How’s that working out?

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Professor Taboo

As part of the Alternative Lifestyles blog-posts migration over to the new blog The Professor’s Lifestyles Memoirs, this post has been moved there. To read this post please click the link to the blog.

Your patience is appreciated. Thank you!

How’s that working out? – Update and Intro

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Professor Taboo

Your patience is appreciated. Thank you!

Expectations

Posted on November 13, 2013 by Professor Taboo

Your patience is appreciated. Thank you!

Communication

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Professor Taboo

image WikiHow.com

While I share my thoughts on how critical mastering communication skills are for life, I will also take this opportunity to update everyone on my job/career status; the other night the two went hand-in-hand beautifully.

The update from What’s My Story?: I am now training with and soon to be working as a tutor with a well-established national educational-tutoring company helping struggling students in areas of math, reading, writing, and test-preps. This is my evening job and the primary purpose of this post. I am also currently substitute teaching in one Dallas-area school district, and soon to be substituting in a second Dallas-area school district; yes, three separate jobs to make ends meet. Despite the long hours six-days a week, I am grateful to be working again. But that’s not what I want to talk about.

The other night while observing and assisting the short-staffed learning center, one student was originally from China. He was a very bright 16-year old boy who spoke good English and has lived here about ten months. He was being tutored in advanced English writing and literature. One of his vocabulary words for the night was “exciting” and how to use it in various sentences. Of his five words to learn, this one was the most difficult for him. Tchang (as I will call him here) could not understand the difference between the uses of exciting versus excited. If you are an American having spoken English your entire life, how would you explain the differences to Tchang?

Our attempts to differentiate the two words seemed to confuse Tchang just as much as they seemed to help. After several different examples, in the end his perplexed expressions never receded. Why?

If the English language is not your native tongue, then of the world’s many thousand languages to learn, English is perhaps the hardest to speak and write. Unfortunately, Tchang was learning just how hard it can be. Empathizing with his frustration I explained it wasn’t his fault for not understanding but that it was our/my language; a very complex and often redundant language. English words and their uses can sometimes have one or a half-degree of separation, perhaps less. Yet they will indeed describe a slight difference…which leads me to my big-picture point.

Communication isn’t just a skill; it is the linchpin of one’s true identity.

If you do not master the art of communication, then life will often seem an uphill battle. This holds true just as much for those around you; their communication skills can be just as trying on your patience like trying to navigate a circus fun-house maze of meaning.

Let me merely scratch the surface of how profound communication is to life. “The ability to communicate effectively is important in relationships, education, and work.” Following are steps and tips for the development of good communication from WikiHow. After the first two highlights are explained, for the sake of time and space go to the WikiHow link for the remaining detailed explanations.

Understand the Basics

Know what communication really is. Communication is the process of transferring signals/messages between a sender and a receiver through various methods (i.e. written words, nonverbal cues, spoken words). It is also the mechanism we use to establish and modify relationships.
Have courage to say what you think/feel. Be confident that you can make worthwhile contributions to conversation. Take time each day (meditate?) to be aware of your opinions and feelings so you can adequately convey them to others. Individuals who are hesitant to speak because they do not feel their input would be worthwhile need not fear. What is important or worthwhile to one person may not be to another and may be more so to someone else.
Practice.

Engage Your Audience

Make eye contact constantly.
Use gestures often.
Don’t send mixed messages.
Be aware of what your body is saying.
Manifest constructive attitudes and beliefs.
Develop effective listening skills. Think twice, speak once.

Use Your Words to Impact

Enunciate your words.
Pronounce your words correctly.
Use the right words that accurately convey your thoughts and feelings.
Slow your speech down!

Use Your Voice to Impact

Develop your voice – A high or whiny voice is not perceived to be one of authority or authenticity.
Animate your voice.
Use appropriate volume.

Though some of us might think these steps/tips are well-known or even intuitive, the present history of mankind and womankind speaks to the contrary. On any level of communication, from world powers to individual family or marital relationships, communication is paramount! Perhaps it is safe to say that wherever there has been violence, hatred, or wars, there has been a massive failure of communication. Conversely, wherever there is or has been peace, love, and collaboration, there has been superb communication. Though it is not quite that simple, this generally stands true does it not?

Can you communicate both organs effectively?

Then there is the wrench of deception; intended or unintended. This is an entirely different matter and deserves a separate discussion, particularly intended deception. For now, I wish to dabble, or languish depending on circumstances, in the art of interpersonal language and communication, or the lack of it. Also, I have observed an unspoken hierarchy present in human interaction of which I have personally broken them down into these six following hierarchies. I’m very curious; how would YOU define them in the context of “authentic” impactful communication?

Strangers are –
Acquaintances are –
Friends are –
Close-friends, dear friends (platonic?) are –
Lovers are –
Soul MateS are –

Expressing one’s self to others requires understanding one’s self accurately. If you do not understand why you feel or think a certain way, or in a context how you’ve come to feel or think a certain way, then how can you accurately express it? Language and words express as much emotion as they do fact, sometimes one more than the other. How well do your words match your emotions? Better yet, how well do they match your actions or behavior? What is meant when people say “Actions speak louder than words”?

