The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY

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WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY
is a really simple question
with a Ga-Zillion answers
but when you clear away the clutter
way before the dust even has a chance to settle
The Pandemic
(as if you shamefully even needed one)
let us all know that it’s not
our medical advances
our scientific discoveries
our masks
our vaccinations
our boosters
our therapies
our interventions
that save us.            .            .            .
so much as our
R      E      L      A      T      I      O      N      S      H      I      P      S

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
A WONDERFUL WORLD
isn’t the stuff that it holds
IT IS THE PEOPLE WHO INHABIT IT

WHAT MAKES THE HOLY DAYS HIGH

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WHAT MAKES THE HOLY DAYS HIGH is
R          E          C          O          G          N          I          T          I          O          N 

Can we talk about diversity and cultural competency for a minute.          .          .
OR A FEW DAYS.          .          .
OR A SEASON.             .           .

Every Fall there are about 7 million Jewish holidays that Jewish workers have to navigate.  Ok, that’s only a slight exaggeration but that’s what it feels like, especially when they are, at times, completely overlooked or just not recognized

Some years they fall on the weekends but others they fall on the weekdays like this year.

And every Fall, without fail, businesses, affinity groups, organizations etc schedule meetings and events on these very important Jewish holy days.  For many Jews, scheduling something on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur is akin to scheduling something for non-Jews on Christmas.  It’s pretty discouraging, hurtful and objectionable.  In an age of now super-sensitivity to diversity and inclusion, scheduling something on these holy days can even come off as offensive.

So a quick guide to the Jewish holiday season for this year seems to be a very Caring Catalyst KIND of thing to do.

It’s an opportunity for all of us to not only share best wishes for the holidays but take the extra step of rescheduling team meetings, events etc for days that are not Jewish holidays.  This will go a long way to making everyone feel included and respected at what is a really busy but very meaningful and important time.

May these Holy Days be made be held even more HIGH with the kindness, openness and recognition we share with each other

WE ARE ALL HUMAN

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W  E
A      R      E
A  L  L
H          U          M          A          N.          .          .

Walking along a busy street in Edinburgh, my eye caught a sign resting at the feet of a man sitting on the pavement outside a posh hotel. It simply read, ‘I am a human being.’ It stopped me dead in my tracks. Kneeling down to take a closer look, I struck up a conversation with Sparky. And what started as a quick chat, turned into a few hours together, while Sparky shared his story with us. We need to remember that every person, regardless of their situation, is a human being with dignity, with a name, a story, a family and a history – like all of us. We’re all human. And if you ever find yourself in Edinburgh, go have a chat with Sparky – you won’t regret it. You can usually find him outside All Bar One, corner of George and Hanover Street. To follow our film making journey – https://www.patreon.com/greenrenaissance Filmed in Edinburgh, Scotland. Who is Green Renaissance? We are a tiny collective of 3 passionate filmmakers (Michael, Justine and Jackie). We live off-grid and dedicate our time to making films that we hope will inspire and share ideas.

IS THERE A MORE POWERFUL 
FOUR-WORDED MESSAGE.          .           .

we
are
all
human

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
YOU SO POWERFULLY
L     I      V          E
The  Answer

H A L T

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Dave is a friend of mine from Nacogdoches, Texas.  He owns and operates
Galleria Z, a Custom Picture Framing and Artful gifts decor shop.  He recently posted the following story:

Most everyone knows this word, but it also functions as an acronym that has some helpful wisdom.  A man I’ve gotten to know comes in my shop from time-to-time seeking small jobs to make a little money but now more often just to talk.  He has numerous life challenges including mental illness and alcohol dependency.  He got sober a couple of months ago and says he’s been going to AA some.  He’s also been fighting to find stable/regular employment.  Every day is a battle for him.  Anyhow, I’ve talked to him about this notable AA acronym.  For those who don’t know, it’s meant to advise not to get too Hungry, too Angry, too Lonely, too Tired.  This can be good advice for anyone, but for an alcoholic those things can be triggers for a relapse.  Anyhow, I gave it to him today when he came in my shop.  He was most appreciative and said he would hang it on the wall in his bedroom to help him keep his recovery top-of-mind.

