[AngegepeM]

What are the 10 words that best describe who you are?

A person's favorite words may go a long way in revealing his or her changing lifestyle, values, beliefs and changing needs. The words may also suggest how people are reacting to the challenges of the present and the future.

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Before you read further, try the following thought experiment. Relax and breathe deeply, Think about your life and what is important to you. What are your values? What is your lifestyle? What are your beliefs? What are the most important things in life to you? Close your eyes and reflect on your life as you are living it at this moment.

Then as a personal exercise freely list 10 words that best represent your values, lifestyle, beliefs, desires and needs Prioritize the list with #1 being the most significant, #2 the next most significant, and so on. Read the list and write down your reactions. Look for particular themes or issues. Did any particular word evoke a strong emotional response? What does your list tell you about your life? How does your list compare with a list you would have written five years ago? Ten years ago? Can you identify a changing trend that's either positive or negative?

JAPAN'S TOP TEN WORDS

A survey in Japan conducted by professor Takeshi Sato of Hitotsubashi University, which was financed by Japan's Information and Cultural Research Society, surveyed a cross-section of Japanese society and revealed that Japan's current top-10 words are:

(1) Effort

(2) Sincerity

(3) Freedom

(4) Peace

(5) Love

(6) Thoughtfulness

(7) Trust

(8) Thanks

(9) Health

(10) Dreams

The words, according to Sato, seem to reflect a changing national work-ethic. Words like freedom appeared for the first time, which may indicate that workers are starting to chafe at the structure of Japan's corporate society. Also, differences in answers between young people and older people show a distinctive shift in values and beliefs. People in their twenties ranked "freedom" as the top word, while those who were forty or older ranked "effort" on top with "freedom" far behind. The word "health" also appeared for the first time in Sato's research and reflects a growing concern held by the aging portion of the population.

As an experiment, I decided to mimic the Japanese survey. Over the past two years, I've asked friends, family, acquaintances, business associates and people I met randomly to feely list, in order of importance, their top 10 favorite words that in some way represented their life. All in all, 150 people participated. Here is the result which represents the average of their responses:

1. Peace

2. Equality

3. Security

4. Prosperity

5. Love

6. Fun

7. Compensation

8. Acknowledgement

9. Freedom

10. Health

The surveyed people ranked security and prosperity high on the list. These most probably are primary factors because of our weakened national economic situation. Ten years ago, Americans took security and prosperity for granted and I doubt would have listed them at all. The words "peace" and "equality" in my opinion are universal values that most of us around the world would rank high. I was surprised by how low "freedom" ranked in comparison to the other words. Could this mean that "freedom" is not as highly valued as it once was in our country? Is security now more important than freedom? The Japanese, especially the young, listed it much higher than the surveyed Americans.

Interestingly, participants used words such as "compensation," "acknowledgement," and not words such as "effort," "skills," and "work." Could this represent a disappearing work ethic in America? Or could it mean the desire to honor the individual as opposed to a group for accomplishments? Or does it mean the individual is entitled by society to compensation and acknowledgement. I was surprised at the absence of words that I had expected to be included such as honor, pride, honesty, integrity, kindness, responsible and patriotism.

Compare your list with my survey. Any commonalities? Differences? Give your list to a friend. Tell your friend that the 10 words reflect the most important 10 things in another (unnamed) friend's life. Then ask your friend to interpret the list. Describe the person who would list these ten words as descriptive of what is important in their life. I did this with my personal list and found my friend's interpretation of my list as most enlightening

[Sipewrio]

Hmmm....
The words "Truth", "Rationality", "Individuality", "Morality", "Knowlege", "Integrity", "Discernment" and "Wisdom" do not appear on either list. We are SO screwed as a species!

[Scukonah]

I got two words to send to myself--Let Go!

[dianakroshXX]

Four things come not back; the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, the neglected opportunity.

