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Whirled Views 10.1
Today’s quote is from a 19th century author: “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
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back to top53 Comments to “Whirled Views 10.1”
Henry David Thoreau
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If not Henry, then one of the other Brahmin types: Emerson, Orestes Bronson etc.
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Great book for WMB to review: “Asset Bldg and Low Income Families” by Signe-Mary McKernan and Michael Sherraden.
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An interesting column by George Will this morning, talking about the bailout.
He says, “the crisis came partly because so many households decided that it would be jolly fun to budget the way government does…”
He also said, “The $700 billion figure exaggerated the plan’s probable cost, but accurately measured something worse – the enormous enlargement of government power”.
That’s what we’re really afraid. He later said, “it could permanently and fundamentally change the role of government.”
That’s also the reason I have mixed emotions about the “Patriot Act”. I think it’s necessary, but I greatly fear it getting into the hand of the wrong people.
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Okay, I started reading RN’s current favorite Blood and Soil the other night at midnight when I was keeping my IB student company with her homework.
This is a massive book–my bookshelf nearly tipped over when I set it down–with tons of details. And right off the bat, Kiernan makes an error about the Bible. It’s minor–Abel was not thrown out of the Garden of Eden because he killed Cain (Cain and Abel were never in the Garden of Eden, the parents had been evicted prior to their birth)–but I’m always suspicious of writers who get details wrong. When evaluating a manuscript, I let the first one go because errors happen. But when I find a second and then a third, I usually dump it because it indicates a sloppy writer. If he can’t get a basic fact correct, what is he doing with the facts I don’t know about?
So, I’ve begun this book with suspicion.
Thanks to Arcadia’s recent hunts through the Bible for bloody screes, I was not surprised when Kiernan suggested the slaughters throughout the OT were indications of genocide–which in a sense they were. Kiernan, however, not being a Biblical scholar didn’t attempt to explain why God ordered the Israelites to do so. And he probably shouldn’t since he is trying to find a common thread to explain why homo sapiens kill each other with such thoroughness.
Note to RN–the Bible explains God sent the flood (of Noah’s ark fame) because God was so disgusted with how mankind had used God’s gifts and turned them into gross manslaughter. God didn’t like what he saw happening so he wiped out the population to start over again. Alas, man (generic man, this includes women) continues to use his free will to improve his lot in life at the expense of others. Christians call this sin.
I’m a hundred pages in and will continue because Kiernan covers lots of history with which I’m unfamiliar. I’ve always felt the Aztecs too blood thirsty to want to read about and Cortez, of course, felt right at home while he slaughtered them. Genocide is a terrible thing–I’ve read about it for years trying to understand the same Kiernan is looking for: why do men and women do such terrible things to other men and women?
Or, as that great sage Rodney King said, “Why can’t we just get along?”
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Michelle, concerning the errors in your book. It reminds me of the time I started reading The Passover Plot. I forgot this famous author’s name, but the started his proofs with, “we assume”, “prsumbably”, “it seems that”, etc. Then, with those assumptions, establishes infallable proof that it was a plot between Jesus and the disciples. I assume that’s what it was. About a third of the way, I decided that I didn’t have to “assume” anything, and never finished it.
Later, I also started reading The Incredible Christians (I think it was, it’s been a long time.) He based his arguments on “I have shown in my previous book that….”
I didn’t finish it either.
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http://www.daveramsey.com/media/pdf/the_common_sense_fix.pdf
Dave Ramsey is leading a campaign to stop this “bail out” and do something different. See the link above for his plan. He wants us to contact our Senators and Representatives with this info – thought I would pass it along.
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This is a serious post.
Michelle (#5), first of all, I appreciate your reading Kiernan’s book.
Second, as a radical agnostic, I appreciate anything which contributes to accuracy. You are the second person to post some criticisms of Kiernan’s work. A couple of days ago, Musing posted some criticism of Kiernan’s putting the Spartans as the first historical example of genocide. It might be my fault in summarizing too concisely and superficially. I will have to look again at the book to fairly evaluate both your critique and Musings.
Also, I do suggest a test. I emailed Kiernan at Yale University with some comments and suggestions. He responded the next day in a cordial and congenial way.
I suggest you email him with your corrections. Of course, once a book is in print, it’s difficult to change anything, unless there’s a future edition. But I think it would be a test, of sorts to at least see if he is a serious scholar.