W                 H                 Y

As I read Dave’s brief story and saw the H, the A, the L, the T  it kind of rang a bell in me that sounded more like a siren on a dark night that promised no sleep; and I didn’t know if all of the sudden the sign was shaking or I was.          .         .

I won’t give you the statistics or the graphs; I won’t offer up the “You better watch out’s” or “Something’s got to be done’s” because we all know that we are way beyond all of that.

T                 H                 I                 S

is more than just some horrible pandemic.  This is a tsunami wave that’s left no one dry and it just keeps washing up on shore after shore forever changing geographical landscapes; gashing out grave sites that look more like grotesquely unhealable wounds instead of serene places of rest.  We have all be infected.

Just letters.          .          .
H

A

L

T

until they take on a deeper meaning
much more than any acronym
may be ever has.     .     .
MAYBE
it’s a sincere way to live a balanced life:
“.   .   .It’s meant to advise not to get too Hungry, too Angry, too Lonely, too Tired.  This can be good advice for anyone.     .     .”

For now
I’m not so much inviting you
to bow your head
close your eyes
fold your hands
and bring your voice to a whisper
so much as to
OPEN YOUR EYES
HOLD UP YOUR HEAD
RAISE YOUR HANDS
AND SHOUT OUT:

 a  m  e n
and
A          M          E          N

THE VIDEO YOU WON’T WATCH BUT SHOULD

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THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT/HELPFUL/INSIGHTFUL MONDAY BLOG VIDEO’S I HAVE EVER POSTED IN THE PAST SEVEN YEARS AND THERE’S A REALLY GOOD CHANCE YOU WILL NEVER WATCH IT, BUT SHOULD

THE MOST IMPORTANT 10 1/2 minutes you can spend for this entire year and the rest of your life.        .        .

(Or NOT;  YOU can go on, not connecting and worrying and fretting AD NAUSEAM)

IN THE END

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There always seems to be this line in the sand that signals
THE FINISH LINE
.            .               .Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
IT DOESN’T EXIST

I recently came across a beautiful poem by Tara Mohr that makes you understand better than any particular Blog Post.          .          .

In The End

It really got my brain cells spinning until this sputtered out:

What I learned most
is that I didn’t learn much
What I learned 
I most likely forgot
sometimes instantly
or at least forgot to
Remember
It wasn’t so much
Where are my Keys
Where’d I put my phone
Where’s the remote control for the tv

The big lessons learned
“Don’t worry, it will be ok”
“Be Kind”
“Don’t take things so personally”
“Love is all”
“What matters, Matters”
“One out of One of us dies”

These are the Lessons
I had to take remedial classes
over and again
And having past the Tests
written the Master Thesis
finishing the Doctoral Dissertation 
how have I failed 
to act as if I’ve never known 
anything
to have to learn each of these lessons
once more
with the surprise of the pop quiz
given just for showing up

Damn It

What I have learned most
I didn’t Learn much

I won’t be commanded to repeat
to be held back
The Baccalaureate Ceremony 
has already begun
Commencement can’t be altered or stopped

Graduated

To What
To Where
To a Newness 
Known
just not fully re-membered
R          E          M          E          M          B          E          R

 

QUIET QUITTING

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Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Just what is
Q    U    I    E    T
Q U I T T I N G
and 
ARE WE
Y            O            U
actually doing it.          .          .

‘Quiet Quitting’

Is Just Setting Boundaries.

TRUE OR FALSE

MARIAH ESPADA, a freelance writer did a piece for Time Magazine that’s shedding a little lot on a lot of darkness surrounding, QUIET QUITTING.

Maggie Perkins, a Georgia-based teaching advocate, had been working as a teacher for nearly half a decade before she decided to “quiet quit” her job. The decision didn’t mean she’d leave her position, but rather limit her work to her contract hours. Nothing more, nothing less.

