Measuring Value By Numbers - Good or Evil?

“I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.”

Lao Tzu

Truth observed is a relative perception. Truth articulated is a relative projection. Trial by jury models the quest to realize truth and approximate the detail of legal incidents. The adversarial process between prosecuting and defending attorneys reveals an intense competition presented through argument for supremacy of point of view. Jurors sort through the arguments and evidence presented to assimilate the closest possible approximation of the facts. Decisions reached as a result of this process assert themselves as the only available conclusion.

Humanity’s activity since prehistory gives evidence of a continuing search to find what is not available to be found; an understanding of human existence and what gives human existence highest value. Highest value is determined by mathematical equation born to our system for processing. Numbers to the right of center on a horizontal line and up on a perpendicular line are considered positive numbers. Numbers to the left of center on a horizontal line and down on a perpendicular line are regarded to be negative numbers.

Positive is associated with good. Negative is associated with evil. It is through this system the values of good and evil are expressed. The notion of balance or the place of the middle where equal portions of influence are balanced is regarded the place of zero or the position of no value

The following examples cite the relationship between the perspectives good and evil. Prosperity is regarded to be good. Poverty is not. Forward is regarded to be good. Backward is not. Winning is regarded to be good. Losing is not. Powerful is regarded to be good. Powerless is not. This process is indigenous to cultures measuring value by numbers.

Managing Our Emotions, Part One

By starving emotions we become humorless, rigid,and stereotyped; by repressing emotions we become literal, reformatory and holier-than-thou; encourage, emotions perfume life;

Joseph Collins

Do you give yourself permission to be emotional, to feel, or express your feelings? If you are female, the probability is high that you do. If you are male, the probability is high that you do not. These ideas are not absolute.

It does not matter whether the differences between how men and women process emotions and feelings is the result of nature or nurture. What matters is that we learn how in ways that result in emotional health.

Most of us have observed adults yelling at children. We may have had adults treat us like that when we were children and grown up thinking this kind of behavior was normal.

We have probably observed adults yelling at each other like they were insane. Some of us may have been a participant in this kind of behavior. Relationships of love between adults can end up living out this barbaric and immature behaviorally violent nightmare. What is going on here?

Gloria Steinem one said, “The truth will set you free after first really pissing you off”. Here is a truth that is not so convenient to borrow words from former Vice – President Gore’s Academy Award Winning Film, “An Inconvenient Truth”.

People who taught most of us the principles of love and relationship did not (themselves) know how. We learned what we saw does not work. We have to learn for ourselves how - to live, love, and be in loving productive relationships through the hard knocks science of personal development’s trial and error.

We must learn how to feel, experience emotion, and process our feelings without getting trapped inside their horrors and missing out on the love and beauty available to our lives. Next time I will bring you the how – to help yourself and others. Unless there are organic conditions for which a greater level of help is necessary, I promise you what I reveal to you will work, for your and all around you. This will work if you work it.

I hope for you all the love and achievement your heart desires.

“O”

LOVE Does Not Need a WHY!

“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

Earlier, I recalled the times I should have died. I wondered why I had not died days after being born, having pneumonia, hanging, being hit in the head with an ax, a farm tractor turn over, being knifed, falling off a roof, nearly drowning, a murder attempt, and a near fatal car crash. I wish I could tell you this is fiction. It is my own story that is sometimes hard to look back over and believe even though I lived it out or survived it. I am a survivor, but why?

The why I have survived seems to have included saving a drunken airman who was face down on his burning pillow. Perhaps, it was to save the life of a beautiful European woman on a Greek Island when she overdosed. Perhaps, it was to save the life of a teen in Ohio with a suicide plan because his family treated him so badly. Perhaps, it was to save the life of a native woman in medical crisis? Perhaps, it was to save the lives of runaway girls from predators.

Love does not need a why. Something greater than me cares for me and has saved my life many times. In each case of my own survival, there was no logic to the why I had survived. All I know is that my saved life put me in the right place at the right time to save the lives of others.

I am alive to love and connect with others and for that I am extremely thankful. I am thankful to be connected to men and women who are loving and connecting to build a better world.

My high hope for you this week and for all around you; family and friends, is that you experience a moment’s touch of love in such a powerful way that you truly know you are alive to LOVE and feel love that is alive. I call that having an ENTHUSIASM. I hope there are so many for you that you find yourself faint from the experience. Live well and love well. Be thankful.

I am your friend who loves you. Welcome to the world we share. It is a great place.

Oscar Crawford

Rest and Relax

"When you feed that need, it opens a door. Your best thoughts, your best ideas, come through relaxation and play."

Roberta Goheen

People who live by purposeful intention with thoughtful mindfulness for personal care, take time to rest and relax their minds and their bodies. What do you do?

On Sundays when I was a child, my family did no work. Sunday was meant for rest and relaxation or what is known in the 21st Century as chilling out.

We still managed our farm animals. We went to church. We visited with family and friends. We ate good food. We talked. We shared stories and dreams. It was good life for us in the 3rd Quarter of the 20th Century.

Since the invasion advent of technology into everyday life, there is little time to rest the body and even less to rest the mind. If it is Sunday, you know there is enough broadcast activity over radio, TV, the internet, and movie theaters to overload the mind. The latest movies are in first run. NASCAR is running somewhere and so is a conundrum of sporting events.

With average consumption of TV on weekends in excess of the hours in a standard work day, there is neither rest nor relaxation for the body or the mind. The day of the week originally designed and organized for rest to recharge is now a day charged by the free market economy that seeks to make consumer slaves out of volunteers even more than crack cocaine and methamphetamine.

People who live by purposeful intention with thoughtful mindfulness for personal care take time to rest and relax their minds and their bodies. What do you do?

Turn Your Enemies Into Assets

Turn Your Enemies Into Assets

“Am I destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”

Abraham Lincoln

There have been times in my life when I have felt like a victim. OK. Yes. I said it. I admit it. There have been times I have felt like a victim.

As a small boy, I was picked on by a family of five boys. These guys pushed me around a bit until I figured out exactly what to do.

Fighting the five of them was not the answer. I was clear the fighting odds were not in my favor. I needed a better approach.

I would make one of them my friend. I did. Making one of them my friend provided the rest as fringe benefit.

I remembered this recently while in a therapy session. I was recounting to my therapist occasions I felt I had experienced abuse. While sharing my feel sorry for myself story, a light bulb came on.

This event and others like it had developed a skill set. I had learned how to turn enemies into assets without realizing it.

Where I had perceived abuse, I saw how persons I had identified as problems had become either personal friends or assets. What about you? Do you have enemies you need to turn into assets?

You do? Here’s how. It’s simple. Learn what your enemies need. Provide it to them or provide them access.

Here’s what I know. Your enemies will not see you the same. When you turn an enemy into an asset, you no longer just have your own personal strength and skill set to operate from. You have theirs as well.

If you are like me at all, sometimes you will feel down. It is OK to admit this and let someone else know. It is OK to get help. It is OK to get on the couch and talk out loud. In our talking out loud and releasing our discomfort and pain, we discover how old enemies and painful experiences no longer have the power they once did.

I was on the couch because I was unhappy. While there, I discovered I had a new opportunity to transform a current enemy and painful experience into an asset. As a result I feel much better now. You will too when you love yourself enough to get help when you need it.