Nature speaks advice from a lake - Photo by Joanne Reed
The best way I know to get away from the hustle and bustle of day-to-day living is to take a walk and immerse yourself in nature. Nature speaks and it has a lot of wisdom to share; but you need to pay attention. I just came back from a three-day trek in the mountain; it was one of the most difficult and one of the most beautiful experiences I had lately, and I learn a lesson or two from the various lakes that came my way.
Advice from a Lake.
Be clear. Make positive ripples look beneath the surface. Stay calm. Shore up friendships. Take time to reflect. Be full of life!
Ilan Shamir
Nature speaks – Advice from a lake – Be clear
Nature speaks advice from a lake – Photo by Alize Reed – Riviere des Galets – Reunion Island
People who see clearly are confident in themselves and in their abilities. Confident people know who they are, what they want, and how they should go about it. They have a road map, they have a destination in mind, and have planned the journey ahead. They have determination, discipline, a sense of purpose and they go through their life in a state of joy, happiness, and grace. The quest for clarity is an endless pursuit. We all seek it. We all want clear answers to our questions. We all want clear solutions to our problems. We all want clear paths to follow along the road to a happy and successful life. We all want to move from a state of confusion, which brings with it a lot of suffering to a state of clarity that brings joy and happiness.
People who don’t see clearly are lost, they drift, they are discouraged, they keep changing their mind, and instead of going forward towards the light (they is always light at the end of the tunnel) they turn around in circles wandering endlessly and compulsively but not really going anywhere; and their life journey ends up being a journey full of pain and suffering. The lack of clarity triggers different types of reactions in people. Some people will opt for burying their heads in the sand and continue operating on autopilot. Others will sink into despair or run around in a state of panic not knowing what to do, holding on to their anger, resentment, and suffering.
Suffering is part of life, everybody has problems, issues, dramas to deal with. Jordan Peterson advocates that we should bear our own cross, our own suffering, transcend it and then try to reduce it by becoming some kind of heroes to ourselves and to people around us. How do we become heroes? Not by wearing a cape, jumping from building to building trying to save the world. We become heroes by becoming a better person every day shining our own light into the world, and the gift of clarity helps us do just that.
Nature speaks – Advice from a lake – Be clear – Make positive ripples – Look under the surface – Shore up friendships
Nature speaks advice from a lake – Photo by Valerie Leperre- Cilaos – Reunion Island.
All of us without hesitation would prefer if given the choice, to be in the skin of one of those people who can see clearly. However, life is never black or white, life is a lot more complex than that; and you can bet that all of us will have periods where we experience moments of clarity, where everything is in harmony, where we feel that we are on top of the world and we know where we are going; but we will also experience moments when we lack clarity – when we are filled with doubt, when we feel discouraged and drift, not knowing where we are going.
Buddhist believe that “the world is like muddy water. To see through it, we have to let things settle. We can’t be disturbed by initial appearance, and if we are patient and still the truth will be revealed to us.”
Nature speaks advice from a lake – Photo by Joanne Reed featuring Alize Reed – Cilaos – Reunion Island.
“Your mind is like this water, my friend. When it is agitated, it becomes difficult to see. But, if you allow it to settle, the answer becomes clear.”
Master Oogway
Nature speaks advice from a lake – Photo by Philippe Payet – Riviere des Galets – Reunion Island
If clarity was a commodity that could be purchased, the chance is that commodity would become the most precious item one could own. The problem is you cannot obtain clarity from someone else; you cannot buy clarity and you cannot, unfortunately, receive it as a gift from someone else. You will have to find it yourself. Clarity will make your thoughts, your emotions, and your actions congruent with each other. We should also accept the fact that if you are not present in the moment, you will not be able to see clearly. Being present in the moment is a very powerful tool for you to experience greater clarity and make better choices.
According to the Native Americans, in order to conduct your life as a human being, you have to watch nature and imitate it. If you watch the land, you will see that all the plants and animals co-exist in their natural environment. When you look at a poisonous plant, you will see that it is bare all around; a poisonous plant has no friends. The same applies to humans.
You watch the animal kingdom and you realize that there are no predators; there is only natural law. Animals and humans have one thing in common, we don’t want to be eaten. So, what should we do to avoid this fate? We should learn everything that life can teach us and applies those life lessons into our day-to-day life in order to not only survive but thrive.