I will say in my own justification, that my posts are sort of a kindergarten discussion of the topic of genocide. Your critique and Musing’s may represent a higher grade level.
So I will add to my valid excuses for skipping my posts (Adios points out some evangelical Christians are battling genocide), anyone who is functioning at a high level than my kindergarten level is excused from attending, along with everyone who just doesn’t feel like it.
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ben.kiernan@yale.edu is Ben Kiernan’s email address at Yale in case anybody wants to communicate with him.
He knows me by my mundane (not worldmagblog) name, so if you say Random sent me, he will be confused and may not consider that a good recommendation.
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One of the suggestions I made to Kiernan was that he read Ernst Becker’s book Denial of Death. It’s a difficult book, and I am still wading my way through it, but I wonder if Becker’s gloomy hypothesis sheds some light on why humans have been so quick and enthusiastic to embrace genocidal behavior despite our frequent and futile cries of “Never again.”
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Well, this will sound not very deep after the previous posts on world history and the problem with mankind, but my dog Tess broke her toe on Saturday (presumably in a bad landing after jumping during a game of fetch).
So she’s now sporting a hot-pink splint/cast on her front right leg (the color really does suit her), ka-plunking around here like a little peg-leg dog. She’s being a very good sport. But she’ll have to be kept “quiet,” with very little activity for 60 days, which sounds like an eternity for a border collie.
Lynn, any updates on your dog?
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On a more serious note to put things into perspective,
Mary Poppins is 73 today!
Not in my video she isn’t. Isn’t that great?
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Michelle,
I’d be hust as concerned about any writer saying Abel killed Cain and not the othter way around.
Donna, sorry about your dog. No, I wouldn’t want to keep a border collie quiet! I didn’t know a dog could break a toe. (Misten sends her sympathy. She’d lick it all better if she was there.)
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Those of you who hate the size of the proposed bail-out and the rush toward a socialistic solution might want to check out this alternative from Dave Ramsay that can be e-mailed to your representatives:
http://www.daveramsey.com/etc/fed_bailout/index.html
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#14
My mother sent that to me this morning. I sent it to my Senators and Representative. Ramsey’s proposal makes more sense than Washington’s.
I resent the power grab by the politicians. What a despicable (and BOLD) thing to play on people’s panic in a complicated situation and claim the only way out is to hand over a huge chunk of the economy to the same group of bureaucrats that caused the trouble in the first place!!!!!
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Sorry, looks like Designer Girl already posted the link, or a similar one. I got the e-mail from my friend after reading that post, and hadn’t realized they’re probably the same thing.
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the day we buried my mother (also the 56th anniversary of the day Mom and Dad were married, and the birthday of one of my older brothers). I’m astonished that it has been five years already.
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I’m afraid of any bill that’s 431 pages long.
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That spam is making the rounds in my inboxes too, and twice here at WV today….
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Calling Dave Ramsey’s proposal spam is ironic…
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Chas, I’m with you…you can hide an awful lot of mischief in 431 pages.
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It isn’t spam, but it certainly has gone viral. Good for him. And us, maybe.
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I have been referring to Palin supporters and loyalists as ‘Palinites,’ but evidently they are more properly termed ‘Palinistas’ in Alaska political parlance.
It is being reported that Palin had a secret email system set up this spring , using her old campaign website, where there would be no official record of state business discussed by the ‘Palinistas.’
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I apologize for the misunderstandin, people. I found it in my spam box right above the new “oonline CASINO” email and below the latest opportunity from Nigeria.
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My link about the secret emails got messed up somehow?
I’ll try it one more time. Sorry about the follow up post, but some may be interested in the WaPo article.
Palin Had Another Private E-Mail
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Thanks for the doggie condolences Cheryl D. This is actually the second dog I’ve had with a broken toe, go figure. Observing her in the backyard this morning with Cowboy, I see that Tess has figured out a way to run on 3 legs, holding out her splinted one straight beside her. I blogged about her first night home (monday) and she was so miserable (http://www.insidesocal.com/pets/2008/09/kathump-kathump-kathumpthats-t.html)
Cheryl, my mom will have been gone 19 years in January. She was relatively young (68) when she died unexpectedly and I still miss her, wish she were here to share this or that problem or challenge or victory. There’s something about that bond between moms and daughters that’s just so tight, like no other, I think. And after all this time I still notice the ‘anniversary’ of her loss every year. But the first 1-5 years were absolutely the toughest, just really hard. It gets easier after the five year mark, I think.