There seems to me to be a pure art of communication and language, and that purity is mysteriously hard to find sometimes not just in others, but within ourselves too. I love being around elementary kids because they still have that blatant innocence to express exactly what they think and feel that we sometimes don’t find among adults. In a group of strangers or acquaintances where little children are present, why do the adults so often invest their attention onto the children instead of the adults? I find this social condition…

…obtuse.

I am puzzled by this blurry condition of artful candid communication today so to understand…

I wonder if it might be because as we “mature” we become more sensitive to the way others perceive us. In potential romantic relationships – for that matter even certain long-term relationships – do we sacrifice authenticity to be more loved? And if that is the case, then isn’t that living an illusion? Is it because of a fear of rejection that we do not communicate authentically but in diluted forms in order to be served in some way?

I would very much like to hear any and all feedback on the condition of modern communication; modern verbal communication in interpersonal relationships particularly. How do you find the art of interpersonal communication? From the 6 hierarchies above, is it right or wrong to authentically communicate another’s ‘status’ or ‘ranking’ in your heart?

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Fail Better

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Professor Taboo

Oliver Napoleon Hill, one of America’s greatest writers about self-improvement, motivation, and success once said “In every adversity lies the seed of an equal or greater opportunity.” In achieving a difficult goal, Hill conceptualized that the greatest reward was not in reaching the goal, but instead was in the will to continue in the face of growing doubts bred from failures. Most importantly to note is that Hill did not state “failure.” Critical to his concept was the kinetic word “failures.”

Everyone can make a long list of failures throughout their life; hopefully. If all hopes and dreams were easily gained, they would have little satisfaction and soon be forgotten. But it is the exhausting roads and persistent belief that with each setback, with each refinement of imperfection and expectation that create the most astonishing most memorable life experiences – to perhaps cauterize a realization that life and death work together, not in conflict. Neither need be feared. Contrary to antiquated religious teachings, no ‘stand-in’ is required, no depraved condition exists within us unless it is taught, accepted or internalized, and manifested as less-than capable by one’s self-will and surrounded environment chosen. No, quite the opposite should be taught: failures are a good option!

Care to revisit some famous failures that came with some spectacular silver linings?

1492 – Geneon explorer Christopher Columbus never did make it to India’s spices and wealth, but instead found much more; so much more that it changed the entire world. *

1804-06 – Cartographers and explorers Lewis and Clark set out to find a water passage from Midwest America to the Pacific Ocean. No such route exists, however, they documented the land, people, plants and animals which led to the bargain-basement steal of the Louisiana Purchase. *

1896 – Nineteenth century German engineer Otto Lilienthal first pioneered glider-flight that soon inspired the Wright brothers to powered-flight in America. Days later Lilienthal was killed in a flying accident attempting to perfect his glider. *

1937 – During the latter stages of Women’s Suffrage, aviatrix Amelia Earhart vanished while attempting to fly around the Earth’s equator. Regarding women’s rights she was quoted earlier saying, “[women’s] failure must be but a challenge to others.” *

1940 – The Tacoma Narrows Bridge had only been completed 4-months prior to its collapse due to high winds. Wind impact had not yet been fully understood during construction. Following bridge designs around the world included stabilizing measures and construction. *

1946-56 – Discovery of the 972 texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Khirbet Qumran, Israel, convincingly showed a much more comprehensive portrait and subsequently more diverse Second Temple Jerusalem than was traditionally portrayed in the canonical Christian Gospels; further confirming the truer nature of Judaism as opposed to the warring oppressive Greco-Roman version of later early-Christian groups closer to Rome. For one example of the two 1st century CE severe divergences, read Sign of Jonah in Talpiot Tomb confirmed just this year.

1970 – The Apollo 13 lunar mission failed due to an oxygen tank explosion lethally damaging the flight crew’s breathing system and service module. However, with ingenious adaptation and resourcefulness NASA brought all astronauts back home safely and with several critical later spacecraft changes. *

1991 – Locking eight scientists in a sealed terrarium called Biosphere 2 did not go as planned: food shortages, bad air, and “crazy ants” cut it short. Columbia University then the University of Arizona has since used it for successful eco-bio research. *

1993 – The Apple Newton is recognized as Apple Corporation’s biggest failure. The personal electronic assistant expired after 6-years of mediocre sales, but led the way for today’s highly popular iPad. *

1998 – NASA launched the Mars Climate Orbiter to examine the Martian climate. After a 287-day journey and over-budget costs the probe likely incinerated in the Martian atmosphere. The problem? NASA used the metric system in its designs, but the engineering team at Lockheed Martin used English units of measure. Now regular Martian orbiters and land-rovers explore the red planet with feasible developing plans of mining, colonization, and making Mars a leap-frog point into deeper parts of our solar system. *
[ * – National Geographic Magazine, Sept. 2013]
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On a more personal level, an intimate level, these concepts are ever truer for our relationships, especially in marriage and parenting a family. Some of our best virtues can be born and honed with a marital partner and raising messy failing succeeding children. And the more the better!

Failure and success coexist. Though we may have been taught they are dire enemies, they are really identical twins from the same mother: a life and death well-made and well told.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

If — by Rudyard Kipling