DDI Chat – Personal Growth – One-to-one Chat with Joanne Reed
In addition to publishing my articles on my website, I have also been publishing on Medium. I have been working closely for the past months with Data-Driven Investor (DDI) Publication. DDI has recently launched a new marketplace/platform where people can book a paid one-to-one session with an expert of their choice. DDI asked me to join their panel of advisors/experts in the Leadership, Coaching, and Personal Growth category. Here is my profile. If you wish to book a one-to-one chat with me you can do so on this platform.
“Thinking is difficult, that is why most people judge”
Carl Jung
Essential life lessons: Before you assume, learn the fact. Before you judge, understand why. Before you hurt someone, feel. Before you speak, think. Thinking is part of what makes us human. What differentiates humans from animals is our cognitive abilities such as fully developed language, reasoning capabilities, and the ability to make plans for the future. We are all born with the capacity to think, but not everyone is capable of critical thinking, and it is a skill that needs to be learned and practiced with discipline.
Socrates is credited for being the first critical thinker and the Socratic method is one of the earliest critical thinking instructions tools known to man. The Socratic method is described as a form of a cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions.
Essential Life lessons: Think for yourself. I think therefore I am – Rene Descartes
Essential Life Lessons. Think for yourself. I think therefore I am . Photo by freepik via freepik.com
Critical thinking means many things, but at heart, it is a search for the truth. Critical thinking helps us determine what is real and what it is not. But before we are able to exercise our cognitive ability to think critically, we need to have a certain base of knowledge as a starting point. We can only think critically about things we have knowledge of, and we don’t have the structures in place to think deeply if we haven’t spent time mastering a body of knowledge related to that thinking.
Critical thinking can be understood as a deep activity, one that requires the development of new habits of mind. It is not something that comes to us naturally, it requires extensive study and practice. When we have our critical thinking hat on, we develop our problem-solving capabilities and our ability to look at the strengths and weaknesses of an argument; the result is that we are more able to see things clearly and this can help us make better decisions.Critical thinking is a skill; to be good at it, you will have to spend time practicing the art of thinking for yourself.
We all like to think of ourselves as rational, strategic creatures, but in reality, humans are deeply irrational and are often governed by emotion rather than logic. Moreover, we have a tendency to operate within our own echo chamber, where the only information that goes through our brain is information that validates our prior knowledge, vindicates our prior decisions, or sustains our existing beliefs.
“The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling”.
Thomas Sowell
We should get into the habit from time to time of walking down the road less traveled, the one taken by critical thinkers. If you decide to walk down that road it will require that you possess a certain fluidity of mind, some discipline, and be driven by the will to get to the truth of the matter rather than the urge to be righteous no matter what.
Skills required to be able to think for yourself.
Essential life lessons. Skills required to think for yourself. Photo by freepik via freepik.com
Rationality. We think critically when we rely on reason rather than emotion when we follow the evidence when we are more concerned with finding the best explanation rather than being right, and when we get into a habit of asking questions.
Self-awareness. We think critically when we recognize that we suffer from emotional impulses, selfish motives, nefarious purposes, narrow-minded vision, and other modes of self-deception.
Open-mindedness. We think critically when we evaluate all reasonable inferences, consider a variety of possible viewpoints or perspectives, remain open to alternative interpretations accept the new explanations, models or paradigms, because it explains the evidence better, is simpler, or has fewer inconsistencies. We cannot reject opinions just because they are unpopular.
Discipline. We think critically when we are precise, meticulous, comprehensive exhaustive, resist manipulation and irrational appeals, and avoid snap judgments.
Judgment. We think critically when we recognize the relevance and/or merit of alternative assumptions and perspectives and recognize the extent and weight of evidence. Critical thinkers are skeptical by nature. They are active and not passive. They ask questions and analyze facts and data. They consistently apply tactics and strategies to uncover meaning or assure their understanding. Critical thinkers are open to new ideas and perspectives. They are willing to challenge their beliefs and investigate competing evidence.
By contrast, passive, non-critical thinkers take a simplistic view of the world. They see things in black and white, as either-or, rather than recognizing a variety of possible understandings. They see questions as yes or no with no subtleties. They fail to see linkages and complexities. They fail to recognize related elements. They take their facts as the only relevant ones. They take their perspectives as the only sensible ones. They consider their goal as the only valid one.
Essential life lessons. Learn to navigate your way through misinformation and disinformation.
Essential Life Lessons. Learn to navigate your way through misinformation and disinformation.