“No matter how much I hustle as a teacher, there isn’t a growth system or recognition incentive,” Perkins told TIME. “If I didn’t quiet quit my teaching job, I would burn out.”

Perkins joins a larger online community of workers who have been sharing their experiences on TikTok, taking a “quiet quitting” mentality—the concept of no longer going above and beyond, and instead doing what their job description requires of them and only that.

The movement comes in the wake of a global pandemic that caused employees to reimagine what work could look like, considering the potentials of extending remote work, not working much on Fridays, or in some cases, amid the Great Resignation, not working at all. Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post and CEO at Thrive, wrote in a viral LinkedIn post, “Quiet quitting isn’t just about quitting on a job, it’s a step toward quitting on life.”

As “quiet quitters” defend their choice to take a step back from work, company executives and workplace experts argue that although doing less might feel good in the short-term, it could harm your career—and your company—in the long run.

Why companies are worried about quiet quitting

With worries of an economic slowdown swirling, productivity levels are a major concern to company executives. U.S. nonfarm worker productivity in the second quarter has fallen 2.5% since the same period last year, its steepest annual drop since 1948, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Companies are now looking at productivity scales as a metric for excellence, with some going as far as moderating employees’ keyboard activity. Major tech companies like Google are signaling that they are slowing hiring and could lay off staff amid concerns about overall productivity.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr., President and CEO of Society for Human Resource Management, the world’s largest HR society, says remote work has caused severe burnout, Zoom fatigue, and made it harder for some workers to take breaks from home. “I don’t know a company in America that is not sensitized to burnout and the need for employees to step away from the workplace for their mental health.”

Taylor, who, as a CEO himself leads a team of over 500 associates, advocates for his employees taking time off when they’re feeling overworked, but he doesn’t see how embracing quiet quitting will be helpful to employees in the long term. “I understand the concept, but the words are off-putting,” he says. “Anyone who tells their business leader they are a quiet quitter is likely not to have a job for very long.” Gergo Vari, CEO of job board platform Lensa, also believes the decision won’t serve employees long-term either. “Anytime that you silence your own voice in an organization, you may be depriving yourself of the opportunity to change that organization,” says his spokesperson.

Employees acting on their dissatisfaction at work isn’t only potentially affecting their job security. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report found that job dissatisfaction is at a staggering all-time high and that unhappy and disengaged workers cost the global economy $7.8 trillion in lost productivity.

The decision to step away from “hustle culture” can cause tension between employees and company executives, and can also cause a rift between fellow colleagues who may have to pick up the slack. “Whether people feel like their coworkers are committed to quality work can affect the performance of the organization and cause friction inside teams and organizations,” says Jim Harter, Chief Scientist for Gallup’s workplace management practice.

The generational divide and the significance of pay

There are potential generational differences between the Boomers and Gen-X executives that have subscribed to the hustle ‘rise and grind’ mentality to climb the corporate ladder, versus younger generations that tend to prioritize a better work-life balance, according to Deloitte’s 2022 Global Gen Z and Millennial Survey. The survey also found that among the top concerns of the Gen-Z and millennial generation is finances, with pay being the number one reason workers in the demographic left their roles in the last two years.

Shini Ko, a millennial software developer, acknowledges that she and many of her colleagues are in the industry for the pay, but she too, prioritizes stepping away from work when necessary. She’s not convinced “quiet quitting” is the best term for setting boundaries. “It’s negative and dangerous that we frame a healthy work life balance as quitting,” says Ko. “Can we just call it what it is? It’s just working.”

When Ko isn’t working her nine-to-five, she runs Bao Bao Farm, a small-scale vegetable farm. She acknowledges that she’s got a different mentality when farming. “Because the farm is my passion there is an intrinsic motivation to do more.”