A warrior must learn calligraphy. Just as you cannot take back a stroke of the pen, neither can you take back a stroke of the blade.

[soprofaxelbis]

Stop being so scared of telling the people in your life that YOU LOVE THEM because over the next 15 years of your life you are
going to lose ALOT of people close to you. Squeeze them hard. Look them in the eye so that they KNOW that you mean it.
Tell them, just say it & then keep saying it every chance you get. Don't take your beloveds for granted that they are going to live a LONG LIFE.
Hold them tight. YOUNG OR OLD. It doesn't matter. You NEVER KNOW WHOSE DAY IS GONNA BE TODAY OR TOMORROW TO DIE.
Might be yours, might be theirs.

When you look down at your loved one in their casket you don't ever EVER want to say to yourself,
"Did he/she know how much I loved them, how much I cared about them, When was the last time I saw him/her ?"
Never take a moment for granted,
cuz when you walk out the door or they walk out the door, YOU NEVER know if you're going to see them alive again, Don't be afraid of people in your life dying, but love them as if today or tomorrow could be it , if not, then don't be balling like a baby about your guilt of not loving them enough and oh btw, start forgiving people for their stupidity now because the lack of forgiveness holds you back from telling your loved ones how much you love them and you do alot of stupid things yourself that you're forgiven for, just do it.

[YmolafBp]

I have no regrets in the way I have lived my life......I have learned many lessons and it made me the person I am today.
Good or bad , right or wrong, I wouldn't change a thing. Love hard, Work hard and Play hard, go full blast and enjoy every moment...... because it could be your last..............

[flanna.kersting]

Don't worry be happy.

[CathBraunn]

Practice more and fuck the business world. Play music.

[AngegepeM]

Which of These Figures Represent Who You Are?

Imagine the illustration below represents three sheets of paper placed side by side a few inches apart. The left sheet has an irregular squiggle, The center sheet is blank and sheet on the right has a small diamond-shaped dot in the middle of the page.



THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Conduct the following thought experiment before you read the rest of the text.

Examine the sheets. Which sheet of paper left, center or right is more like your real self? Which of the three seems like a better picture of all of you, with all your hopes, fears, and weaknesses, as you are at this point of time. Which comes closest to representing the way you feel about yourself? Can you elaborate on why the sheet you chose represents who you are?



Read below...





************************************************** ************************************************** ************



The majority of people choose either the squiggle or the blank sheet. Almost none chose the diamond-shaped dot. Yet, the sheet with the dot is the most centered and solid and has the most feeling and potential. The blank sheet feels empty and meaningless. The one with the squiggle creates an impression of disturbance and incoherence.

You may wonder if the descriptions are accurate. To convince you, let me propose another thought experiment. Suppose you are with the person you love more than any other person on the face of the earth. And suppose you just made the three pieces of paper we have been looking at. Imagine that you are asked to give the sheet of paper that most represents your love to the person. Which of the three do you give? Most likely, you will give "C" because it feels valuable, feels worth giving, and feels the most meaningful of the three.

The majority of us feel an emptiness and incoherence in our lives which is why we think of ourselves as blanks or squiggles instead of diamonds. Yet we know the diamond-shaped dot was what we wanted to select but, in some way, our sense of self made us feel unworthy and so we rationalized why we selected the squiggle or the blank. It is the same way in life.


We are tacitly taught that we exist and just are. We have been taught that all people are true to their own genes, environment and nature. We are conditioned to be objects. We are taught to be "Me," instead of "I." When you think of yourself as "Me," you are limited. The "Me" is always limited. When you believe how others (parents, teachers, peers, colleagues, and others) describe you, you become that. You might want to be an artist, but others might tell you that you have no talent, training, or temperament to be an artist. The object we have become will always say, "Who do you think you are? You are just an ordinary person. Know your limitations and live within them."



