read More

“We humans are both miracles and catastrophes. We must acknowledge both death and joy, horror and awe. It is an astonishment to be alive, and life calls on us to be astonished; but lifelong astonishment will take iron-willed discipline.  Wake – over and over. Weep for this world and gasp for it. Wake, and pay attention to our mortality, to the precise ways in which beauty cuts through us. Pay attention to the softness of Read More

In her newsletter on September 18, 2022, Heather Cox Richardson traced what happened between 1776 when the Articles of Confederation were written to 1787 when the Constitution was written.  The Articles of Confederation stressed independent thinking – states were sovereign and free to make their own decisions independent of the impact on the other 12 states.  As a result, some states clung to slavery, refused to contribute to the common good, and entered unilateral trade Read More

“There is nothing eternal but that which loves and can be loved, and love is ever climbing towards the consummation when such shall be the universe – imperishable, divine.”  George MacDonald “For every sentence (in the Upanishads) deep original and sublime thoughts arise, and the whole is pervaded by a high and holy and earnest spirit.  In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads.  They Read More