And More

Recently I've finished re-reading Shelter for the Spirit: How to Make Your Home a Haven in a Hectic World. I saw the author speak in person at a Speaking of Women's Health conference several years ago. Nice, nurturing simple living read (with additional bonus of a short appendix with sections about homebirth and homeschooling :). It inspired me to change my Facebook profile quote to: "A simplified home feels friendlier. A simplified life seems easier. And remarkable joy comes from simple things--like having work to do that matters, and having people to love who matter a lot."

I also re-read Mother's Intention: How Belief Shapes Birth. Lots of good stuff in this one, though it does get repetitive after a while. She has a particular way with analogies that is just great--all kinds of good examples. She has a very straightforward, matter-of-fact style. I wish I could manage to be so honest/upfront with some of my childbirth education clients about "buying the hospital ticket and taking the hospital ride."

I read The Pocket Doula as well. It has lots of good pictures, no new information for me. Very conventional approach to standard interventions--doesn't question them at all.

I also read Fearless Fourteen and Finger-Lickin' Fifteen. Nothing like a little "dessert" every once in a while! :)

I think there may have been some others also, but I'm not keeping them in a to-blog-about pile anymore so I lose track!

67

Recent Reads

So, even though I've basically discontinued this blog, I still want to keep it updated periodically as a record of what I've been reading.

In the last couple of weeks, I've read:

Permission to Mother--short little natural mothering vignettes by a doctor and mother of three boys.

The Doula Guide to Birth--enjoyed it. Reviewed it for CfM and for CAPPA.

The Milk Memos--based on a series of notebooks kept by mothers pumping milk in the lactation room at IBM. I bought this at the LLL of MO conference this summer. A section I marked was about having "Etch-a-Sketch brain"--"she'd mentally jot down tasks throughout the day, only to find them suddenly wiped out and gone forever with the slightest 'shake up.'"

Fathers-To-Be Handbook--reviewing for CAPPA. A quick little "road map" for transitioning into fatherhood and a good resource for childbirth educators.

Awakening to the Dream--one of those semi-enlightening, semi-annoying Zen live-in-the-now books.

The Millionth Circle--a lightning quick read about women's circles (and how once we get to the millionth circle, patriarchy will be over and the world will be transformed). Liked two quotes: "Feminism catches fire when it draws upon its inherent spirituality. When it does not, it is just one more form of politics, and politics never fed our deepest hungers." --Carol Lee Flinders

and

Show up or choose to be present.
Pay attention to what has heart and meaining.
Tell the truth without blame or judgment.
Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome.

--Angela Arrien


62

Triggers

In June, I went to the LLL of MO conference in Columbia. We had two great keynote speakers who both spoke about discipline. The first was Elizabeth Pantley, best known for her The No-Cry Sleep Solution book. This is one of the most often checked out books in my LLL Group's lending library. She spoke about that book as well as presented material from her No-Cry Discipline Solution book. One of the things I connected with was about your "triggers"--what tends to get you upset/angry with your kids. Here is an excerpt from her book:

What sets you off?
Most parents get angry over issues that are insignificant in the grand scheme of life, yet happen on such a regular basis that they become blown out of proportion. Some of the most common parenting issues that trigger anger are whining, temper tantrums, sibling bickering, and non-cooperation. Determine which behaviors most bother you and set about making a plan to correct each problem that sets off your anger.

Notice your hot spots
In addition to triggers, there are “hot spots” in the day when anger more easily rises to the surface. These are typically times when family members are tired, hungry or stressed. These emotions leave us more vulnerable to anger. This can happen in the early morning, before naptime, before meals, or at bedtime. You may also encounter situations when misbehavior increases, and so does your anger: grocery shopping, playdates, or family visits, for example.

--From The No-Cry Discpline Solution by Elizabeth Pantley

My trigger is whining! Oh. My. Goodness. Our "hot spot" is when we're hungry (any of us) and my personal hot spot is when I'm trying to get ready to go somewhere--I have a very short temper when I'm trying to get out the door and feel like people are throwing rocks in my path! (somtimes literally ;-)

The other keynote was Lu Hanessian (of Let the Baby Drive--another very popular book in my LLL Group's library). One of the observations she made about trigger issues is that your specific triggers probably reflect your own personal issues--so, if you have a problem with whining, you probably have an issue with neediness. And if you have a problem with not being listened to, you really have an issue with validation/self-worth. It was very interesting and made a lot of sense.

