Resource vs. Resourcefulness

Pondering regarding the lives of successful individuals is both inspiring and surprising all at the same time. As a counselor and coach, I have always been astonished by the irony when it comes to achieving greatness among human beings. 

Most of the people who seek my help do so as a result of the imminent nuisance in their lives, but once I dig deeper I recognize that the majority of these persons who find themselves lost actually come from relatively wealthy and affluent families where they had everything they could possibly demand to triumph in life. Expensive gifts, attention, best schools, all means of support, yet you see that many of them are in fact dissatisfied with their lives and continue their existence without much sense of purpose. 

On the other hand, you come across folks who have been through all sorts of crises, kids who did not have enough money to buy food while they were at school, people who have been abused in every conceivable realm growing up, and despite experiencing the type of things that make someone else cry; interestingly enough, very often these people are the ones who make the most out of their lives. 

Thus, the question lingers: What makes the difference between the lives of those who come from nothing and manage to achieve everything, and the people who start their lives amidst all the feasible assets and end up dispirited and hopeless? 

The most outstanding answer to this question was given by Tony Robbins in his historic presentation at TED few years back. He declared that what we truly need in order to thrive and flourish is not resource, but rather resourcefulness. The distinction between these two are quite transparent, while resource refers to the material advantages such as money, time, and social status, resourcefulness is all about using whatever you have in you possession so as to solve difficult problems; creativity, passion, goal, love, determination, conscientiousness, motivation , and most importantly the ability to dream are what constitute the foundation of resourcefulness. 

In the following speech, the legendary Tony Robbins clarifies what truly makes the difference in the quality of people’s lives: 

Please Criticize Me! By Daniel Mulligan

If you want to see me on top, if you want to help me understand my imperfection and improve myself, if you want to make me aware of the self-induced obstacles that are preventing me from reaching my true potential, if you want to allow me to act more maturly, if you want to expand my capabilities and enrich my areas of expertise, if you want to teach me a practical lesson, if you want to grow my emotional intelligence, if you want to assist me in my journey of self-discovery, if you want to make me more likable, if you want to increase my chances of getting result from other people, if you want to make it easier for me to be superior in health, wealth, and wisdom, if you want to give me a marvelous gift and only receive my thanks in return, if you truly want to make me happy then do not compliment me for I am confident enough to compliment myself all day long and thankfully I receive quite a few thumbs-ups from others every now and then.

 

However, I would like you to criticize me since that way you will do me a far greater favor. So,…Please criticize me! Thanks.  

Quotes of the week

1) Many of the things you can count, don't count. Many of the things you can't count really count.
- -Albert Einstein

2) Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
--Carl Jung

3) It is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.
— Henry Ward Beecher

4) The dreamers are the saviors of the world.
-- James Allen

5) I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am in.
-- The Bible, Phillipians 4:11 (NASB)

6) Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
-- Howard Thurman

7) Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something, and has lost something.
-- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

8) How does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.
-– Trina Paulus

9) Say what you want to say when you have the feeling and the chance. My greatest regrets are the things I did not do, the opportunities missed and the things unsaid.
-- Jim Keller

10) You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you can't have it.
--Robert Anthony

My Faith

Once upon a time a friend asked me: “What is your religion?” 

To that question I gave the following response: 

“I am a liberal and thus believe that we all have the rights to choose our faith, and with the same token I am inclined to respect other people’s choice of belief system. However, I would use the same autonomy not to select a faith, but to create one. In this way I have set to establish a faith with my own limited knowledge, by myself, and for myself while respecting those who have decided to adopt their beliefs from the convenient sources such as organized religion. 

Hence, I am neither a believer nor a non-believer, neither Jewish nor Christian, neither Agnostic nor Atheist, for to be any of those demands conformation without information; to be categorized as such requires faith or lack thereof without sufficient reason since the futile attempt at proving the supremacy of your beliefs upon others requires the inherently flawed illusion of righteousness as well as a better-than-thou-attitude which only results in repudiation and intolerance. 