The years do fly by, I can’t believe how fast — and faster the more time goes on, a phenomenon to which many of us can attest.
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I know there’s a special way to do links here at world, and the one above won’t work obviously — anyway, for dog people so inclined (and with more time on their hands than they know what to do with), you can just click on my name which takes you to the pets blog, the post is a few down from the top.
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Man. Don’t the moderators of this blog do anything? Why do they let that spam in here at posts 22-24?
Oh. Sorry about that, mistook you for a spammer there, Obscene Blogger…
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Carried over from yesterday:
“I don’t see you condemning the tavern owner.”
Do I need to?
******Yes. “Parading around” in clothes is a lot different than the blatant sexism of portraying a woman in the nude: without her permission and with your own idea of what she looks like.*****
The FBI and Secret Service are investigating the tree hanging of Obama at the Christian Fox University.
*******Yes, because they have to do so. The local police have already cleared the case. The students confessed. There was no “lynching” intended (whether or not the students were completely ignorant is another story). NO ONE has condoned the action in any way, shape or form. The other students at the university are disgusted with it.
So, how is it comparable again???? ******
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This is my 4th and final installment of why we should not return the Republicans to power in November. This particular essay will run from today through Friday. Coming next week, the first in a 4-part series on why we should give the reigns of government to the Democrats in November.
As a reminder:
I’ve thought long and hard about what I wanted to say and why. Primarily, what I post will be rhetorical in nature to get my point across, not to argue with folks. In fact, it’s completely irrelevant whether anyone responds or not. (That’s not to say I won’t respond to what people say, it’s just not the purpose). As for why I’m writing this series, there are three reasons:
1. It’s to clarify in my mind exactly why I’m going to vote a particular way.
2. It’s being written for the passer-by who maybe is still debating as to which way they should vote in this election.
3. It’s my final chance before the election to respond to the 8 years of (mis)rule by the Republicans. I have no illusions that I can change anyone’s mind, especially the CCR’s.
The topics I’m going to write about were not picked out of a hat at random. I’ve kept a list over the last 6 months of things I wanted to cover. There were a ton of things that deserved recognition, but I was able to group them into 8 broader categories. Over the next 4 weeks I will give 4 reasons for why one should not reward the Republicans with another term of the Presidency. Then following 4 weeks after that I will give 4 reasons for why the Democrats should be given a chance to run the show. I didn’t want to be totally negative or totally positive, which is why I chose 4 positive themes and 4 negative themes.
Finally, I should note that these thoughts are my own, not copied from any partisan website or “talking points” memo.
With apologies to Random Name for stealing his “long form” discourse on here, it’s time to get on with the show:
************************************************************************
LOSS OF VISION FOR AMERICA
Quite simply, over the last 8 years the Republicans have lost their way. Let’s review how far they’ve fallen:
Fiscal integrity – What can I say, except “Wow!”. When President Bush came into office there was a budget surplus. After 8 years, we’re in debt up to our ears. Bush added on to the size of government, unlike his Democratic predecessor. No Child Left Behind and the Medicare Prescription Drug Act are two prime examples of his financial irresponsibility. He has squandered a big hunk of the financial future of our country and put programs like Social Security and Medicare in jeopardy. The Republican Party has lost it’s mantle at the Party of “fiscal integrity”.
The economy – Remember “It’s the economy, stupid”? Well it’s b-a-c-k! Unemployment is rising, the price of everything is going up, we’ve got a mortgage crisis, a monetary/credit market crisis, an energy crisis, and a rising number of people without medical insurance. The Republican response: “The American people are a bunch of whiners” and “The fundamentals of our economy are strong”. What we see from the Republican Party is a desire to continue on the same path, instead of new ideas.
Moral clarity – President Bush and the Republicans have spent a lot of time dealing with their Party’s moral scandals of the last 8 years. They have lost the moral clarity that used to define their Party (“do the right thing”, “serve with integrity and honesty”). Now their mantra seems to be “CYA” and do everything you can to stay in office. They offer no way forward out of the moral mess in Washington.