Media Review: Time 4 Learning

Media Review: Time 4 Learning

www.time4learning.com

Last year marked my first “official” year homeschooling. Over the course of the year, we experimented with a variety of schooling options. I believe in life learning and am comfortable with a relaxed, very informal approach to homeschooling. However, I also discovered that I still have a strong part of me that feels the need for some type of formal “school” each day for my now 6 year old son. We primarily tried worksheets and found those boring, repetitive, and often pointless. We had periodic power struggles about whether he needed to do them or not and I found myself seeking another way to meet my need for a bit of school in every day, but not something oppressive or non-enjoyable.

Enter Time 4 Learning. I took the opportunity for a free trial membership for both of my sons. I discovered that my 3 year old was a little too young still to benefit from it and continued the trial with my soon to be 6 year old only. We discovered that Time 4 Learning fit neatly into the rhythm of our daily lives.

Though, the lessons are easily self-guided/directed even for a Kindergarten aged child, I did discover my son enjoys the program more and seems to benefit more when I sit with him on my lap while he works on it. At the beginning of our trial membership he complained that some of the lessons were boring and I discovered that those were the ones below his level, with me sitting there with him I am able to let him know it is okay to skip ahead or to just take the quiz instead of the complete lesson. After I started this approach, his enjoyment level went up and I don’t get any complaints!

At the Kindergarten level, there are lessons available in Language Arts, Math, and Science. I peeked ahead into the First Grade level and they really are a remarkably complete program/curriculum.

The lessons are self-guided and have a variety of themes—park, under the sea, kitchen/restaurant, etc. I liked the practical content included—for example to learn about measuring and measurement instruments, the child goes (virtually) to a chef’s kitchen and figures out how many cinnamon rolls can fit into different sized pans. For some areas there are supplementary stories or worksheets included. Each series of lessons about a specific topic is followed by a 10 question quiz and then the complete “chapter” of lessons is followed by a 20 question test. The tests are also self-guided and my son shows a high level of comprehension in taking them (higher than I expected, I confess!).

After completing “lesson time” for the day (the duration of which can be altered by the parent, but starts automatically at a minimum of 15 minutes), the child has the opportunity to visit the “playground” (again for a pre-defined amount of time—the default is 15 minutes). I found we spend 30-45 minutes on lessons with Time 4 Learning a day and that feels comfortable to both of us. My son can usually complete 3 or 4 different lessons and quiz during that amount of time.

We’ve spent about 6 weeks with the program now and I’ve noticed an increase in both his math and reading comprehension skills in everyday life—I think this is because we have more fun working together on the Time 4 Learning lessons than we ever did with worksheets!

We had minimal trouble with the audio on some of the language arts segments being difficult to distinguish between letter sounds.

Our only ongoing complaint for both of us is that the lessons do not let you click ahead until the instructions have finished playing—since the instructions are often very repetitive it gets frustrating to have to listen to them multiple times instead of being able to click ahead. On the tests and quizzes, you do have the capacity to click ahead.

Though I do not need to keep formal logs yet, I appreciate that the program offers a “portfolio” with a variety of reports in it for record keeping purposes. This can come in very handy!

We generally do Time 4 Learning in the morning, before the rest of day gets under way. This helps me get my personal need for “formal” school met and tidily out of the way. It makes more sense to me to have him work on a program like this instead of doing worksheets—it is similar content, but the interactive style makes it much more interesting for both of us.

Disclosure notice: The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own (and my son’s). I was compensated for writing the review.

I give up! Letting go...

...of this blog. Or, at least of my old vision for this blog. I do not have time for it any more and it has been more of a chore than anything for quite some time. I still want to keep a log of my yearly readings, so I think I'll keep posting periodically, but almost as more of a list than anything interesting. I do not have very many readers here and my other blog projects feel more important than this one--this was a hobby-blog really, or just for fun, and fun is usually what I let go of! Also, I have that depressing sense of adding to the virtual cacophony of voices with it and where's the value in that? This isn't the only thing I'm going to let go of, I've got to go through my life priorities and make some more cuts. This is just the easy one, because I've felt it kind of draining me for a while.

I really enjoy the book The Mother's Guide to Self-Renewal and I get the author's email newsletter. In the most recent issue--titled Do You Love Your Life?--it posed the following questions:

Are you living the life you've always wanted? Do you feel like you're the master of your life or the slave to it? Does how you spend your time reflect where your priorities lie or do you feel like your life is a list of "should's"?

Here are some questions for you (and if applicable, your partner) to consider:

• What do you value most in life right now (ex: time, relationships, flexibility, a short commute, your community)?
• Where does the majority of your energy go on a daily basis (work, household management, relationships, parenting, spiritual renewal, your to-do list)?
  
• Does your life feel a)overwhelming, b)barely manageable, c)occasionally hectic or d)pretty simple? (Check out these great tips for simplifying.)
  
• If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing that would significantly impact your quality of life, what would it be?
  
