It's hard to draw a map of a place if you've only ever been through it once, going in a straight line in a fast moving vehicle.
For a guide, you may want someone who can draw a map from memory. You may want someone who has been lost where you're going. You may want someone who has, at least, been there a lot of times, walking in more of a zig-zag pattern and seeing what's around.
OR you're accepting a guide who knows a little more than you but can't draw the map.
Both can work, but understand what you're getting and accept the advantages of the latter if you choose it. That is, you will be getting lost along the way, but you will also be a guide at the end of the journey.
Sometimes there is no map and never will be - for the country is forever new. In these cases we can only compare it to country we have been in before and offer help to one another.
Anyone who says, "There is no budget," isn't a leader and hasn't met the CFO.
Budgets can be a great driver of creativity and a path to finding the winning solution.
Don't look at your budget as a limitation. Look on it as the form in which you create, like a sonnet, a canvas, or the force of gravity (for you sculptors and architects out there).
The trick is to know your budget and understand how it drives your creativity.
I've written about the willingness to ask a question and how being the person who is willing to ask a question can be powerful. Usually when I say this I'm talking about the willingness to do this in spite of a fear of looking or sounding stupid.
I recently had a different, but related, experience.
I was in a contentious meeting. People were not communicating and everyone was digging their heels in for a fight.
I asked a question.
It wasn't a great a question. It wasn't a terribly insightful question. It was a legitimate question - something that I really didn't understand because it wasn't clear to me what a certain part of the disagreement was about. I also didn't understand why no one was talking about it.
It was enough to open a door to a different discussion in this case. It was enough to expose that there were things that were unclear to people in the room, and it gave everyone a chance to take a breath and look at the disucussion from a different perspective.
It was enough to make the discussion a lot more productive, if not 100% friendly.
A question won't always resolve these situations. However, asking such a question is important if you are going to contribute to a discussion (and hopefully a resolution).
And it can help others look at their own assumptions and realize they may have questions of their own.
When you read something, all of it is right there on the page or screen. 100% of the art is present and can be evaluated, analyzed, and understood.
This is not true of most other things in this world, including other types of art. In other art forms the artifice can and often does conceal the structure, but with writing it never does.
Of course, even with writing, what you don't see is the process that was used to achieve the finished product: edits, deletions, false starts, things thrown away entirely, etc.
But the effect and the way that words were used to create that effect are all in front of you.
The thing with a writing process is that you need to develop one. How do you write? How do you start? How do you edit? Who helps you? What are your sources of inspiration?
Because Mindfulness and other types of Focused Attention Training derive from religious practices, many people may feel that they are private or non-public activities.
There is some merit in this line of thought. The practice, any that I've seen, is private in that you are focusing inward to improve attention and enhance awareness.
But why really does this seem private?
There is nothing really private or revealing about it. Your thoughts aren't different when meditating than at some other time. Nor are they required to be shared with others. Nor are they shared with others.
What differs, really, is posture. The eyes are closed. You're sitting there. It's prayer-like in that way, even if what you're doing isn't religious. You're just paying attention to the mind. This resembles sleeping or praying and those are considered to be private activities in the West.
I guess sleeping is private in every culture. And it is the closed eyes, probably more than anything, that make it seem private to us.
Mostly it's different. If you aren't with a group of people, you're on your own and that can feel uncomfortable. Better to do that thing you're a little unsure of in private.
But ask yourself these questions:
What seems more personal to you, reading a book or meditating? Which would you be more likely to do in public? Which is actually the more private activity? Why?
Mindfulness practices are maintenance and improvements for the machinery of the mind. If we think of them this way then there shouldn't be anything more personal or private about them than any other activity you engage in for self-improvement.
Does that mean you should go out an meditate in public? I guess that's a personal preference and probably relates to your goals and why you meditate. Some people do it.
Twitter -> Profile -> Settings and Privacy -> Muted Words
Add -> http
So what does this tell us?
Well, I guess links aren't words, nor do they contain words as far as Twitter is concerned.
It wasn't terribly shocking to me that it didn't work, given all the things that Twitter does with links. We shouldn't be surprised that they do different things and are treated differently.
I wasn't planning to leave the mute on forever, but I did want to see what the sum total of my followed content looked like if you took the links out of it.
I'll have to find another way to do that.
Why does it matter? Well, there are days where I feel like Twitter is the writing assignment and I actually want to say something useful that isn't a link to something else.
I'm interested in seeing who else does that and what they say.
Jonathan Fries on .