Religion is a choice that people make in order to appear just, I on the other hand do not choose to be right, but rather I choose to be happy.”

The Independence Bell

 

A Happy Day for New York, Same-Sex Marriage Legalized

Promoting the mental health as well as social status of LGBT has always been one of my passions in the world of psychology and politics. As a devoted liberal, I realized that unfortunately most of the LGBT’s suffer from lack of self-confidence and it is quite painful to hear that almost 40% of this minority group goes through their lives either attempting suicide or contemplating to do so. 

While I am heterosexual myself, I have always considered sexual orientation to be a result of genetic predispositions. Due to lack of knowledge and dogmatism homosexuality was considered a disease in the ancient times and most often the identity of the homosexuals were kept a secret.

However, the American Psychiatric & Psychological Association has removed homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses more than three decades ago, and thus the new gay movement began. More and more celebrities, politicians, social workers, nurses, athletes, and etc came out of the closet and set out to ignite a movement to “promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty” for all the homosexuals out there.

Later, the liberal movement which consists of both hetero and homosexuals joined this movement in order to increase its effectiveness thereof. It is safe to say that there exist plenty of individuals from all walks of life who support the LGBT in their strive to make their voice heard. Nowadays, the gay movement’s voice can be heard on the streets, behind the podium, and even on national TV in political Talk Shows such as MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow Show.

Well, it finally happened, and it happened in none other than my beloved New York City. On Friday June 24th, New York law makers legalized same-sex marriage and New York will become the sixth state where gay couples can get married along with Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, D.C. 

Alas, we witnessed many gay bashers on the internet who condemned this movement and posted insulting messages on various forums, that is why I decided to write this post and tell all the gays out there:

Not all heterosexuals are homophobic and that there are plenty of us out there who understand you and foster your grand cause. I personally would like to congratulate the gay movement for this significant achievement.

As Martin Luther King emphasized on the concept of freedom and liberty  in his magnificent speech known as  “I have a dream”:

“And this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.…”

And that bell was irrevocably heard, the ring of freedom was heeded in New York City. So I would like to leave all of you gays with one sentence:

Be happy of who you are, come out of the closet, and show the world that sexual orientation is no more important in determining your destiny than your color of preference, thus it is time for all of us to come together as humans and enjoy thriving in  a free world.   

 

The Future of Medical Science

In one of our Talk Shows the subject turned to euthanasia where we discussed the morality of killing a patient with an incurable illness painlessly. 

During that discourse one of the attendants gave an example regarding one of his friends who was fully paralyzed from the neck down after a disastrous accident and the fact that he only wanted to die so his suffering would stop. When it comes to such patients who have lost hope, alas, samples are ample.

I personally believe that the term "incurable disease" in the medical science should be replaced with the term “not curable yet”. Simply put, the technology within the medical field is progressing rapidly thanks to the digital and computer science, and everyday new solutions are emerging for ailments that were considered to mark the end of functional life merely years back. 

Believe it or not, the future of medical science is glorious to say the least. The digital technology allows a doctor to carry all the information she needs during her diagnosis in a tiny iphone; via robotics we can now prepare fully functional machinelike limbs for the paralyzed and limbless alike. Nanotechnology allows extremely microscopic robots, as small as a blood cell, to traverse the circulatory system and monitor all the vital functions and detect ailment. The social networking and communication technology can give the patients the opportunity to visit their doctors online without having to leave the comfort of their houses since only about 30% of all visits to the doctor’s office actually require physical presence of the patient, and many other new innovations that are on the way. 

Robotics helps paralyzed patients to not only walk, but also take the stairs.

We are already amidst a robust evolution in the world of health and medicine, so those of you who know a friend, relative, or acquaintance with a severe illness that seems incurable by most doctors, just remind them that their disease is merely “not curable yet”. All they have to do is to trust in the future of the medical science.