• What are three actions you could take right now to radically simplify your life and create more space, ease and flow in your day-to-day experience?

-----
These are good questions to consider...as I answered some of them, I duly noted that "write Molly Reads... blog" wasn't on there! ;-)

I've referenced before how I have kind of a black and white view of my tasks/commitments. If I cannot give something my all, it eats and picks at me until I decided to cut my losses and move on. I can't just leave something and say, "I'll work on this later, when I have more time. I have to make the cut. I have to quit. I have to totally dump it! So, I'm not sure if my only-post-a-list/sentence plan will actually work, or if it will continue to lurk in my brain as an unfinished to-do until I truly shut it down for good.

The Tipping Point

I recently finished reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. I enjoyed it a good deal more than Outliers, which I also read recently. The sections I marked in this one were about personality and core traits vs. environment. I come from a social work background, a field in which I have often explained using the following: psychology deals with the individual person. Sociology deals with society. Social work addresses person in environment. And, so did these section from The Tipping Point:

"All of us, when it comes to personality, naturally think in terms of absolutes: that a person is a certain way or not a certain way...this is a mistake, that when we think only in terms of inherent traits and forget the role of situations, we're deceiving ourselves about the real causes of human behavior..."

"The mistake we make in thinking of character as something unified and all-encompassing is very similar to a blind spot in the way we process information. Psychologists call this tendency the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), which is a fancy way of saying that when it comes to interpreting other people's behavior, human beings invariably make the mistake of overestimating the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of situation and context. We will always reach for a 'dispositional' explanation for events, as opposed to a 'contextual' explanation."

What I think is interesting about this is that my observation is in our OWN behavior though, we use the contextual explanation (sometimes excessively so, particularly when the behavior is out of character for how we'd like to be/believe we are). In short, we quickly assume other people have fundamental character flaws, but we have contextual excuses for ourselves!

I was also interested by the Good Samaritan study he referenced (in which seminary students were told to go make a presentation--some were told they had "extra time" and others were told they were late. Some of them were actually speaking about the Good Samaritan and others about something else. Some were in seminary because of a calling and others for other reasons. They each encountered a [fake] sick person collapsed on the street needing help. The defining factor about who stopped to help was whether they thought they had extra time--those with extra time stopped. Those who though they were late, stepped over him, even if they were going to speak about the Good Samaritan!): "What this study is suggesting, in other words, is that the convictions of your heart and the actual contents of your thoughts are less important, in the end, in guiding your actions than the immediate context of your behavior."

I don't know that I like this idea, but it does seem consistent with reality (for better or worse).

I also noted his conclusion to the book: "Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push--in just the right place--it can be tipped."

56

Lady of the Snakes

Our August book club read was the fiction book Lady of the Snakes. As you will soon read, I'm changing my approach to this blog and basically "retiring" it, so I will just go ahead and share briefly the quotes I'd marked from it (only two):

"This is what women's lives are like...It had never occurred to her--not really--that women's lives were so deeply different from men's. Now she saw it, and it shocked her."

I recall a similar moment in my own life after my first son was born--my husband went back to work and all of the sudden I was like, my whole WORLD has changed and he is going along basically business as usual. I felt like it was unfair, in a sense, to BOTH of us--me for having to undergo what I experienced as an often painful transition of self from autonomous woman to mother on my own, and for him having his own transition so ignored/unacknowledged by our culture that he was expected to just return to work like nothing had happened.

Quoting from the Russian diarist:

"In moments of despair I have felt each new child like another silken thread binding up my soul. But on happier days I see each one--not so much as a new beginning, but as a new note in a complex harmony, adding depth and resonance to a tapestry that already exists."

"Jane Levitsky sat at her desk thinking of the different moods of motherhood--joyful, oppressive, tedious. Peaceful. Exhausting."

This reminded me of something else I used to say/feel: How is it possible to simultaneously feel so captivated and yet captive, bonded and also bound?


55

And some more...

"Be broad-minded,
Whole, without relying
On others."

--Hongzhi Zhengjue

"With gentleness,
Overcome anger.
With generosity,
Overcome meanness.
With truth,
Overcome delusion."

--The Dhannapada

More Zen

"Peace does not dwell in outward things, but within the soul; we may preserve it in the midst of the bitterest pain, if our will remains firm and submissive. Peace in this life springs from acquiescence, not in an exemption from suffering."

--Francis Fenelon


"Most people believe the mind to be a mirror, more or less accurately reflecting the world outside them, not realizing on the contrary that the mind is itself the principal element of creation."

