Ownership

I have been part of several projects.
Projects where people need to work together
only work if the leadership of the project
gives trust and creative ownership to the members.

The times where good leadership means being in control of everything are over.
People do not work anymore for the boss; they want to work for the common good
and to do so in their way, using their own creativity.

If only more people would be aware of this, many projects could soar to heights
they never reach because the leader wants everything in the leader's way,
does not trust the members of the group and limits as thus creativity badly.

It sounds so simple, but it may take decades before we outgrow
 the old dysfunctional type of leadership.

On a parking lot...

A lonely flower spouted from a tiny seed;

it'd worked its way through cement and concrete

but it managed to grow and finally succeed;

expression of beauty was not a mere desire but a need

We may be living in a harsh world

looking more like a parking lot than like a paradise,

with plenty of cars ready to drive over our small attempts at beauty.

But there is nothing, that can contain the seeds planted in our heart 

No matter how thick the layers of cement and concrete,

the seeds of beauty, the seeds of love and kindness,

the seeds of honesty, the seeds of compassion and awe,

will work their way through and finally succeed 

to blossom into wonderful flowers and make our world 

look more like a paradise than like a parking lot...

Leader

My son is working in Shah Alam, about 1h flight from where we live now.
He recently was at home for a short holiday and on the way back to the airport,
I had a good discussion with him.

He had recently a bit of a standoff with one of his room mates, or better said, apartment mates. They had not been talking to each other for quite some time.

I asked him whether he wanted to be a leader or a follower.
Of course we want to be leaders. My son too.

I was then saying that if we are good only if others are good to us,
but if others to us behave nasty, we respond in a nasty way too,
we are NOT leaders, but followers: we just follow the other's way.

True leaders choose the way they want to behave.

Let's say you choose to be a good person, nice and friendly.

Then we should stick to that choice, to that decision, no matter what.

If people are good, we are good, nice and friendly

If they are not good, we are good, nice and friendly.

Most likely they will be surprised by this and 

become also good, nice and friendly.

THAT is true leadership.

I asked him to try and greet his apartment mate every day in a very warm way and see how he responds within 3 days. I am not sure my son will do it, but if he does, I am sure he will learn a huge lesson from it.

I have written similar messages in this blog before,
but this is something sooo close to my heart,
that I want to share this bit of wisdom in a variety of ways. :)

NOTE ADDED LATER:
Yes, it worked. I happened to be in KL one week after that and they were again good friends !
😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

Electric !

Electricity existed at the time Moses was walking the earth.
Electricity existed at the time Julius Caesar was walking the earth
Electricity existed at the time Napoleon was walking the earth

Was it God's fault they were walking in the dark
Was it God's fault they had no light?

Surely not. It is just that humanity needed to evolve
to a level that someone could discover the light bulb
to discover electricity, to discover batteries...

Now we use electricity to perhaps its best level .
We enjoy it

Kindness existed in olden times
Kindness existed in the nineteenth century
Kindness exists in the 21st century.

Peace and unconditional love and universal kindness
are now here already in this world.
They have always been.

But somehow many of us are still walking in the dark
in the darkness of greed and strive and racism and nationalism
But the good news is that the time is ripe.

It is in these exciting times that we are evolving perhaps enough
to kindness materialize and fully be expressed for all human beings.

Peace is here.
Unconditional love is here
Universal kindness is here
Let us just open up.
The time is ripe
Let these three come to universal expression.

(inspired by a video by Michael B. Beckwith)

News

" News is the reporting of unusual things happening.
  Since the world is good and getting better,
  the good things happening in the world are usual
  and thus not considered news. "

  If we let this sink in, it'll become clear that it contains some valuable truth.

Sometimes parents go out of their mind and kill their own children.
This is extremely unusual and comes in the world news.
If we see this happen we get the feeling of "where is the world heading?"
But then we forget that at the same time there are hundreds of millions of
loving parents taking care very well of their children with a love
bordering to real unconditional love.

Most news channels and even regular channels that program a news bulletin,
are prepared for no-or-low-news days, where almost nothing unusual (bad) happens.
Should we not celebrate no-news days, more than we celebrate the new year?
Should we not excited about there being days that none of the more than 7 billion humans
gets completely derailed?

But still there are worries.
If we see the politics of America, the politics of so many other countries,
the ruthless business men; there are worries.
But still the idea of a positive psychology, of a loving kind world has come.
Its time has come and as many other ideas of the past whose time came
and changed reality forever, so will the this idea of a kind and loving world
change reality forever.

Let us all be part of the movement to get this idea into the avalanche of kindness it will soon become! 

Good Morning

I was walking with my head facing a bit down, quite absorbed in my own thoughts, when I suddenly heard the joyous voice of one of the hospital cleaners: 'good morning, prof'. I was jolted out of my closed inner world and the joy in her voice was warming my heart only in a way the human voice can. I responded with a 'good morning' too. That cleaner somehow had coloured my self-centered lone morning with the beautiful colours of human communication.

Small things like this can really make a difference to our day. My state of mind had changed from silent introversion to a certain joyful alertness, ready to continue the chain of kindness initiated by the cleaner.

Let us start a few of such chains of kindness ourselves today. Who knows one of such small chains of kindness may snowball into an avalanche of kindness enveloping the world😊

Delicious

A spoon full of life

with a pinch of love on it:

Truly Delicious

A senryu, a small poem with the structure similar to a haiku.
5-7-5 syllables (the '-cious' of delicious is pronounced as 1 syllable)

A senryu is about human nature while a haiku is not.

If we take life as it comes one spoon at the time

and put a little bit of love on it, 

life is OK.

Life can be difficult but most of the time we can find some beauty in it !

I love, thus I am - J'aime, donc je suis.

It was Descartes who said: Je pense, donc je suis, I think, thus I am.
I want to suggest a small change to my 'friend' Descartes:
I love, thus I am: J'aime, donc je suis.

First, a small poem:

I Love, Thus I Am 

I am,
I love.
A white rolling wave
in the blue ocean
whispers in my ear:
You are,
You love.
I want to thank the wave,
I want to love the wave,
but before I can,
it breaks on the shore
and ceases to be.
I am,
I love.
The beauty of the wave,
Its silent whisper
are still so much alive.
When I close my eyes
I see and hear it:
You are,
You love! 

And not only we, as a being, are! The love we created, the kindness poured out of our hearts,
comes into existence from nothing. Not only it exists in the moment, but it goes on living
many years after our kind act. Perhaps for eternity.

The small wave in the poem, was so kind and whispered such a sweet words to me,
that the wave goes on living in my memory and its kind words are as much alive
now as when the wave was whispering them.

Of course the poem is a metaphor.
I hope it is powerful enough for everyone to embrace the truth in:
J'aime, donc je suis 
or perhaps better still: J'aime, donc je serai
I love, thus I am
or perhaps better still: I love, thus I will be (forever) .   :)
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Similar message, without the metaphors