I would strongly recommend you to watch the following speech by an experienced oncologist named Daniel Kraft concerning the drastic expansion of the medical field in the upcoming years;    

Life Without Judging Others

Something quite unprecedented occurred to me the other day. I found a few minutes of free time on my watch and decided to browse through the old photos of my friends and acquaintances.

Usually when looking at the photos, I, unconsciously, label them with words that are rendered in my mind, “yeah good times, he looks much fatter here though”, “She looks pretty attractive, but it is a shame her teeth do not have a nice stature, and also I do not like to look at a flat screen TV no matter how beautiful the show is ;if you know what I mean!!!”, “Wow, that nose appears so large when taken from my side?”. I could go on and provide more and more examples of what scatterbrained descriptions could hit my mind like a bolt, many of which I would refrain from mentioning for the sake avoiding to enter the realm of obscenity!

Up until here everything seems normal; we all do judge other people whenever we can, and most often we are, in return, judged back. When a father comments on his son’s ludicrous hair style or comments on how voluptuous his daughter looks when she tries to dress like Lady Gaga then the children will go to school and start nagging about how vieux jeu and redneck their father is.

When the same husband comes home early so he could take the family to visit the grandparents and then comments on how those leather pants make his wife look fat (Discretion is advised: To all men in relationship, for your own safety do not try this at home!), and then the wife niggles that if he were to buy the other pairs of pants that were more expensive and would not be so stingy she also would not have to tolerate the sweat all over her. The family then goes to the Ganny’s just to be lectured for half an hour about how the younger generations are making this world appear like a gigantic public lavatory, and at the end as they are watching the news they all become part of one team and begin to adjudicate the entire government for not providing them 98% tax break!!!

Stories of judging others are quite easy to spot, as a matter of fact, all it takes for you to witness this incredible phenomena first hand is to call your friend and start talking about your day at college, better yet, turn on the TV and watch the latest political commentary. The samples are ample. 

However, as I mentioned at the beginning of the post, something occurred to me the other day that really made me lost for words. As I started to look at the few photos that I had on my computer, I as if by chance, decided not to give any of those photos a label, I decided not to judge the people in those pictures and look at them just as they were. Somehow, the fat guy did not seem fat anymore, he merely looked more like, more like himself, the nose did not seem like it had blocked the way for the rest of my face to be seen any more, and the lady seemed more beautiful and attractive and every part of her face seemed more like…Katy Parry? No!, Hillary Duff? No!, LADY GAGA?!! Oh this young lady is a marketing master mind, but the answer is still No,… it seemed more like HER.

As you can see, by merely trying to stop judging the people in those photos and accepting their bellies, and noses, and teeth, and most importantly their very self as who they were not as who they looked like. In the magnificent book On Truth And Untruth edited and translated by Taylor Carman, Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher describes judgment as follows:

“Judgment- the belief that this and that is so. Thus, judgment contains the avowal that an “identical case” has been encountered. It thus presupposes comparison, with the aid of recollection.”   

You see! The point is that we are all unique, there has never been someone quite like you before, and there never will. The same applies to all other people around us. Judgment is made unconsciously based on a false assumption that “an identical case has been encountered”, but the point is, we never encounter the same situation twice in life, yet so easily most of us end up being the judge for other people’s lives. 

Mother Theresa said so beautifully that "if you judge people, you have no time to love them".  

Talk Show 2.0 is back, more 2.0 than ever!

After a long break that seemed like ages, and following the cancellation of my trip to Turkey, the weblog Talk Show 2.0 resumes its activity for all the Talk Show attendants and the World Wide Web visitors. 

During the months that passed, the world has undergone drastic changes, akin to the type of which we usually expect to take place within a year or two. The major changes in the Arab world have resulted in insurmountable attention being given to the reformations that will ultimately determine the future of diplomacy all across the globe. 

Another major event was the now false-prediction of the end of the world on May 21st, well …I do not know what to say really, but the world did not come to an end as was predicted by so many mumbo jumbo prophecies that were out there just to prove that instead of being concerned with when the world is going to come to an end, we ought to simply get a life that is focused on the present. 