Hope for America – One name comes to mind: Ronald Reagan. He knew how to inspire hope in people for the future of America, even if they didn’t agree with him on his policies (and I didn’t). Now we see the Republicans deriding and mocking “hope”. Their vision for America is negative, not positive.
No new ideas – Over the last 20 years the Republicans had a thousand ideas of how to get things done for this country. They established “think tanks” and had ideas bubble up from the grass-roots. Of course, some of their ideas were horrible or just plain crazy, but still – they had lots of ideas. Now, after 8 years in power and making a fine mess of things, they are asking the American people for another 4 years of the same failed policies. Even some conservative thinkers and leaders say that the conservatives and Republicans have run out of ideas. Frankly, I think they’re tired and run down. It’s time to give them a rest.
Incivility over collegiality – While there is blame enough to go around, the Republicans and their conservative leaders and pundits must be held accountable for the stunning rise of incivility in this country, and particularly in Washington. Led by the “blowhards” from talk radio and the pundits on TV, they greatly accelerated the decline of collegiality and the rise of incivility. It has significantly affected getting things done in Washington. They offer more of the same for the future.
Power over persuasion – Remember 8 years ago, when President Bush, upon winning office by the narrowest of margins, promised to work with his opponents to get things done for this country? Yet he (in particular), and his Party in charge of Congress did nothing of the sort! In fact, they governed as if this were a one-party country and they had received all of the votes. The end result is that very little got accomplished by our government and now we’re paying the price. The future they offer is 4 more years of “gridlock” in Washington.
Enough!
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TRS-
They both involve hanging a candidate. One on a wall. One from a tree. The students have all been suspended by the school, or at least that’s what I read.
MIM- LOL! I’ll have a new name soon enough. Just been so busy lately I haven’t been able to devote the time necessary to come up with one, then create a new ID. Bear with me, my friend!
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Kbells (and to a lesser degree, Anlir and possibly Chas), this is for you. I received this via email today from a fellow Georgia fan:
Nick Saban Arrested
Authorities arrested Alabama head coach Nick Saban in the predawn hours Monday at his home in Tuscaloosa on animal cruelty charges. Saban, 56, was charged with 85 counts of animal cruelty in an alleged attack which occurred Saturday night in Athens, Georgia. Police said that as many as 92,138 witnesses saw Saban and a large group of violent young men under his control hit, kick, crush and destroy a large pack of mostly-docile bulldogs. One officer was quoted as saying, “I haven’t seen bulldogs treated this badly since the Michael Vick case.”
Story is still developing…………
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Donna J,
If you hadn’t used the parentheses, you’d have had an active link.
http://www.insidesocal.com/pets/2008/09/kathump-kathump-kathumpthats-t.html
The above shouldn’t stretch the view–if it does, I apologize. I would have used tinyurl, but I wanted to show that simply typing a link makes it active.
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They should arrest the entire team.
Such brutality.
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That’s hilarious TJ!
I’m no ‘Bama fan, but Georgia was due for a kick in the grass. Too many Bulldog players and fans were just positive that no one could stop them this year, and that they were gonna win the National Title that was “stolen” from them last year. Heh.
BTW – I’m going to the Tennessee/N. Illinois game on Saturday night as a birthday present for one of my girlfriends, who’s even more of a diehard Vol fan than I am. It may be the last game Tennessee wins this year. Phil Fulmer is in some serious trouble. And Johnny Majors is ready to dance a jig.
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Just for fun …
How many screenwriters does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: Ten.
1st draft. Hero changes light bulb.
2nd draft. Villain changes light bulb.
3rd draft. Hero stops villain from changing light bulb. Villain falls to death.
4th draft. Lose the light bulb.
5th draft. Light bulb back in. Fluorescent instead of tungsten.
6th draft. Villain breaks bulb, uses it to kill hero’s mentor.
7th draft. Fluorescent not working. Back to tungsten.
8th draft. Hero forces villain to eat light bulb.
9th draft. Hero laments loss of light bulb. Doesn’t change it.
10th draft. Hero changes light bulb.
from villanova.edu.
I found it online today when I was hunting for something fun to give my expos. writing students.
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Well that’s a pretty good description of what happened last Saturday night TJ…
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Thanks Cameron (32)!
Kimberly (35): funny.