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact; everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
Marcus Aurelius
We are living in a world of information overload, data about almost everything is available to all who wish to access it at the click of a button. We are constantly bombarded by a steady stream of information (sometimes misinformation, exaggerations, and mischaracterizations) about a whole range of subject matters, making it very difficult to know what and who to believe.
Critical thinking is important because we need this skill in order to navigate our way through all the information, misinformation, and disinformation that is being served to us on a daily basis on all media platforms.Misinformation is false information that is being spread, regardless of intent to mislead. Dis-information on the other hand is false information that is deliberately misleading or biased information, manipulated narrative or facts, or propaganda that is being spread with the intent to hurt or damage a person or organization.
Trying to nail down the authenticity of anything and verify our knowledge about the world is a tall order. We are huge consumers of all types of media, but often lack the tools to think about how and why we are passively consuming what we watch, read, and share. We are inundated with news. How can one discern between real news and fake news? We are often not thinking about how our own biases affect how we think about the world. We are also getting comfortable in our echo chambers, devoid of people and ideas who challenge our own beliefs.
We expect Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Google to filter the truth for us, rather than putting in the hard work to do some thinking for ourselves. Some social media posts go viral in minutes after they are posted whether they carry with them the truth or an exaggeration of the truth or total falsehood. There is always the option of fact-checking some of the information such as Factcheck.org or Snopes website. The problem is that if the counter-information is not shared in the same manner as the viral post the damage from the false post cannot be counteracted. Another problem that happens more and more these days is that you have to fact-check the fact-checkers who may not be as impartial as one may think. Follow the money and see who is financing those fact-checkers.
There is a scientific term for this in psychology, it is called the Illusory Truth Effect also known as the Reiteration Effect, it is the tendency to believe the information to be correct (even if it is not) after repeated exposure to that same information. Repeated affirmation fixes itself in the mind in such a way that it is accepted in the end as a demonstrated truth. Many studies have been conducted on this, and the conclusion is that familiarity overcomes rationality the truth does not matter. Repetition does!
“The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent. The media will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. This is the sort of propaganda tactic that I would call psychological warfare.”
Malcolm X
Essential life lessons: Even experts can be wrong.
The other tendency is to relinquish your power to think critically on someone else and rely on the opinion of the experts instead. Society needs experts because those people know a thing or two about their own area of expertise, they are specialized in their field and are being paid to share their knowledge, wisdom, and experience with the world at large.
This said, whenever you decide to ask an expert for his advice on a particular matter, I suggest you put your critical thinking hat on to ensure that you fully understand the advice you are being given, the scope and limitations of the adviser’s expertise, his or her ability to see the problem in its proper context, the possibility that these experts may be subject to bias and in the worst-case scenario, the possibility that the expert may be wrong.
History is full of anecdotes showing that even the experts can be wrong. In 1968, Time Magazine made the observation that “online shopping while entirely feasible will flop.” In 2019, worldwide online shopping reached nearly 43.7 trillion. In 1876, senior executives at Western Union made the following statement: “This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. It is inherently of no value.” In early 2017, Apple announced that it has sold 216 million iPhones.
No one, including experts, really know with absolute certainty what will happen in the future. Every time there is a national disaster, a pandemic, or some dramatic event, we can rely on television news to find an expert to come on TV and generously share his predictions and knowledge on why this happened and what will happen next. The truth of the matter is that sometimes those experts are wrong.
Critical thinking is more than important, it is vital. Without critical thinking, you will be another sheeple lost on the crowd and dutifully following the trend of the moment and absorbing the world’s accepted view. Critical thinking is a skill that should be nurtured and valued.
The world needs critical thinkers more than ever. The ability to think about things in a critical way will make a difference to you and the people around you.
“I think (critically) therefore I am (free).
Knowledge is power and thinking critically is freedom. And this, my dear friend, is your Quest.
Personal Note
DDI Chat – Personal Growth – One-to-one Chat with Joanne Reed
In addition to publishing my articles on my website, I have also been publishing on Medium. I have been working closely for the past months with Data-Driven Investor (DDI) Publication. DDI has recently launched a new marketplace/platform where people can book a paid one-to-one session with an expert of their choice. DDI asked me to join their panel of advisors/experts in the Leadership, Coaching, and Personal Growth category. Here is my profile. If you wish to book a one-to-one chat with me you can do so on this platform.
“Deep Impact” was a 1998 Hollywood disaster movie starring Morgan Freeman, Robert Duvall, and Tea Leoni depicting the story of survival of the human race when a comet is discovered to be on a collision course with Earth. As doomsday nears, the human race prepares for the worst. Eight hundred thousand ordinary American people are selected via lottery tickets by the government alongside 200,000 scientists, soldiers and other officials to be saved in underground bunkers in order to keep the human race alive.
