2008
08.11
In work with people a team means everything. Self esteem and ways of relating are constructed by what is learned from team interaction. Even in graduate school students learn that the key to power for scientists is flexibility and cooperation.
Many experiments show success after numerous well planned failures. Sometimes it takes only a new way of seeing to trigger a break through. We can mourn the past or prepare for the future, we can not do both. Often weakness in one team member will trigger unknown strength in another so it pays to obey the three fs of creativity,. Fun, flexibility and favor.
Your family and friends are a team that cares about you. Remember them, be thankful for their care and treat them well
The future depends on what we do in the present …Mahatma Ghandhi
2008
08.11
Many years ago there were two gifted artists. They were poor and scholarships went to the politically astute so they were on their own with talent and no money. They devised a plan. The one brother went into the mines to work and support the other while he went to graduate school.
This brother, spurred on by the help of his brother graduated with honors and became widely acclaimed. He went back to his brother with joy and said “I can put you through school with class”. The other brother without bitterness lifted up his hands to show them to his brother, they were broken and crooked from years in the mines. He said “I can not go, the mines have cost me my hands”
The artist did a sculpture of his brothers hands, they became his greatest work. Most of us know them as they became the image for the famous serenity prayer. In life sometimes we are the hands and at other times the artist. It is good to consider the cost to our team and provide feedback and favor before hands are destroyed. But even hands that seem to be useless have value. Who you are is more valuable than what you do
“Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless” Thomas Edison.