Despite all that happened, I for one, as an optimist, consider the world a better place for everyone simply because what we have less of these days are autocracies, censorship, driving without paying attention to the gas consumption, fatally ill children, and dogmatism; on the other hand, what we have more nowadays include but is not limited to education, public awareness, advanced technologies, more means for changing our way of thinking for the better, and of course iPads. 

For those of you who have taken the recent apocalyptic movies, and media buzz seriously, I have to mention that if one truly lives a complete life, every single day, he or she would act as though today could be the last day, then there is no such thing as worry for an apocalypse that will probably never come. 

WE ARE BACK, HAPPIER AND YELLOWER THAN EVER!
It is time to get our lives back on track, so as Nike puts it: Let us all “JUST DO IT”

Next time you were in your bed at night with your thoughts wandering about the concept of  doomsday, apocalypse, and the fact that tomorrow the world could come to an end please consider the following: 

As you are lying in your bed at night, it is already morning in Australia!

The real Apocalypse is going through your daily lives without noticing the limitless treasures that are scatted around you, the real apocalypse is having no one to love, the real apocalypse is having no concrete purpose, the real apocalypse is living in the past or the future, the real apocalypse is the desire to take rather than give, the real apocalypse is the belief that we need someone-else to come to our rescue instead of trying to change ourselves, and most of all, the real apocalypse is transferring our apocalyptic thoughts to others.



There simply cannot, and will not, be an Apocalypse out there, unless there is an apocalypse inside of you, so instead of worrying about the future try to fix the present.     


The best way to rectify the present is becoming happier and raising the aptly named Happy Planet Index that Nic talked about in his magnificent speech at TED. The recipe for a strong Apocalypse-antidote is well-mentioned in THE FORESIGHT PROGRAM:

1-CONNECT  [to other people]
2-BE PHYSICALLY ACTIVE  [we are meant to be in motion]
3-TAKE NOTICE OF THE LITTLE THINGS  [do not take things for granted]
4-KEEP LEARNING  [the secret to becoming healthy, wealthy, and wise]
5-GIVE  [the biggest joy in the world]

So everyone: Just Do IT.

The Old Game of The Middle East

When it comes to the oldest empires, traditions, and beliefs you ought to look no further than the Middle East; arguably the most controversial locale on the face of the earth. 

The place where it has it all: history, literature, rituals, and off course, oil. However, one thing that this region seems to be intrinsically unable to possess is, well you guessed it, true democracy. For as long as history can recollect, the Middle East is meant to go through its upheavals using the same strategies and form of government that were employed by the generations that preceded them. One leader takes the leash with the notorious you-are-with-us-or-against-us attitude for some time only to be met by his tumble prior to giving his venue to someone with lower moral stature from a lower level of the society who ultimately pursues the same agenda. And the game repeats itself over and over….. until …..until the oil runs out ?!

O Kennedy Center hosted a worthwhile discussion on Wednesday, February 9th 2011 entitled "What’s Next? Tunisia, Egypt, and the Future of the Middle East " to elaborate upon the uprising in Egypt and Tunisia and its impact on the current state of affairs in the Middle East.

"The Middle East has been and continues to be a profoundly anti-democratic region in a world that is becoming much more democratic." stated Joshua Gubler, visiting professor of political science and later continued: "Even though Middle Eastern countries hold elections and call their leaders presidents, in practice, these countries are anti-democratic. The government is hiring people to go out and harass people who they think might be voting for anyone but them."

Professor Gubler also believed that the other profound phenomenon in the Middle East is poverty and wealth discrepancy that has given rise to outlooks where you could witness a fellow Egyptian "on a donkey cart side-by-side with a Mercedes-Benz ". For instance half the population in Egypt live in extreme poverty while the few minorities enjoy their life in million dollar mansions. 

What ultimately makes the real difference during various rebellions across the hot territory is the ever increasing young population that tends to proceed towards modernity as the age spectrum draws back in the direction of younger and younger ages. 