The word “impact” used as a noun is defined as the action of one object coming forcibly into contact with another; used as a verb the word “impact” means to have a strong effect on someone or something. This article is not about the doomsday, end of the world, or extinction of the human race, it is about the impact we leave on people around us and how impactful our life is.
Do you have a deep impact on someone or something? How impactful is your life?
Whether people admit it or not, most of us have a desire to make a difference, to have an impact, or some level of influence on others. It is part of human nature, and it is admirable because it implies that we want to live a life that is bigger than us and our immediate entourage. We want to leave something of value after we leave, we want to leave a legacy. The thought of being forgotten and having had not much impact during the course of our life is troubling and distressing.
“The World needs able men and women, people who can do things that are thoroughly worthwhile; people who can think great thoughts and transform such thoughts into great deeds.”
Christian D. Larson
Deep impact. How impactful is your life. Photo by KJ Pargeter via freepik.com
John Dunia from Shame Doctor wrote a beautiful article about this. He explained in this article that regardless of what the aspiration for leaving your legacy is, the actions and motives affecting your day-to-day lives are what ultimately determine what your legacy is.
There is a distinction between being remembered and being well-known. Fame or celebrity is not what leaves a lasting impression on the future of the human race. It is often the insights of a grandparent or a stranger imparting wisdom and altering the course of impressionable lives. These conversations are rarely planned. It’s as though the circumstances beckoned the elder’s experience and intuition to enlighten the younger, yet never fully comprehending the tremendous influence those words would permanently render. In most cases, the motivation which sparked those transforming words was none other than love itself. According to John Dunia, Love and nothing less should be the determining influence in every aspect of our legacy. A true legacy is not how many people remember you, but how your memory is cherished. How your love changed the lives who were blessed to know you.
Falling in or out of love is one of the strongest emotions that people can experience. Love can be kind. Love can be cruel. Love is everything. Love has been called “one of the most studied and least understood areas in psychology.” Everyone has been experienced feelings of love to some extent or another. There are those who found love and lost it, those who found it and kept it, and those who are seeking it in odd places. There are also those who don’t know they have it, not realizing it is closer than they think.
There are indeed many types of love. Romantic love, the love that perhaps most naturally springs to mind, has been the inspiration for countless ballads, stories, and pieces of art and has captured the imagination of singers, artists, and poets throughout history. However, there are many flavors of love, from brotherly love, family love, the love of God, and self-love. And Love is indeed our unending legacy. The greatest gift we can bestow.
To be or not to be impactful?
Deep Impact. To be or not to be impactful. Photo by Ipopba via freepik.com.
To be or not to be impactful? This may seem to be an odd question for some. Some people are very content with a quiet life away from the hustle and bustle. They are happy the way things are and don’t have any inclination to change things and even less inclination to change the world. Fair enough.
Sadhguru (my favorite yogi, philosopher, sage) has an interesting point of view on this issue. Every one of us is free to capture as much life as we want. If you capture a substantial amount of life you will become a significant presence, you will radiate, and that presence will draw people to you. It is not the knowledge you accumulated in your head, not the social status, the successes nor the muscle you built upon your body. It is just how much life emanates from you.
If you have the opportunity to go out in the world and do something impactful. Good, go out there and be impactful. But if not, don’t worry. Concentrate on being happy and content. The world needs more of these types of people. An oak tree sitting outside is not trying to create a significant impact on anyone. By just sitting there in a calm and assured state of being, the oak tree by its mere presence is being impactful without even trying. If someone just happened to walk past that oak tree on a hot and sunny day, wishing to rest and cool down for a little while, that person will find refuse under the oak tree and will appreciate its presence and the shade it can offer in that particular day, at that particular time. The oak tree has had an impact on that person, just by being there.
Deep Impact. The man who wanted to change the world. Photo by Ipopba via freepik.com
This is the story of an ambitious young Chinese man who on his 20th birthday became consumed with the desire to change the world. He spent the next 20 years trying to do that. But couldn’t. At age 40, he settled for trying to change China. He spent the next 20 years trying to do that. But couldn’t.
At age 60, he settled for trying to change his village. And for the next 20 years, he tried to do just that. But failed. At age 80, he decided to focus on changing his family. So, he spent the next 20 years trying to do that. But couldn’t.