Here’s a bumper sticker I saw the other day: “Where are we going and why am I in a handbasket?”
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I saw a bumpersticker I liked: “Don’t believe everything you think.”
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I have to think about it a little more, but I am intrigued by the Ramsay proposal.
This is a mock-serious proposal.
A constant theme here is the contrast between “free enterprise” (generally considered conservative and good for many reasons) and socialism (generally considered liberal and bad) for many reasons.
For reasons too complex to go into, I consider this dichotomy to be simplistic and a substitute for serious thinking about human economic life.
In any case, the “co-operative” movement at times has been seen as at times been seen as a “third way” that offered some useful alternatives to the problems of the other two cliched extremes.
It’s alive and well, but certainly hasn’t replaced the other two approaches. The most successful and lasting institution of the cooperative movement have been credit unions. For the last 40 years my wife and I have used credit unions instead of banks for all our retail banking (checking account, credit cards, etc.)
I am not a fanatic on the subject; we have owned two dwellings and for various reasons both were financed by banks (with no serious problems).
However, given the current financial and banking crisis, I am all the more a fan of the credit union approach.
There are various history students around here, and I am sure many can speak with more authority than I can about the controversial history of the Bank of the United States and Andrew Jacson.
In any case, besides starting a third party, which I spoke of earlier, I wonder if the time has come for a National Credit Union of the United States to supplement or even replace the Federal Reserve.
Gotta go. I have a doctor’s appointment. Not a shrink, much as you hope I am about to be committed.
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A question for anyone who has any practical advice to offer –
Background: Sometimes discussions on this blog have gone over the idea of using self-help books, training in areas such as communication or relationships, or other insights from social sciences such as psychology – compared to looking for insight/answers directly from the Bible. I have given my view sometimes, that I have found the books/training valuable in ways that looking for the same answers in the Bible didn’t help me with. But I was always trying to remember previous situations when I gave examples. Now I have an example from this morning to ask about.
I attended a development seminar at work, designed to help employees take charge of their own career development by understanding their strengths and weaknesses, setting goals, and making plans of how to meet those goals. Managers have already been through enough of the training to know what is expected of them, which is primarily to provide support for employees’ in accomplishing that. So there’s plenty of corporate support for employees who want to do this – but it’s up to the employee to take ownership of the plan.
I had little trouble summarizing my strengths and weaknesses. I’m very detail-oriented, but I don’t lose track of the big picture. I am efficient and produce high quality work, but I want to have clear direction on what is to be done. I’m not assertive, I have trouble taking initiative, I have trouble even thinking of anything to take initiative on. I’m not particularly good at socializing and networking, though I think I’ve been improving on that in recent years.
When I got to the part of taking steps to improve, I got completely stuck. So stuck my mind was paralyzed. I couldn’t think of anything except how stuck I felt. When you’re not at all assertive and find it very hard to take initiative, how in the world do you come up with a plan to change that? And the more I tried to think about it, the more frustrated I got, until I had to go outside to try to calm down before I just started crying or something. When I finally felt a bit calmer, so I could go in and ask the facilitator for help, I met her coming out to find me and ask if I was OK.
All I could say was “not really” and then I could barely hold back the tears of frustration. I’m normally very composed and not easily ruffled, but sometimes I feel so trapped by circumstances I don’t know how to deal with that I only know how to either withdraw (emotionally, socially, and sometimes physically by leaving the room or building), or I end up crying. Often both.
Later I asked her for any resources to help me deal with this tendency, because it’s pretty hard to make any substantive changes if I end up either withdrawing or crying when I face a situation I don’t know how to deal with. She said she’d send over three books, apologized that one of them was kind of “psycho-babble” but she thought it did have some value to it.
So my question is, what can you suggest, either in the Bible or elsewhere? Proverbs is supposed to be full of practical wisdom, but I’ve read it a number of times and I don’t recall anything that helped me understand how to become more assertive or take initiative or how to deal with frustration better. Maybe it’s there and I’m blind to it – I’m not particularly good at seeing things in new ways without help.
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Oh, Pauline, ouch! I really like Personality Plus by Florence Littauer. She helps you see your personality type, recognize your strengths and weaknesses, then gives helps on how to become more balanced. I think it would help at work. I know it helped a LOT in our marriage. We really gained lots of insight into each other, and became much more understanding and appreciative of our differences.
