Creativity in Business

A student reports: "1,500 CEO’s polled by IBM said creativity was the number one factor behind leadership competency."

The Joys of Solitude

As an assignment over the weekend, I asked my students to go and see a movie--totally alone. They groaned and kvetched, and some couldn't see the sense in it. But once they'd done it, they reported that that they were surprised at what a good time they had, were more focused on the movie than ever before (even if it was not a good film), and most said it is something they would do again. Go figure.

It's a wonderful skill to develop, especially at a young age: to enjoy your own company.

Our Deepest Fear

This quote from Marianne Williamson was given me by a friend:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

The Benefits of Solitude

These are quotes from "The Power of Lonely" by Leon Neyfakh in the Boston Globe. Among other things, he writes,

an emerging body of research is suggesting that spending time alone, if done right, can be good for us — that certain tasks and thought processes are best carried out without anyone else around, and that even the most socially motivated among us should regularly be taking time to ourselves if we want to have fully developed personalities, and be capable of focus and creative thinking. . . .

Solitude has long been linked with creativity, spirituality, and intellectual might. The leaders of the world’s great religions — Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses — all had crucial revelations during periods of solitude. The poet James Russell Lowell identified solitude as “needful to the imagination;” in the 1988 book “Solitude: A Return to the Self,” the British psychiatrist Anthony Storr invoked Beethoven, Kafka, and Newton as examples of solitary genius. . . .

Teenagers, especially, whose personalities have not yet fully formed, have been shown to benefit from time spent apart from others, in part because it allows for a kind of introspection — and freedom from self-consciousness — that strengthens their sense of identity.

Anyway, it's worth reading the whole article.

Asking for help

No kidding. Twice now I've asked for help with something that had me confused and help was there before the sun was high in the sky.  (See post for March 4)

3/4.  Asked at 7 am.  Situation resolved by 11:30.

3/9  Asked at 7 am.  All fixed by 8:30 am.

I'm digging this. Darn, how often I forget to ask. How about you?

A couple of brain twisting quotes

Sorry I missed a few days of posting. Sometimes you need to let the ground lie fallow for a while.
Anyway, these quotes come from various sources and somehow relate to one another. Don't think too intensely about them, though.

There are mighty few people who think what they think they think.

How will I think what I think until I see what I say?

It is not easy to know what you like. Most people fool themselves their entire lives through about this.

We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.

Amazing Grace!

This is too beautiful to make up:
   I was directing a schola at a funeral this mornng which was very well attended. As I looked out over the congregation, I caught sight of a woman I haven't talked to in many, many years. We'd had a spat back around 1995, and as I looked at her I realized that I was way overdue  to let go of that grudge and the bad feelings that went with it. So I said a prayer and asked for help.
  Not two minutes after the end of the funeral, she walked up to me, gave me a big hug, and we stood chatting amiably for a while. Then a big hug and a cordial good-bye.
  Coincidence?