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ATTITUDE

Here is one of my newsletters that applies the concept of 'attitude'.

INTRODUCTION – BLAME and LOVE

BLAME is guilt ridden. As soon as we assign blame we look for guilt, we begin judgement and scrutinise with extreme vigour.

Now bring this theory into the realm of wisdom and what do we find? We find that we as humans as soon as we encounter a difficulty and can’t find an easy way out, we look to attribute blame. We would say, “It’s not our fault so it must be somebody else!”

The determination of blame (guilt) always seems to carry with it some implied or explicit suggestion of punishment. Small wonder then that the responsible party is unwilling to step forward.

QUOTE: "All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you. The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration. You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you won't succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy."

(Wayne Dyer)

That quote is describing how easy it is to blame another for an instance that could have been avoided by YOU. If you are not to blame then your ego is suitably impressed and restored to feeling no guilt.

If you came first in a ‘1,000 Metre Track Race’ at your school athletics meeting, what may happen? A coach would encourage you to practice more and try competing at a better level. Should you achieve further good results you’d continue to compete at better and greater levels. Your coach would fix a schedule of running to tone your skill at this 1,000 metre race. If your coach was a competent track professional you could expect high expectations for the future.

So my question is, “Do we need a coach to advise us to accept responsibility for our actions or do we find a different coach to teach us how to find other people to blame every time we make a mistake?”

Children are very good at assigning blame. If some milk is spilt at the breakfast table, they’d blame the reason on their sibling who had a need to leave the table and then ultimately blame them for the spill.

Do we have disagreements in love?

Many have said in the past that ‘hate’ looms just around the corner from love, and that a disagreement soon turns into a conversation full of hate and bitterness.

Wisdom sees only one thing… Opportunity.

When you have a disagreement in LOVE you have an opportunity to fine tune your love for another and take it to different level.

It is not, “I see the children’s behaviour is a direct result of your lazy behaviour. They do not react to any first warning because you never follow through with your intended threat. This is making them very stubborn and lazy themselves. I have tried on endless occasions to instigate them to clean their bedrooms and got frustrated and annoyed when they’ve not responded to my first warning. When I’ve followed through with my threat of ‘grounding’ them, they claim it is not fair as you always give them more warnings,” said one parent to another. This is likely to instigating a battle of blame.

It should be, “I can see that there is a big influence within the children to be stubborn and remain lazy. It maybe that one parent has a dominant influence and we cannot ideally grow the child’s personality to a level that both parents agree upon. If we both work more as a team and both increase our awareness of how and when we interrupt the children to correct their behaviour. Perhaps we ought to introduce some new rules,” said a content parent.

There is always a better way, even when you’ve made a positive move. But in prompting a suggestion of blame we should see that this is certainly the wrong route.

Love will flourish in a positive environment but diminish in a negative one.

You cannot be expected to change your style of conversation to accommodate an improved approach instantly. It may take some time. But can I suggest a halfway approach that you can do instantly; which will eventually improve your skill to communicate a disagreement better.

It is called a SANDWICH. One disagreeable aspect sandwiched between two complimentary comments…

“I’ve noticed how beautiful you look in that suit, but I have an apprehension on how tight the fitting is, perhaps we can think about getting a size bigger next time; but having said that, your shoes and colour co-ordination enhance the beauty further.”

“As I look at your school report I see that your English teacher has made some very positive comments about your improved grammar. Although it has to be said that your history teacher has commented on your lack of attention during his class, perhaps we can correct that with a little more understanding of why this happens by studying history at home. Moving onto your geography teacher’s comments who clearly sees you as a ‘star pupil’, which must indicate that you’ve got the skill we just need to fine tune it a little.”

2. STORY 1

JUDGE NOT, LEST YOU BE JUDGED (Matthew 7:1)

The call was controversial - just as all really close calls in baseball are. Full speed the runner slid home and thinking he had just scored a game-altering run, he stood up only to face the words, "You're out!"

Now you know how it is when you've given your all to an effort and you stand up, only to hear the ump say, "You're out!" Just running for home when the play could be that close takes confidence and determination, not to mention a certain amount of competitiveness that doesn't just evaporate when you stand up. And it didn't with this teenager either.

Furious, he threw off his helmet and ran over to explain to the ump in no uncertain terms why the call was wrong, why the ump needed glasses, and why he was clearly home and nobody could miss that call so badly. Before his temper really got out of hand, someone pulled him away, and he walked to the bench - livid.

“God sees not as man sees, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

Long after the coaches, players, and fans had gone home, this typical teenage boy realized the impact of his decisions at home plate. Like most of us do when we are faced with the embarrassment of our actions, he could very well have made the logical next choice and just let it slide, reasoning: "Everybody does it." "The ump's probably heard that stuff a million times."

However, in the silence of his heart, this young man knew that just because everyone else does it, that doesn't make it all right. And so, long after his buddies had gone home, he tracked that ump back up to the school - not to vandalize his car and not to further harangue him. No, this typical teenage boy tracked this man down so he could tell him face-to-face: "I'm sorry, Sir. I was wrong."