Hope this helps!
My prediction is that you’re a melancholy, or perhaps melancholy phlegmatic…lots of lovely strengths.
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I took one of those personality tests once, a colleague (also a Christian) was working toward getting his psych counseling degree and wanted some of us to take this test.
I don’t remember what it was, I sort of poo-pooed it at the time, but I’m telling you, after taking it (they put you in 1 or 4 personality types) it was so dead-on I really was pretty amazed.
Sorry I don’t know what it was called, but somethings those things can give you insight into how you think and process things (and, in turn, how best to approach changes).
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I think it was the Myers-Briggs test I’m remembering, it’s not particularly new.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator
Scripture should always undergird us primarily. But sometimes there are other helps, we just need to be discerning.
Best to you Pauline, I’ll be praying for you. Work assessments are always so stressful for me, too.
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Just lost my post …
but it was the Myers-Briggs test i was remembering:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator
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Pauline,
Are you doing the work your employer wants you to do? Would you be penalized if you didn’t set certain new goals? You’ve listed some very fine capabilities. Is it important to the job to be more assertive and take initiative? Or are the managers there to help you refine your ideas for serving them?
It looks to me like part of your pain and frustration is from expecting yourself to conform to somebody’s standards on how you should act. But maybe that isn’t “you”? I am not able to work at a job, but I often ask “what’s wrong with me” that I can’t be more efficient, organized, make decisions easier. Like you, the harder I try to do what I think ought to happen, the harder it gets, until I have to walk away or bawl. It’s not a fun place to be. But I find I have to give myself permission to not be who I think I ought to be, but to just be who I CAN BE. To just do the few things I’m able to do, and to leave all of my life in God’s hands. To re-dedicate myself to him every minute.
“The steps of a righteous man (generic) are ordered of the Lord.”
I don’t know if what I’ve said is feasible in the workplace. I only know I can’t deal with the frustration of expecting myself to perform to a higher standard. Dwelling on who I can’t be, can be paralyzing. It can allow self-loathing. But accepting myself as I am, and forgiving myself for not being “mightier”, is a way to divert my attention from “poor little me” to “how great is our God.”
Paul says God uses the foolish things to confound the wise, and the weak things to confound the strong. If your lackings aren’t interfering with your job, maybe it’s time to focus on the things you do well. If your lackings are necessary to overcome, then God will have to send you the wisdom, the insight, the helpers, the books, the people who say things so you can understand them.
It’s a tough road. In the world, we’re supposed to be assertive and take initiative. In Christ, we’re supposed to be weak, that he may be strong. May God give you strength to let him make you the person he has prepared you to be.
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Marilee,
I do my job just fine. At my last performance appraisal (last month), my manager had nothing but positive things to say. Of course, this was his first time doing it, since he just took over the workgroup this spring. My previous manager had nothing but good things to say the first performance appraisal also. But the next one (which was also his last, as he left the company), he was more critical, because I have too much time on my hands, and he felt I should be taking the initiative to find new projects and new responsibilities to take on in the time I have available. (He had done nothing himself to help me find new work to do.)
This has been my problem in just about every job I have had. I am very good at learning a new job and doing it more efficiently – while producing higher quality work – than my predecessors in the position. (The only exceptions were non-office jobs, such as teaching, housekeeping, and bank teller.) So I always end up with time on my hands, and managers who don’t know what else to give me to do. They give me new things to do, and once I get the new stuff down I do it more efficiently and still have time on my hands. Even when I have managers who don’t fault me for not being busy all the time, it feels very uncomfortable working in an office with other people and not having enough to keep me busy. Plus I’m just plain bored, and can’t very well take satisfaction in what I’m accomplishing when I’m not accomplishing much. I take training classes online to fill time – but since I already know what I need for my job, they’re on topics that might help me in the future but I can’t apply to my job now, and I can only take so many hours of that at a time.
Since three successive managers haven’t been able to find me enough to do with this job, and my one attempt to garner support to work on revising the process that is the input to my job was unsuccessful (as one manager put it, to really do things right would require the company allocating significant resources to the project and we know that won’t happen because it’s only to help us internally, and the process isn’t broke enough to be worth fixing if we can’t really do it right), the only path to greater job satisfaction I can see is to find another position. I like the company, it’s probably the best one in town, so I’ve been looking for some kind of transfer. But I don’t have the background and skills for any openings I’ve seen in all the time I’ve been looking.