Gallup’s Harter agrees that passion is a big factor in whether people decide to look for a new job, and how much they’re willing to work for. “Pay is usually interpreted in the context of how you feel about your job. If you’re disengaged, you’ll be willing to look for less.”

‘Loudly persisting’ as an alternative

Vari, CEO of Lensa, has over 200 employees, and has been working hard to not have “quiet quitters” amongst his staff.

Aside from providing his employees remote-work flexibility and on-site perks at the office, he says his workplace lacks quiet quitters because he values employees’ moments of pushback. Making employees comfortable enough to voice their concerns before they get to the stage of “quietly” changing their pace at work is key, according to his spokesperson.

“Employers have to make an effort to enable people to have a say in their own future,” he says. “I want them to stick around, and I’ll stick out my neck to encourage them to do so.”

Vari coins an alternative: ‘loudly persisting,’ the act of employees feeling encouraged enough to vocalize how their organization can better serve their goals. “When you loudly persist you have a sense of belonging and of having a stake in where the company is going.”

Quiet quitters may need a better fit

Career coach Allison Peck never considered herself a “quiet quitter.” In fact, she credits going above and beyond at her job in the medical device industry as the reason she was able to purchase her first home. But that wasn’t always the case—her first job out of graduate school required her to work 14 hour days for 6 days a week, only for her to be laid off a year into it.

“Choose carefully who you go above and beyond for and determine if it’s worth it. Sometimes it pays off, but sometimes it doesn’t,” says Peck. She views “quiet quitting” as a symptom of employees not connecting to their work or managers. Her career advice for quiet quitters is to consider a bolder move.

“Finding a new job, manager, team, or company that better aligns with you altogether can get you out of this quiet quitting mindset,” says Peck. “That can make you want to jump through hoops.”

SO.            .            .
ARE YOU A QUIET QUITTER
fearlessly floating away to what you really love
and leaving behind what has always been thought.        .        .       ?
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
it’s probably not one of those questions you have to answer
because most likely
YOU ARE LIVING IT

 

THE SAND AND THE FOAM

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The Sand And The Foam – Dan Fogelberg Inspired by Khalil Gibran’s book “Sand and Foam”. from The Innocent Age Album (released 1981) (The Sand And The Foam Lyrics)

Dawn, like an angel, lights on the step Muting the morning she heralds Dew on the grass like the tears the night wept Gone long before the day wears old (Chorus) Time stills the singing a child holds so dear And I’m just beginning to hear Gone are the pathways the child followed home Gone like the sand and the foam Pressed in the pages of some aging text Lies an old lily a-crumbling Marking a moment of childish respects Long since betrayed and forgotten (Chorus) (Repeat First Verse and Chorus) Gone like the sand Gone like the sand Gone like the sand and the foam

I remember getting this vinyl album (AND I STILL HAVE IT) when it was first released in 1981.  I was a little over a year of being ordained and used it for youth group workshops when we talked about LIFE and yes, DEATH.

It was 13 years before I began my journey as a hospice chaplain and I’ve heard it countless times since 1981 and have it on multiple playlists I play.  It takes on an entirely different meaning to me now some 28 years later, long down my hospice journey road.

When it popped up randomly the other day, I was sitting in a parking lot of a Walmart with 33 minutes before a funeral I was going to conduct.  I wonder if Fogelberg was thinking about his own life/death and the ever-so-brief frailty and quickness of life.  He died in 2007 after battling advanced prostate cancer for three years.

AGAIN…the words took on a different meaning for me.

As I kept hitting repeat
REPEATEDLY
these words came to my shore
and hopefully now will ebb up on yours
As we do our own dance with
The Sand and the Foam:

YOU CAN’T BE LATE FOR MY FUNERAL

It may be too cold
Rainy
or a snow that wants to imitate it
It may be hot
With a humidity that begs for a breeze
not to be found
It may be greening Spring
a Summer’s hued sunset
A Fall’s Frosted pumpkin morning
Or a Winter’s pristine glistening white snowfall afternoon
You can’t be late for my funeral
It’s been indefinitely canceled
Postponed for a day
that doesn’t exist
You can’t be late for my funeral
because there’ll be no celebration of my life
No curious resurrection
If something never ended
but continued on in other ongoing ways
What makes for a HAPPY ENDING
is knowing there’s never an
everlasting one

LABORED DAYS

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Muhammad Mashali was a doctor who treated Egypt’s poorest citizens completely free of charge for 50 years.

