Time to Wake Up and Smell the …

Some interesting headlines in the news this morning ……

• 1 in 7 Americans are now using food stamps or some other type of assistance (source).  I guess it is good to see that the economic recovery is well underway in America and that the average citizen has nothing to worry about.  Maybe the lawmakers are so far removed from this that in absence of pain on their part, they assume all is going well.
• US military used the name Geronimo as the code name for bin Laden, proudly announcing they had killed “Geronimo” when the task was completed (source).  No disrespect intended to our indigenous people, right?  Yeah …… sure.
• President Obama plans to use a Ground Zero speech to propel his personal political future (source).  Because there’s nothing better than leveraging the loss of thousands of innocent people for personal gain, is there.  Bin Laden is dead … but this changes little for many people who would rather have their loved ones home, alive and well.

While I am usually tremendously optimistic about the future of America, the possibility of such a future doesn’t just happen because America is a great country, because it has positive momentum towards unlimited potential and because it’s leadership is solely focused on the great citizens of America and not on their own personal gain.

It’s because the wonderful people of the great country that is the United States of America have always been known for doing the right thing and not just following the rhetoric being dished up to them by anyone, home or abroad.

But when I see headlines like the ones I note above, I can’t help but wonder if those wonderful people aren’t paying attention, since I don’t hear the public outcry demanding that things improve.

Or maybe these wonderful people are so crushed just trying to survive that they are unable to worry about these types of headlines.  After all, isn’t it easier to be consumed by the features in the next “smart phone du jour” than the future of one’s country?

If only such priorities improved the potential of the country.

The fact of the matter is that until we find the strength, courage and desire to hold our leaders accountable for providing accurate, transparent, authentic, respectful information and leadership, then we are not assured of being able to make the best decisions possible in our lives.

And when this happens, the opportunity to create continued growth and optimism is limited or delayed, creating additional difficulty for the millions of great Americans who are good, honest, hard-working people trying to create a better world for themselves, their families and their country.

So when the rhetoric or misinformation flies, it is indeed time to “wake up and smell the coffee” and to call it the way we see it, demanding better of our leaders  just as better is demanded of us by them.

Otherwise it may not be coffee we are smelling … and that’s not helpful for anybody.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

My detailed blog for “Time to Wake Up and Smell the ….” contains the same entry and can be found here.

The Power of Trusting Your Instinct

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop and I happened to notice a presentation that a gentleman was working on.

This was a guy who was a regular in this coffee shop.  No matter what time I stopped by, he was always there, sitting in the same seat, working on various presentations.  Lots of people write presentations in coffee shops.  However, his presentation was different.

In his PowerPoint presentation, he was writing about how non-Muslims are cattle and don’t deserve to live.  He also wrote a number of other things about how to solve the problem of so much “cattle”. I was intrigued and concerned so I made it my business to keep peeking over his shoulder to see what he was doing. 

What he wrote is not important here although it was clearly disturbing.  It was also clearly not an academic paper or a piece of fiction – this man was filled with a lot of anger and was capturing it in a manner to be shared with others, to encourage anger in them as well.

Their intention and their desired outcome was not good at all.

I reflected on this as the events transpired – what should I do?

After all, we are taught that everyone has the right to freedom of expression.

We are taught that everyone has the right to privacy.

We are taught to not make an invalid assumption that could hurt someone.

We are taught to mind our own business.

However, as I watched what he was writing, I realized something else.

He was against our right to the various freedoms we enjoy in the western world.

And he was willing to commit or encourage acts of violence to impose his will over mine or someone else’s.

That was when my instinct told me what I needed to do and I contacted local police authorities.  I shared what I observed and left it at that.

Within a few days, he stopped showing up a the coffee shop.

Was he arrested?

Was he tipped off?

Did he decide to go to another coffee shop for specific reasons?

Or was it all coincidence?

I’ll probably never know.

However, I do know that my instinct was alerting me to the high probability that what I was witnessing wasn’t right.

It was calling me to take action, even if I didn’t know what the right action was.

So I followed my instinct and took action.

Many times in our personal or professional lives, we are often faced with opportunities to make difficult decisions and many times, we get tied up in over-analyzing what we should do.

When we over-analyze what we need to do, we often talk ourselves out of taking any action or we spend so much time analyzing the situation that irrevocable things happen while we are still deciding what we should do.

When this happens, events transpire that may cause us grief or regret that we didn’t take action sooner (or that we hadn’t taken any action at all).

However, when we learn to trust our instinct, we discover that it is a greater gift than we realize.

And who knows – maybe some day, following your instinct may save a project, a relationship or even a company.

It may even save a life.

You just have to give your instinct a chance to cultivate.

And give yourself a chance to trust it and to follow what it tells you.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

For my detailed blog entry about “The Power of Trusting Your Instinct”, please click here.