Which is why I was at that seminar this morning. And why I feel I have to learn to take greater initiative, because they keep telling us that finding the job we want and making ourselves qualified for it is our responsibility.
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As for personality, in Meyers-Brigg terms I’m an ISTJ. Which fits the kind of work I do (checking documentation to ensure compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley) very well. I’m a “preserver of tradition” – very well suited to jobs like accounting, insurance, auditing, banking, etc.
I don’t think being passive (the opposite of assertive) is necessarily part of the personality type. I’ve been told that’s probably a trait I picked up from growing up with a father (and to a lesser extent my mother) who might suddenly fly into a violent rage. My sister tried to be assertive and he would lose his temper and start beating on her. I preferred to hide in the safety of the bedroom with my mother.
Intellectually I know that there’s no reason to continue the behavior I learned as a child. But knowing it, and knowing how to change, are two very different things.
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Friends,
My friend and coblogger at American Creation, Eric Alan Isaacson, is a very prominent Unitarian Universalist Attorney and he writes of his recent “Unitarian vacation” in Boston. Check it out. The most provocative passage follows:
When we joined the Salem congregation for Sunday worship services on August 17, 2008, the Reverend Jeffrey Barz-Snell ceded his pulpit to a member of the congregation, Dr. Rose Wolf. Dr. Wolf identified herself as “a Christian witch,” and delivered a sermon on the subject of “The Emerald Tablet and the Golden Key: Reclaiming Jesus as a Witch.”
http://tinyurl.com/4ql222
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they keep telling us that finding the job we want and making ourselves qualified for it is our responsibility.
Have you determined for yourself if you want a job other than the one you have? If you’re reasonably content with the job you have (other than the down time as a result of your efficiency), maybe part of the frustration is at being expected to want more. I prefer tutoring to teaching because I’m not nearly as frustrated as I was when I taught.
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Well
I took Random’s advice and took yesterday off and now I have very little time to comment tonight. It wasn’t difficult to avoid the computer yesterday since I went to our local candidates’ debate last night. The community hall is only a block away and my daughter and I walked over. There were 5 candidates seated from left to right facing audience; the Marxist-Leninist candidate, the New Democrat (Social Democract) the Liberal, the Green and then the Conservative. Although they were seated by alphabetical order according to last names, this resulted in them sitting in a manner reflecting their place of the spectrum. Unlike the Greens in the US and Europe, the Canadian Green party is right of center — fiscally conservative and socially progressive is their motto.
The political leanings of my small town were evident as the Marxist-Leninist consistently received warm and sometimes enthusiastic applause. My 10 year old daughter has tried to convince me to vote Liberal but after the opening statements she leaned over and said vote for the Orange team – the New Democrat. He also received the most consistent applause of the evening. Unfortunately the rest of this district is far more conservative.
In returning to this blog, I see my evening was well spent for nothing seem to jump out at me. And as the Palin-Biden debate near, there seems to be an attempt to rework or refurnish her image here, however impossible that may be. Biden and moderator best sit back and let Palin hang herself as she did in the Couric interview. The look on Couric’s face resembling someone watching a train wreck in slow motion. In any case, Obama is now steamrolling over the McCain ticket in the polls and the Pallin candidacy has been cited as one of the reasons.
For what its worth, Pauline, I’m not a big fan of self-help literature. The modern origins of advice books began in the 19thC as a means to inform the lower middle class on how they too could become rich. They preached self-reliance and responsibility to the extreme often presenting economic barriers as the creation of those who could not surmount these barriers. In today’s era, the message is similar, its not the structural inequalities of a market based society that causes the problem but only you. The current structural crisis is an obvious indicator that the structures themselves are more a problem than a solution.
Anlir, the best list you have compiled since it goes to the heart of the Republican problem. They have no message, no hope and no optimism. As for fiscal integrity, its become a cynical political sound byte to say tax and spend liberal but reality has proven the fiscal conservatives to be anything but.
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Cameron,
I don’t know for sure if I would be content if it weren’t for the down time, but with so much down time I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing much, so I get little satisfaction from it. I thrive on solving problems and making things work better for people, and there aren’t enough problems to solve or opportunities to make things work better. Once in a while one co-worker has a question in Excel, and I figure out how to do what he needs, and those are about the best times I have at work. He lets other people know about my expertise in Excel, but the requests for help with it really don’t come very often.