SEIZE THE DAY. There is a Japanese masterpiece film IKIRU about the life on an old man that captures the essence of what it means to be a "Me." Ikiru is a civil servant who has labored in the bureaucracy for thirty years. He determines his self worth by how others see him. He thinks of himself as an object and spends his life preventing things from happening. He is a widower who never remarried, as his relatives told him he was too old and unattractive to remarry. He is the father of an ungrateful son who despises him because he is not rich. He does not strive to better his career as he has been told by his supervisor that he lacks the education and intelligence to be anything more than a clerk. In his mind, he pictures himself as a worthless failure. He walks bent over with a shuffling walk with defeated eyes.

When he is told that he has terminable cancer, he looks back over the wasteland of his life, and decides to do something of note. For the first time in his life he became the "I," the subject of his life. Against all obstacles, he decided to build a park in a dirty slum of Tokyo. He had no fear and felt no self-defeating limitations, he ignored his son when his son said he was the laughing stock of

the neighborhood, he ignored his relatives and neighbors who begged him to stop. His supervisor was embarrassed and pretended not to know him. Because he knew he was going to die, he no longer cared what other people thought. For the first time in his life he became free and alive. He worked and worked, seemingly without stopping. He was no longer afraid of anyone, or anything. He no longer had anything to lose, and so in this short time gained everything. Finally, he died, in the snow, swinging on a child's swing in the park which he made, singing.

Ikiru became the subject of his life. He became joyous instead of miserable; he inspired instead of being indifferent, and he laughed at himself and the world instead of feeling humiliated and defeated. Ikiru "seized the day."

[RenyBontes]

Stop drinking alcohol!! Now!

[anaisdannyxys]

The ONLY thing that matters is your State of Being.

[Sipewrio]

The ONLY thing that matters is your State of Being.

State of being? How does that differ from State of Mind?

[anaisdannyxys]

State of being? How does that differ from State of Mind?

Of course it depends on what your definition of these words are, there could be no difference. But here's an example of how it could be different:

Animals have a state of being, but no state of mind. They are perfectly immersed in what they do..they exist only in the present. When they are happy, they can't be happier. When they hunt, they can't be more deadly. All this is possible for them with no mind, albeit compared to men much more simple. Men have what's described above, as well as a rational mind. The rational mind is like a tool or computer we have at out disposal.

The State of Mind is an outward manifestation of the State of Being.

For me, I understand why it's so hard to change one's state of mind. It's not because of the position you're in, or what your prospects are for the future. It's because of what you ARE - for most people it's miserable and weak. For the mind to change it's state of mind, there has to be reason. There is no reason behind being a warrior or a victim, it's just what you choose to be.

[GitaraMoya]

"...and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words."
Ecclesiastes 5:3

dys

[WrigleyMike]

State of being? How does that differ from State of Mind?

'
It's all the same fucking thing, when its fucked its fucked. If its kinda good then its the same ol shit and if everything is great ya ain't gotta think about anything else.

[Scukonah]

"...and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words."
Ecclesiastes 5:3

dys

Dys, I've been wondering how you are doing.. Hope all is well..

[traiffhetl]

OK... a sci-fi hypothetical for you:

Let's speculate that it becomes possible for you to send a message back in time, to yourself, 15 years into the past. You CANNOT send back any historic information (stock/metal prices, 9/11 events, sports or election results, etc.). You can ONLY send back general advice that is meant to guide your younger self without revealing future events and info you know about. You are limited to 100 words or less. What would you say?

in 1980, i had already accepted a job offer from a microwave radio company, when Apple made me a job offer.

i thought that i was supposed to 'keep my word', and declined Apple's job offer.

i needed someone to tell me that the US business world is dishonest and that it's OK to "go for the money" and to break my word in such a situation.

it was an expensive bit of honesty. not the biggest "mistake" i've ever made (i don't know that it was a mistake, though engineers who signed on with Apple in 1980 tended to receive some major stock options), but, darn, i needed a career coach.