At age 100, he decided to focus on trying to change himself. After all these years he came to realize that by changing himself first, that would change his family, then his village, his province, impacting his country, and ultimately changing the world. But the next day he died. Be the change you want to see in the world.
And this my dear friend, is your Quest.
Personal note.
DDI Chat – Personal Growth – One-to-one Chat with Joanne Reed
In addition to publishing my articles on my website, I have also been publishing on Medium. I have been working closely for the past months with Data-Driven Investor (DDI) Publication. DDI has recently launched a new marketplace/platform where people can book a paid one-to-one session with an expert of their choice. DDI asked me to join their panel of advisors/experts in the Leadership, Coaching, and Personal Growth category. Here is my profile. If you wish to book a one-to-one chat with me you can do so on this platform.
Author Joanne Reed
This is Your Quest
Happy National Book Lovers Day
how to have superpowers
Superpowers
How to have superpowers? Galileo said: “Books are our sole means of having superhuman powers while remaining resolutely human. The power of traversing the abysses of space, time, and misunderstanding that gap between our own life, our own self, our own subjective experience and another‘s.”
Happy National Book Lovers Day
National Book Lovers Day
August 9th is National Book Lovers Day. This gives me the perfect excuse to tell you something that you may already know but have forgotten or taken for granted. For this occasion, I organized a round table discussion with some renowned authors, Neil Gaiman, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison (RIP) in order to gather their thoughts on the importance of reading books and the role of writers in society.
The Importance of Books
Author Joanne Reed, “Neil Gaiman; you feel very strongly about the importance of reading and believe our future depends on it. Why is reading so important?”
Neil Gaiman, “Books are the way that we communicate with the dead, the way we learn lessons from those who are no longer with us, it is the way the humanity has built itself and progresses. There are tales that are older than most countries, tales that have outlasted cultures and the buildings in which they were first told. These tales have survived on the shoulders of story-tellers and people who have transmitted them forward.”
James Baldwin: “For me, books are a way to change one’s destiny.”
Author Joanne Reed, “Interesting; throughout history, access to knowledge and education was the monopoly of a very few. Literacy was inaccessible to most and prohibited to many, i.e. serfs, women and slaves, to keep them in a state of servitude and ignorance. Knowledge is power; the ruling classes kept serfs uneducated by design so they could successfully rule over them. Under the feudal system women too had little or no chance of attaining education. In a few cases, girls from upper-class backgrounds enjoyed the benefits of education as there were certain obligation for women of nobility that required them to be literate; but whatever education women had access to was purely designed to help them marry well, or to become a good wife and mother. In the USA, slaves were prohibited by law to read and write. Slave masters understood that control over slaves could not be based solely on physical coercion and it was also understood that literate slaves would eventually demand the same rights that whites enjoyed; I discuss this in Chapter 7 of my book.“
James Baldwin: “You cannot underestimate the importance of writing. Writers describe things which other people are too busy to describe. I didn’t decide to become a writer I discovered I was one.”
Neil Gaiman, “Writers have an obligation to write true things. Truth is not in what happens but in what it tells us about who we are. Writers have an obligation not to bore our readers, but to make them need to turn the pages. One of the best cures for a reluctant reader is after all a tale they cannot stop themselves reading. And while we must tell our readers true things and give them arms and pass on whatever wisdom we have gleaned from our short stay on this green world, we have an obligation to not preach, not to lecture, not to force predigested morals and messages down our reader’s throats like adult birds feeding their babies pre-masticated maggots.”
Toni Morrison, “I agree but wish to add, that if there is a book you want to read that hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one who writes it.”
Toni Morrison (1931 – 2019)
Author Joanne Reed, “Exactly, I always wanted to read a book that inspires and challenges me, a book about important subjects like love, money, and health in an educational and fun to read way; a book that contains a treasure trove of wisdom gathered from people who succeeded in their own Quests, where I can learn lessons from history and can have conversation with philosophers. I never found such a book, so decided to follow the advice of Toni Morrison and wrote the book myself!”
Superpowers Conclusion
I would like to thank my guests for agreeing to participate. In closing, for National Book Lover’s Day, I hope this discussion has reminded you of the power of knowledge and to help appreciate the story teller’s contribution to this art. Books don’t write themselves, and books are how to have superpowers!
Words have tremendous energy and power, they have the ability to educate, to help, to heal, to illuminate the minds.
“Books are our sole means of having superhuman powers while remaining resolutely human.”