Mashali passed away in 2020 at the age of 76.
He spent 12 hours a day in the clinic and received 30-50 patients a day. Not only did a line of people form in front of his ambulance every day, people would approach him on the street and he would give them medical advice. Dr. Muhammad Mashali never had a car or even a telephone. He walked from home to work.

When a rich man heard about his story, he gave him $20,000, a car and an apartment. But a year later, when his benefactor returned to Egypt, he learned that the doctor had sold his car to help poor patients and bought new medical equipment.

When Muhammad Mashali graduated from Cairo Medical School in 1967, he explained why he wanted to sacrifice himself for the good of others:
“My father sacrificed his life so that I could become a doctor. Then I promised God that I would not take a penny from the poor and live a life of service to people of all cultures and religions.”

BUT LABOR DAY WAS THIS PAST MONDAY.           .          .
or may be
it’s today
or any day
you wake up
to be
A Caring Catalyst
NOT AGAIN.          .          .
but
O            N            C            E

M               O               R               E.        .        .


MAKE YOUR JOB
SOMEONE’S PLEASURE.        .        .

T S U N D O K U

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THERE IS THE LITERAL VISUAL DEFINITION OF
T S U N D O K U:
A
S T A C K
O  F
B     O     O     K     S

The value of owning more books than you can read

  • Many readers buy books with every intention of reading them only to let them linger on the shelf.
  • Statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb believes surrounding ourselves with unread books enriches our lives as they remind us of all we don’t know.
  • The Japanese call this practice tsundoku, and it may provide lasting benefits.

Kevin Dickson recently wrote an article for BIG THINK that caught the attention of my friend, a fellow Book Lover like myself that immediately took the weight of a severe guilt I carry and am reminded of even as I type and watch the AMAZON person drop me off another book selection I just recently read about.

Kevin confesses: I love books. If I go to the bookstore to check a price, I walk out with three books I probably didn’t know existed beforehand. I buy second-hand books by the bagful at the Friends of the Library sale, while explaining to my wife that it’s for a good cause. Even the smell of books grips me, that faint aroma of earthy vanilla that wafts up at you when you flip a page.  Hmmmmmmmmmm.   .    .     .

The problem is that my book-buying habit outpaces my ability to read them. This leads to FOMO and occasional pangs of guilt over the unread volumes spilling across my shelves. Sound familiar?

But it’s possible this guilt is entirely misplaced. According to statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb, these unread volumes represent what he calls an “antilibrary,” and he believes our antilibraries aren’t signs of intellectual failings. Quite the opposite.

LIVING WITH AN ANTILIBRARY

Taleb laid out the concept of the antilibrary in his best-selling bookThe Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. He starts with a discussion of the prolific author and scholar Umberto Eco, whose personal library housed a staggering 30,000 books.

When Eco hosted visitors, many would marvel at the size of his library and assumed it represented the host’s knowledge — which, make no mistake, was expansive. But a few savvy visitors realized the truth: Eco’s library wasn’t voluminous because he had read so much; it was voluminous because he desired to read so much more.

Eco stated as much. Doing a back-of-the-envelope calculation, he found he could only read about 25,200 books if he read one book a day, every day, between the ages of ten and eighty. A “trifle,” he laments, compared to the million books available at any good library.

Drawing from Eco’s example, Taleb deduces:

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. [Your] library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.

Maria Popova, whose post at Brain Pickings summarizes Taleb’s argument beautifully, notes that our tendency is to overestimate the value of what we know, while underestimating the value of what we don’t know. Taleb’s antilibrary flips this tendency on its head.

