Tag: freedom
Spirituality and Religion
“Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been.” —Bonnie Raitt “Spirituality is meant to take us beyond our tribal identity into a domain of awareness that is more universal.” —Deepak Chopra My wife and I (and our dog, Henri) recently spent 38 hours driving from San Diego, California to Traverse City, Michigan. We didn’t want to put 10-year old Henri in the underbelly of Read More
The Constitution as Culture Audit
One of my favorite tasks as an organizational psychologist is to design, administer, and evaluate culture audits. The design process is the most important part because it entails asking the people in an organization to create norms and values of their own choosing. In focus groups, I ask people to share what they believe are the desired and required norms for their organizations, i.e. what kind of work environment would they find most exciting and Read More
Prophets and Their Purposes
The world has been blessed with powerful messages from prophets of the past. Five of these prophets have a present-day influence on billions of people: Moses, Laozi, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad. These five men were the impetus for Judaism, Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Those religions represent almost 6 billion of the 7.6 billion people on the planet. Given those numbers, it seems appropriate to discuss who they were and what they were about. Read More
2020 World Culture Vision
The TV show “Downton Abbey” demonstrates as well as anything I have ever read or seen how an all-pervasive cultural code can produce strange and incomprehensible behaviors in people. People will do abnormal things to look “normal” by complying with the unwritten rules of the game.
Just as financial reports need to be audited, so also do the norms and values of the culture.
Thinking about Thinking
My wife often asks me, “What were you thinking?!!!” My response is usually, “I have no idea!”
But thinking about the way we think is a crucial part of making our lives, and the world around us, better.
Fear and Freedom
“The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.” —Aung San Suu Kui Raising children and having grandchildren gave me an intimate understanding of fear and freedom. I wanted my kids to have the freedom to explore the external world and to discover who they were, but I lived in constant fear of lurking dangers. I always leaned toward freeing them, but tried to establish boundaries that would keep Read More
Nietzsche, Nazis, and Now
“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.” ―Henry A. Wallace When I ride the subway, I often take out my kindle and open up Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. It transports me immediately from the hustle, Read More
Ideas and Ideologies
The recent ISIS attacks in Egypt, Lebanon, and Paris put a chilling edge on the holiday season and the prospects for planet earth. ISIS represents a lethal ideology based on antiquated ideas. And, most importantly, it is committed to an apocalypse. By definition, an ideology is a collection of ideas and a body of doctrine, myths, and beliefs that guide an individual, social movement, or group. An idea is a thought, plan, or suggestion about Read More
Freedom
It’s a terrible feeling and a freeing experience to have your illusions destroyed. As I walked down the streets of Saigon and watched the army trucks full of terrified, tough kids purposely drive through mud puddles so that they could laugh gleefully as the brown, polluted water splashed randomly on the elegant, white, long dresses of the beautiful Vietnamese women I knew my view of the world had been irrevocably shaken. In the name of Read More