The social media such as Twitter and Facebook have proven to be formidable opponents of authoritarian governments in the Middle East. After all, these young people could easily transfer the news in a matter of instants and their leaders are well aware of that very fact. However, what remains unambiguous and infallible is the impotence of the aforementioned dogmatic figureheads who cannot cease this flow of information even when an overseer like  Al-Mubarak shuts down the internet and cell-phone services in Egypt.

Hence, it’s no surprise that the current shift of power in Egypt will most likely end up in the same situation as many other revolutions in the region, where the so-called game of theocracy is played over and over again. What remains to be seen though, would be the future of the Middle East after occurrence of all these transitions among the many regimes who translate democracy in their own words of dominion.

In the mean time, the old game of the Middle East continues.

I Will Stand Up Once Again by Daniel Molagan

The rain drops pounding the ground,
As I amble across this secluded land,
Remembering the thought provoking fact,
That habitually proves hard to understand.

Life is meant to be a series of trial and error,
Failure, no matter how boundless, ought not to induce terror.

 

The calamities that befall us in our life,
Regardless of their atrocity, from loss to strife,
Are there to impart the knowledge of existence,
And remind us the importance of persistence.  

That no matter how many times I fall,
I will stand up once again and will not stall.

No achievement has ever been attained,
Or any trembling heart of love gained,
Without failing over and over again,
Till you be triumphant in the end.

Let us reform our educational system

If   we were to determine the most substantial element behind the functionality of the society as well as its long-term outlook, we would be pointing our fingers at nothing but the educational system. 

The current trend of instruction and its inadequacies

     It’s through this hierarchy of grade-based knowledge that many individuals discover their pathways in life, while the others lose the very sough-after clue that they were hoping to find as they entered the school. Whether you like it or not, the current educational system is robbing the students of their creativity due to its lack of flexibility, biased evaluation process that favors conformity, and typecasting all the learners in the same manner despite the immense dissimilarities among every single one of them.

     In a world where the so-called educational inflation, the process in which degrees no longer guarantee employment and the minimum requirements are rising from Bachelor’s to Master’s and from there to PhD, has changed the way we assess our workforce in a way that could ultimately precipitate the manifold stirs that are ensuing at the present time. 

     Global economic crises, insurmountable waste and lack of proficiency, increased level of fraud as well as crime, lower payments and salaries, monetary divisions, general lack of happiness, and most of all, uncreativeness that has led many nations into intellectual poverty are all but few of the repercussions of the aforementioned obsolete academic establishments. 

     Hence, it’s evident that our scholastic needs surpass that of mere evolution, and instead, demand a robust revolution within the composition of our educational systems from kindergartens to universities and in its entirety. 

     The following speech will address the urgent necessity of a reform in the educational systems all across the globe;              

The Rise of Women

The ancient conception that attributed a woman to being the second class citizen, the weaker sex, responsible for trivial matters, unaware of the economic, social and political issues, less thoughtful, and overall inferior to men, whether you like it or not, is but extinct.

     Welcome to the new world; the epoch which has brought with itself multitude of women who have proved themselves worthier than heaps of men. Embrace the new world that has seen many women as scientists, politicians, analysts, managers, astronauts, authors, trainers, and even presidents.

     Suffice to say that the feminist movement since the dawn of its establishment, has spread the message of unity and self-reliance among all the women around the globe.  

     We, now, live in a situation in which women in many parts of the world contribute to more than half the income of a given family, and being the sole breadwinner of the household is nothing uncommon for the ladies of the 21st century either. The role of women in our contemporary life-style by far exceeds what it used to be few centuries back.

     The aforementioned change in the attitude towards women did not come cheap however, many women, for years and years, persistently fought for their various rights, from suffrage, and guardianship, to equal pay and publicity. 

     Do not believe me? You can check out the following video that elaborates on the rise of women, and the fact that females have managed to surpass their male counterparts in various aspects: