Unlearning

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When you discover the fatal love letter or get the news that you’ve been fired, it’s pointless to talk about old realities and new ones. But later, it is important to reflect on these things, for with realities as with identities and connections, the old must be cleared away before the new can grow. The mind is a vessel that must be emptied if new wine is to be put in.

This process is hard to take in more than just a natural, personal sense; it goes against the grain of our culture, which tends to view growth as an additive process. We did not have to unlearn the first grade to go on to the second, for example, forget Sunday school when we joined the church.

The entire termination process violates our too-seldom examined idea that development means gain and has nothing to do with less.

William Bridges, Transitions

I already know you so why should I listen?

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The closer we feel toward someone, the less likely we are to listen carefully to them. It’s called the closeness-communication bias and, over time, it can strain, and even end, relationships.

Once you know people well enough to feel close, there’s an unconscious tendency to tune them out because you think you already know what they are going to say. It’s kind of like when you’ve traveled a certain route several times and no longer notice signposts and scenery.

Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago says a prime example was when he gave his wife what he thought was the perfect gift: a behind-the-scenes tour of the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, during which she would get to feed the dolphins, beluga whales and penguins. He thought she’d love it because she’d once expressed interest in swimming with dolphins. But she didn’t love it. At all. She was annoyed because she was pregnant at the time and suffering from morning sickness. Just the thought of touching a dead fish made her want to vomit.

“I didn’t stop to think, ’Is this the right gift given where my wife is now in her life?’ I hadn’t really been listening well enough to know where she was,” Dr. Epley said. “We all develop stereotypes of the people we know well, and those stereotypes lead us to make mistakes.” 

Kate Murphy, writing in the New York Times, author of You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters

When the facts change

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According to David Perkins of Harvard University, the brighter people are, the more deftly they can conjure up post-hoc justifications for arguments that back their own side. Brainboxes are as likely as anyone else to ignore facts which support their foes. John Maynard Keynes, a (famously intelligent) British economist, is said to have asked someone: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” If they were honest, most would reply: “I stick to my guns.”

from The Economist 

Who can you trust?

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A person’s ability to anticipate the guilt they will feel—even before the act takes place—is an indicator of trustworthiness. That’s according to University of Chicago researchers who call it “guilt proneness.” They say this is a positive trait, not the same as feeling guilty. Those who possess it are less likely to exploit others for personal gain. Read about the study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Stephen Goforth

Caught Between

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It is not just the pace of change that leaves us disoriented. Many Americans have lost faith that the transitions they are going through are really getting somewhere. To feel as though everything is “up in the air,” as one so often does during times of personal transition, is endurable if it means something – if it is part of a movement toward a desired end. But if it is not related to some larger and beneficial pattern, it simply becomes distressing.

It is as if we launched out from a riverside dock to cross to a landing on the opposite shore – only to discover in midstream that the landing was no longer there. (And when we looked back at the other shore, we saw that the dock we had left from had broken loose and was heading downstream.) Stuck in transition between situations, relationships, and identities that are also in transition, many Americans are caught in a semipremanent condition of transitionality.

William Bridges, Transitions

Start with Letting Go

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One of the most important differences between a change and a transition is that changes are driven to reach a goal, but transitions start with letting go of what no longer fits or is adequate to the life stage you are in. You need to figure out for yourself what exactly that no-longer appropriate thing is. There’s no list in the back of the book. But there is a hint can save you considerable pain and remorse: Whatever it is, it is internal. Although it might be true that you emerge from a time of transition with the clear sense that it is time for you to end a relationship or leave a job, that simply represents the change that your transition has prepared you to make. The transition itself begins with letting go of something that you have believed or assumed, some way you’ve always been or seen yourself, some outlook on the world or attitude toward others.

William Bridges, Transitions

The Main Thing

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Every morning just look at your calendar and ask yourself one question: “What’s the main event today?” I’m going to see six people. I’m going to do seven things. But of the six people I see and the seven things I do, what’s the main event?

In other words, what’s the most important thing I’m going to do today. Don’t make everything the main event because I’m not going to be good all day. I’m not going to be able to hit a home run every time I swing the bat. I’m going to have some fouls and I’m going to have some strike outs.

When you decide your main event, spend most of your time, most of your energy, most of your focus on it. You know what I know about life? You don’t have to be good at everything, you just have to be good at the main thing. If you’re good at the main thing, people will pay for you to do it again.

John Maxwell

The Adventure of Living

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Our attitude to life is always a reflection of our attitude to God. Saying “yes” to God is saying “yes” to life, to all its problems and difficulties.  “Yes” instead of “no”, an attitude of adventure instead of one of going one strike. In such an adventure we commit our entire being. It is not an escape. We do not have to give up our reason, our intelligence, our knowledge, our facility to judge, nor our emotions, our likes, our desire, our instincts, our conscience and unconscious aspirations, but rather to place them all in God’s hand’s, so that he may direct, stimulate, fertilize, develop and use them. 

Paul Tournier, The Adventure of Living

Few people can detect a liar

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In daily life, without the particular pressures of politics, people find it hard to spot liars. Tim Levine of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, has spent decades running tests that allow participants (apparently unobserved) to cheat. He then asks them on camera if they have played fair. He asks others to look at the recordings and decide who is being forthright about cheating and who is covering it up. In 300 such tests people got it wrong about half of the time, no better than a random coin toss. Few people can detect a liar. Even those whose job is to conduct interviews to dig out hidden truths, such as police officers or intelligence agents, are no better than ordinary folk.

The Economist