It takes true courage to stand up in the face of those everyday indiscretions we all make and say, "I was wrong. I'm sorry." What makes this apology even more unique is that it wasn't meant for the world to hear, it wasn't meant to make the apologizer look better in the eyes of anyone else. It was meant simply as a way to stay true to his own heart.

In reality the story may well have ended there, and no one would have been the wiser. However, on the way out of town, the ump saw the superintendent and flagged him down to express his appreciation and surprise at the boy's apology. But the ump wasn't the only one who was surprised. The superintendent later talked to the coach to say how impressed he was that the coach had sent the boy to apologize.

Only problem: The coach hadn't sent him and knew nothing about the apology until that very moment.

A few days later the coach ran into the boy's father and remarked how impressed he was that his parents had sent the boy to apologize. You guessed it - they knew nothing about it either!

Our truest actions are those that come from the heart -not what someone makes us do because it's the right thing. I know, however, that although the parents didn't intervene on this occasion, they had intervened enough times in the past for this boy to have the ultimate courage and try to remedy a situation when it would have been easier to reason, "He'll get over it."

The truth is at one time or another we have all been this boy - acting out in rage, saying hurtful things, and feeling justified for doing so. The real test comes later when we are presented with the choice to make amends or to walk away thinking, "Ah, they'll get over it."

Maybe the "they'll" is a co-worker, a customer, a friend, a sibling, a child, or a spouse. Whomever it is, don't pass up the opportunity to get right with your own heart. Don't let them walk off the field and drive out of town, thinking, "Oh, well. No big deal. They'll get over it." The time for apology is now!

Courage is a matter of the heart. I wish that every person in the whole world had the courage of this one typical teenager. If they did, just imagine what "typical" might come to mean! (And a last caveat: The whole world starts with YOU!)

(Staci Stallings)

3. STORY 2

OVERCOMING

The artist Michelangelo often stirred up the opposition of the contemporary artists of his day. Many of them envied his magnificent abilities.

One example was the architect Bramante. Pope Julius retained Michelangelo to build him a splendid tomb. Michelangelo gladly accepted the project and spent eight months in a marble pit personally cutting and selecting the most perfect stones. When he returned, he found the pope had second thoughts. Bramante had turned Pope Julius against the project. 

The Pope cancelled it. Later the idea for another special project entered the Pope's mind. Bramante saw the project as a time consuming trap for which there would be little public recognition. Bramante recommended Michelangelo for the job.

The great artist saw the trap. He knew what Bramante was up to. He wished to turn the project down but did not want to refuse the Pope's request. So Michelangelo went to work. 

He spent many years doing the slow and tedious labour the project required. It was the Sistine Chapel.

The inspiration that flowed through Michelangelo can likewise flow through any human being. That is what the inspiration wants to do. It cannot be stopped. It is a living, powerful river that easily circumvents all obstacles. Michelangelo collected his inner forces for a complete victory. Likewise, we must not fear to face the trickery of some people and expose it for what it is. This is not negative, but intelligent protection and spiritual perception.

In his many books on inner development author Vernon Howard refers to Michelangelo several times. He quotes him as saying, "The more the marble wastes, the more the statue grows." And, "I released the statue from the stone."

(Tom Russell

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4 RESPONDING TO YOUR QUESTIONS

QUESTION: “I have a tendency to fall back into my old ways when I’m not concentrating. Nothing was ever my fault, the world at large was always to blame. My question is… Why do I revert back to not being responsible for my own actions?”

ANSWER: Concentrating implies effort, paying attention does not. Try to avoid describing yourself with powerful words that suggest years of hard work to overcome.

QUOTE: "It is far easier to blame someone than to take the time to understand the problem." (Dave Gurteen)

Following the thought process associated with this quote, it brought to my mind an organisation I’d read about, the Scapegoat Society (www-scapegoat.demon.co.uk). Little do we notice how often we use this way of distributing blame. Here is their definition:

DEFINING SCAPEGOATING

Scapegoating is a hostile social - psychological discrediting routine by which people move blame and responsibility away from themselves and towards a target person or group. It is also a practice by which angry feelings and feelings of hostility may be projected, via inappropriate accusation, towards others. The target feels wrongly persecuted and receives misplaced vilification, blame and criticism; he is likely to suffer rejection from those who the perpetrator seeks to influence. Scapegoating has a wide range of focus: from "approved" enemies of very large groups of people down to the scapegoating of individuals by other individuals. Distortion is always a feature.

(Simon Crosby – Scapegoat Society. UK)

It would appear that this Society takes their cause seriously, yet I could almost be certain many would not consider the implications that both blame and assigning blame could generate.

5. PHILOSOPHICAL TIPS & QUOTES

“A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror.” (Ken Keyes Jnr., Handbook of High Consciousness)

"If you want to know your past - look into your present conditions. If you want to know your future - look into your present actions." (Buddhist Saying)

"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." (Carl Bard)

Bye for now.

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Phil Booker
Editor, Author, Businessman and Philosopher of Life.
Providing you with the Weekly Newsletter - WISDOM 4U

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