Tessa Smoot’s Blog:
Wk 2 Reading - Great Quotes from Chapter 6
When I read Chapter 6 “Rule Number 6,” I found myself writing down many quotes. When I started to think about what to write about I saw the many quotes I wrote down. For this blog, I’m posting the quotes so I look back at what could help me not to take myself so seriously. :-)
“Humor can bring us together around our inescapable foibles, confusions and miscommunications, and especially over the ways in which we find ourselves acting entitled and demanding, or putting other people down, or flying at each other’s throats.” p. 80
“When one person peels away layers of opinion, entitlement, pride, and inflated self-description, others instantly feel the connection.” p. 89
“If we were to design a new voyage to carry us from our endless childhood into the bright realm of possibility, we might want to steer away from a hierarchical environment and aim for the openness and reciprocity of a level playing field—away from a mind-set of scarcity and deficiency and toward an attitude of wholeness and sufficiency. We might even describe human development as the ongoing reconstruction of the calculating self toward the rich, free, compassionate, and expressive world of the central self.” p. 90
“Unlike the calculating self, the central self is neither a pattern of action nor a set of strategies. It does not need an identity; it is its own pure expression. It is what a person who has survived—and knows it—looks like. The central self smiles at the calculating self’s perceptions, understanding that they are relics of our ancestry, the necessary illusion of childhood.” P. 95
“It (central self) sees that human beings are social animals; we move in a dance with each other, we are all fundamentally immeasurable, we all belong.” P. 96
“From the perspective of the central self, life moves with fluidity like a constantly varying river, and so do we. Confident that it can deal with whatever comes its way, it sees itself as permeable rather than vulnerable, and stays open to influence, to the new and the unknown.” p. 96
Karlene Young Wk 2 Response to Tessa Smoot’s Blog Wk 2 Reading - Great Quotes from Chapter 6
My response:
Tessa, I have been enamored with the authors through their book and the videos we’ve viewed. I wanted to record your quotes as well! I think having a sense of humor is very important in life, and can turn the negatives to positive faster than anything else. I tried hard to “peel the layer of entitlement and pride” back this week when I met with my superior. I was amazed at how well the meeting went. It was nothing like the horrible experience I had last year. I was grateful for the insight this book gave me in going into the meeting. No, I did not get everything I would have liked as far as the scheduling and the classroom I’ll have next year is concerned, but I felt like I was listened to and understood. I tried hard to get down to my central self, and felt like my mentor that went into the meeting with me was helping me see how to get there and helping me be open and receptive to my superior’s wishes and thinking. After all, she is my boss and has the final say, no matter what I want or wish for my job. I am really grateful to be able to teach what I love.
Zander, B., & Zander, R. S. (2000). The art of possibility: Transforming professional and personal life. New York: Penguin Books.
:-)
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