The antilibrary’s value stems from how it challenges our self-estimation by providing a constant, niggling reminder of all we don’t know. The titles lining my own home remind me that I know little to nothing about cryptography, the evolution of feathers, Italian folklore, illicit drug use in the Third Reich, and whatever entomophagy is. (Don’t spoil it; I want to be surprised.)

“We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended,” Taleb writes. “It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order. So this tendency to offend Eco’s library sensibility by focusing on the known is a human bias that extends to our mental operations.”

These selves of unexplored ideas propel us to continue reading, continue learning, and never be comfortable that we know enough. Jessica Stillman calls this realization intellectual humility.

People who lack this intellectual humility — those without a yearning to acquire new books or visit their local library — may enjoy a sense of pride at having conquered their personal collection, but such a library provides all the use of a wall-mounted trophy. It becomes an “ego-booting appendage” for decoration alone. Not a living, growing resource we can learn from until we are 80 — and, if we are lucky, a few years beyond.

T     S     U     N     D     O     K     U

I love Taleb’s concept, but I must admit I find the label “antilibrary” a bit lacking. For me, it sounds like a plot device in a knockoff Dan Brown novel — “Quick! We have to stop the Illuminati before they use the antilibrary to erase all the books in existence.”

Writing for the New York Times, Kevin Mims also doesn’t care for Taleb’s label. Thankfully, his objection is a bit more practical: “I don’t really like Taleb’s term ‘antilibrary.’ A library is a collection of books, many of which remain unread for long periods of time. I don’t see how that differs from an antilibrary.”

His preferred label is a loanword from Japan: tsundoku. Tsundoku is the Japanese word for the stack(s) of books you’ve purchased but haven’t read. Its morphology combines tsunde-oku (letting things pile up) and dukosho (reading books).

The word originated in the late 19th century as a satirical jab at teachers who owned books but didn’t read them. While that is opposite of Taleb’s point, today the word carries no stigma in Japanese culture. It’s also differs from bibliomania, which is the obsessive collecting of books for the sake of the collection, not their eventual reading.

THE VALUE OF TSUNDOKU

Granted, I’m sure there is some braggadocious bibliomaniac out there who owns a collection comparable to a small national library, yet rarely cracks a cover. Even so, studies have shown that book ownership and reading typically go hand in hand to great effect.

One such study found that children who grew up in homes with between 80 and 350 books showed improved literacy, numeracy, and information communication technology skills as adults. Exposure to books, the researchers suggested, boosts these cognitive abilities by making reading a part of life’s routines and practices.

Many other studies have shown reading habits relay a bevy of benefits. They suggest reading can reduce stress, satisfy social connection needs, bolster social skills and empathy, and boost certain cognitive skills. And that’s just fiction! Reading nonfiction is correlated with success and high achievement, helps us better understand ourselves and the world, and gives you the edge come trivia night.

In her article, Jessica Stillman ponders whether the antilibrary acts as a counter to the Dunning-Kruger effect, a cognitive bias that leads ignorant people to assume their knowledge or abilities are more proficient than they truly are. Since people are not prone to enjoying reminders of their ignorance, their unread books push them toward, if not mastery, then at least a ever-expanding understanding of competence.

“All those books you haven’t read are indeed a sign of your ignorance. But if you know how ignorant you are, you’re way ahead of the vast majority of other people,” Stillman writes.

Whether you prefer the term antilibrary, tsundoku, or something else entirely, the value of an unread book is its power to get you to read it.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Now if you’ll excuse me.           .           .
THERE’S 
THIS
B     O     O     K.     .     .

Eco stated as much. Doing a back-of-the-envelope calculation, he found he could only read about 25,200 books if he read one book a day, every day, between the ages of ten and eighty. A “trifle,” he laments, compared to the million books available at any good library.

Drawing from Eco’s example, Taleb deduces:

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. [Your] library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary. [Emphasis original]

 

 

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man