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"Four Legs Good...Two Legs Baaad!"
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Greetings!
"ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS" ~ George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 10 ~ "No question now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." ~ George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 10 ~ 
"Animal Farm" was one of the works I had to do in Literature class in school. If you're not familiar with it, do get hold of a copy or borrow one from the Library. I believe there is an animated version (no pun intended) somewhere as well. Wikipedia should have a short writeup also.
In recent times, we have been getting news of popular uprisings purportedly initiated by social media. People are frustrated, they see on their social media sites that others are also frustrated, they gather lots of people online, and things start to happen. Power to the People! Viva la Facebook! Viva la Twitter! So, at last, there are means whereby oppressive governments can be overthrown, to be replaced by the leadership of the proletariat, benevolent, wise, and working to make life better for all. Deja vu?
All of us have an innate desire to accomplish great things in life. Just ask any child what they'd like to be when they grow up. Remember your childhood dreams? How many of us live our childhood dreams? You do? Great! Besides being very blessed, do you realize that you made some decisions early in life, and that you stuck to those decisions rather better than most people stick to their New Year's Resolutions? If you didn't do that, what did you settle for? People always gravitate towards their definition of success. That's right, gravitate. We move towards what attracts us, physically or otherwise. Where gravitation is concerned, the move is downwards, in a manner of speaking. As we grow from childhood to adulthood, we become indoctrinated with the view that we should study hard, work hard, get a good job, live a comfortable life and be somebody. And so, instead of levitating, we gravitate from struggling, reaching upwards and striving towards a life of significance to settling for a life of comfort. Is there anything wrong about desiring comfort? No, but there is if comfort is the main thing we are aiming for. We forget that comfort by itself gives us no satisfaction. Oh, we are very good at reasoning to ourselves that comfort is not the main goal, that we are really working to provide for our loved ones, make a difference in society, etc., but when we take a good hard look at ourselves, I trow that most of us seek comfort in the main. And that is why we also live unhappy lives in the main. If you are living joyfully and fully right now, you are blessed. Share your life with others, and drop me a line to say why you are joyful in life! If you are not truly joyful, you might want to read on!
Dissatisfaction and lack of gratefulness sap the joy out of living. It is one of the main reasons why people gravitate towards popular uprisings. The goals are always ennobling at the first, and the state that ensues from the uprisings may even be characterized by those ennobling goals, at least for a while. Or a few hundred years. However, history tells us that eventually, the civilization falls due to moral decay. And nothing aids moral and societal decay as much as the pursuit of happiness when that pursuit centres on getting more and more and more diverse creature comforts. I have always enjoyed that old movie "Animals are Beautiful People" by Jamie Uys, of "The gods must be crazy" fame. In the movie, he states that baboons living in the hostile pre-Namib desert, where the daily commandment is "find food and water", live with far more zest than their cousins living along the banks of the food and water-rich Cubango River. Now, I am not suggesting that we all pack up and go live in the Namib, the Kalahari or the Gobi. What we ought to do is to take stock of our lives and check if we are moving towards significance in our own unique ways. Nor should we let ineffective governments lie. (Pun intended this time). We ought rather to see whether what is being striven for will have any significance in a hundred years' time. The time to be Making A Difference (MAD) is always now. However, consider why you are joining a cause before rushing off headlong into something you might not want to put your name to in the history books.
Are YOU facing a popular uprising at work? Well, do you have a compelling, shared reason why your company exists? Is that compelling vision known to your people? Do they share your compelling vision? As Kouzes and Posner would put it, are you inspiring a shared vision? Share and live out your vision with your people, and things will take a turn for the better overall. As you see the results, look at what is happening in the world around you, and see what you can do to help alleviate and then ameliorate the situation in your own way. Go well! |
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Event this week
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  We are having the first meeting for the PRZENC Image Club for 2012 on 6 Jan at Oliva Restaurant, 34 Arab Street #01-00. The Topic of Discussion is "A Sparkling New Look For 2012!"
I have been working together with the PRZENC Image Club for just under a year, and I like the emphasis on being the best person you can be. Your external image is really a reflection of what is inside you, who you truly are. Come and learn how you can enhance your image - inside and out! Invitation from the PRZENC Image Club. |
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Elijah Lim
Principal Consultant
Shining Arrow Consulting Pte Ltd
www.shiningarrow.com
65-97119005
60-19-3385138
Semper Audaces |
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