I’ve thought about trying to work on the help desk because then I’d have the opportunity to do that kind of thing, but for one thing, the help desk works on the phone all day, and I have always hated the telephone. Plus the majority of the calls they get have to do with things like network connections, lost passwords, business-specific software problems, and other stuff that I don’t have a background in. I haven’t completely ruled it out but on the whole it doesn’t appeal to me.
The facilitator from today’s meeting is setting up a meeting with my manager and me. She initially suggested I meet with my manager to ask him for help putting together my development plan, but I’ve talked with him before and told him I want to do something more or something else, and he had no real ideas, and I didn’t know what to ask or say differently now. So she agreed to meet with both of us to talk about it.
I hate the feeling of needing my hand held to get through something that other people seem to be able to deal with on their own, but it’s better to get the help than to just flounder and feel miserable. I just wish I could get to the point that I could figure out when and whom to ask for help without getting to the point of feeling so terribly stuck and frustrated that I am in tears. But I would never have known to ask this person for help if it hadn’t been for the seminar this morning. (She used to work in our department but I never worked with her personally.)
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Also friends:
I’d remind you that “American Creation” is a place of open debate that welcomes all people (preferably informed) of a diversity of intellectual positions. For instance our coblogger Tom Van Dyke, very smart — smart enough to win Ben Stein’s money (no joke, he did) — is our resident Thomist. He responds to the Unitarian Universalist in the comments section:
Eric Alan Isaacson writes:
“That the First Church in Salem could open its pulpit to a self-identified witch said something…”
Yes, it certainly did, Eric.
What it said is that Unitarian Universalism has the physical possession of a number of Founding-era churches. However, that fact doesn’t give Unitarian Universalism any theological claim to the “congregations” of that day or to the consciences of the Founders.
To conscript John Adams into Unitarian Universalism’s positions on contemporary social issues falls short of intellectual honesty or credibility. Nor could we assert with any confidence whatsoever that John Adams would have been cool with a self-proclaimed witch in his pulpit.
Unitarian Universalism is for all practical and theological purposes a church that was founded in 1961 out of the surviving remnants of 19th century Unitarianism and 19th century Unitarianism—neither of which are theologically recognizable in UU’s current form, and neither of which were particularly compatible with the other.
Sorry, Alan, but if you’re going to make truth claims for the wonderfulness of your religion and the self-evident correctness of its positions on social issues, it was you who put them on the table.
They are subject to the same honest inspection that Brian Tubbs gladly endures, and when our departed contributors Mr. Atkinson and Ms. Gaga did similar commercials for their churches and beliefs, they apparently disliked the inspection enough to leave.
Unitarian Universalism in 2008 stands at ~225,000 members—stable at best over the past 40-odd years in absolute terms, shrinking when population growth is figured in.
So when you claim—as you have, Eric—that America’s “Founding Faiths” are “evolving,” it’s neither clear that they have any theological claim to being “America’s Founding Faiths,” nor that their “evolution” is anything more than their death throes, as they give up the ghost to secular humanism.
Unitarian Universalism owns the Founding-era buildings, nothing more.
Check it out: http://americancreation.blogspot.com
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Pauline,
I won’t be much help. It took me a long time to figure out what I am good at. When I get to do what I am good at, I do it superbly. When I try to do what somebody else thinks I should be doing (usually for silly reasons) I am terrible at it.
Your are superb at what you are good at. By trying to get you to do something you are not suited for, your employers run the risk of ruining you. At the least, they make you miserable for no good reason. It’s their responsibility to make good use of your talents. It’s incompetent and lazy of them to try and push the responsibility on to you.
One of the things I am good at is criticizing people. (See above.) When I am working well at what I should be doing, I criticize myself and constantly get better. When people interfere with my work and waste my time on stupid stuff, I criticize them and get punished. The last therapist I saw said I should work for myself. The first time I did that, I failed miserably, but I will try it again after I retire. Who knows what will happen?
So I don’t know the solution to your problem, but I am quite sure it is not going to be trying to turn yourself into what you are not. Throwing the Bible into the mix is no help at all. Don’t listen to me.
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