taking someone on face value

the groovy life

Sometimes life is a long, narrow groove - with little or no room for lateral movement and crazy impulses.

the glass house of reason and intellect

The glass house world of reason and intellect keeps grinding us into the demonstration of knowing, and into proving things. We no longer trust our own experience, since it is not intelligent to trust what has not been analysed.

We all grow up with the same, reasonable answers for everything. And as we all grow up, we slowly but surely manage all the mystery, creativity and spontaneity out of our lives.

your mind: programmed to always be RIGHT

Your mind is obsessed with your survival – not just your physical survival, but the survival of your ideas, opinions, self-conceptions, and point of view.

Perhaps the way out of this trap is to get our minds re-installed.

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my tribute to the NSW state election ... voting day is tomorrow

sometimes i feel like my head is going to explode

does this message work for you ... or are you too cynical for such idealism

March 19th = the day Iraq was invaded

And this is a reminder of what some Australians said at that time.
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the price of intelligence

As infants we live in our experience – we trust it. When a toddler is hungry he does not doubt his hunger, or whether he should make every effort to get food. And then things start to change. At some point his parents say to him “no, you’ve had enough food”. “Stop being so greedy.” “You can’t be hungry – you’ve just eaten.” And so the infant starts to feel what he should feel, not what he does feel.

There is a disconnect between the infant’s world of actual experience – the sensations and feelings of being hungry – and the world the infant is expected to experience – “I cannot and/or must not be hungry; so, I am not hungry.” This is the world of intellect and reasoning – and it sits at odds with our instinct. We often make this distinction when we say we are acting from our head, or acting from our heart.

This disconnect between head and heart is the single biggest cause of human anxiety, self-doubt, and dissatisfaction with life. It sits inside each of us like a raging battle of “black versus white”, “right versus wrong”, “yes versus no”. This is our inner world of opposites, contradiction, and conflict.

the mask of happiness

look familiar? [part 2]

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look familiar?

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ingredient x

be alert, not alarmed

a site well worth visiting

[click to get there]

beware the IDEAS of march

my conversation with a Melbourne cabbie

"Why do you drive a cab, mate?"

"People ask me why I drive a cab for 14 years. It’s because everything I’ve ever tried my hand at in business has failed. I’m not any good."

why we conform

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try telling these bears that the earth isn't getting warmer

the media = a glass house of BIG note

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please take one

for people who live in glass houses :)

what are the agreements YOU have made with youself?

There are thousands of agreements you have made with yourself, with other people, with your dream of life, with God, with society, with your parents, with your spouse, with your children.

But the most important agreements are the ones you made with yourself. In these agreements you tell yourself who you are, what you feel, what you believe, and how to behave.

In these agreements you say,“This is what I am. This is what I believe. I can do certain things, and some things I cannot do. This is reality, that is fantasy; this is possible, that is impossible.”

And 99% of these agreements are limiting what's possible for you.

the glass house called "this is how we do things around here"

How things get to be done the way they get done.

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result. All the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it. Now, put away the cold water.

Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted. Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.

Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done around here.

And that, my friends, is how Sacred Cows are born.

the paradox of our time

we have wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints;
we live longer, but have less time;
we spend more, but have less;
we buy more, but enjoy it less;
we have more experts, but more problems;
we have more knowledge, but less judgment;
we've been all the way to the moon and back,
but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbour;
we've conquered outer space, but not inner space;
we've learned how to make a living, but not a life;
we've added years to life, not life to years.

are you living a life YOU love?

We have been conditioned to live our lives trying to satisfy other people’s demands. We have learned to live by other people’s points of view because of the fear of not being accepted, and of not being good enough for someone else. Just being yourself - expressing who and what you really are - this is our biggest challenge.

one of the biggest glass houses of them all

greed is good ... still

In 1999 a first-year, full-time sales consultant at Qantas earned $30,500 a year. The Qantas chief executive of the day, James Strong, earned $1.9 million. In 2006 a Qantas employee in the same position earned $38,000. But the Qantas chief executive of the day, Geoff Dixon, earned $5.3 million. The workers salary had gone up by about 25% over seven years. The chief executive's salary had gone up by 175%. And that doesn't include share based payments and bonuses. This pattern repeats itself across the whole economy.

The Australian Financial Review's annual executive salaries survey [11/06] shows the average salary for chief executives in the top Australian companies has risen to $2.1 million, reflecting increases of 12%, 16% and 29% over the last three years. At the same time average annual earnings have risen to $57,000, up 3%, 6% and 4% over the three years.

This reminds me of the movie Wall Street, when Bud Fox asks Gordon Gekko: "How much is enough? How many boats can you water ski behind?" To which Gekko replies: "It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another."