--Rabindranath Tragore

Ode

I may have mentioned before that I love Ode magazine ("for intelligent optimists"). I sort of accidentally ended up subscribing to it about threeish years ago and I'm a fan. I saved two recent issues (there are 10 a year) and brought them along to read on the plane during our just-completed trip to California. The August issue had a theme of "Laughter" and I really enjoyed it. I marked the following quote to share from the article "In the beginning was the joke: why cheerfulness is next to godliness":

"So what are we here for? Your modern neo-Darwinist is perfectly certain--for no reason. That just doesn't cut it for me...I prefer this take by the composer Aaron Copland (simply replace the word 'music' with the word 'life'): 'The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, 'Is there a meaning to music?' My answer would be 'Yes.' And 'Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?' My answer to that would be, 'No.'"

Thoughts on Thinking

Today is our 11th wedding anniversary! There is time only for zen quotes...

"Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility...Without this inner peace, no matter how comfortable your life is materially, you may still be worried, disturbed, or unhappy because of circumstances."

--Dalai Lama

"In the root and stem of your own psyche, there is an accumulation of bad habits. If you cannot see through them and act independently of them, you will unavoidably get bogged down along the way."

--Yuansou

"We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking. We move along the surface of things...but there are times when we stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory. We listen, and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper."

--James Carroll

The Paradox of Natural Mothering

I'm getting ready to go out of town and prepping a couple of posts to post when I'm away (be prepared for lots more Zen quotes!). I haven't had a lot of time for this blog lately and continue to go back and forth about keeping it going. I always end up returning to the decision to keep it going, because I do enjoy it, in theory. I do not like that it becomes another thing on my to-do list and feels like an obligation, rather than fun. (This is how I work though, I turn everything into a serious "job" instead of "just for fun" and if I don't do something that I've committed to doing--even if only to myself on a hobby basis, like "update blog on Saturdays"--I feel irresponsible and it nags and nags at me mentally until I do it or QUIT for good. Though I laugh a lot in real life, I also tend to be one of those "all work, no play" kind of people who doesn't really know how to "relax and have a good time"--and, am actually kind of irritated by those who blow everything off to relax and have a good time! Note that I have to even put the possibility of "relaxing and having a good time" in quotation marks, because at heart I'm not sure it is actually possible ;-)

Part of my problem with this blog is that I have tons and tons of thoughts about everything I read and many things I'd like to draw out to write about and explore. I rarely have time to post as completely as I'd like though and, in fact, I'm actually trying hard to just post a paragraph or less per book so that I don't end up with a giant backlog in my to-blog-about pile, but I still feel like I'd like to do a lot more analysis than I do here--I always have so many quotes marked to share and then have to quit before I get a chance to share them. My to-blog-about pile is still insane--I move books out of it fairly quickly, but I have masses of magazines and articles I am meaning to write about and they lurk and make me feel guilty (totally and completely self-imposed! What is wrong with me?!)

In other news, this was a good week for publications for me. I've posted several other places about them, but why not here too?!

I had a short article called Centering for Birth published in the International Journal of Childbirth Education (page 20)

My book review of Fathers at Birth was published in The CAPPA Quarterly (page 14).

My film review of Birth as We Know It was in The CAPPA Quarterly (page 15).

And, my piece of creative nonfiction Nursing Johnny Depp was published in Literary Mama. I had more feedback from this essay than I've ever had about any of my other writing, combined! This was my 85th publication (up to 89 total now! Yes, I keep a list!). I think I got so many comments because it was so readily available online. It was also a funny piece, which is not my usual type of writing. The experiences described in it are from over a year ago and they accepted it for publication about 6 months ago, so this was a long time coming. In reading it again, I'm glad I wrote it because it has captured some moments in time that are past now. Z rarely asks me to nurse any toys for him anymore and if I hadn't written the essay, something would have been lost.

Okay, after some complaining and some bragging, I had a few books to post about today:

I re-read The Paradox of Natural Mothering. I really enjoy this book. Lots of food for thought. It is a little uncomfortable to read too because she is so spot-on in her analysis of mothers like me. It is strange to feel "under the microscope." The author herself is a "quasi-natural mother," so the analysis isn't harsh criticism, but it is a critical look at the "cult" (my word, not hers) of natural mothering and has a LOT of excellent discussion about feminism and natural mothering. I've been amassing a lot of things I'd like to share about feminism and birth and motherhood, but this is one of those takes-too-long-to-completely-delve into things that I may never get a chance to do :( She says--and I completely agree--that natural mothering represents the intersection of three ideological frameworks: voluntary simplicity, attachment parenting, and cultural feminism. Anyway, hopefully I will someday share some more of my thoughts about this book. It is definitely worth the read!

I also finished reading Homebirth in the Hospital. I am reviewing it for CfM News and I already wrote a bit about it there yesterday.

See? That's all I can manage for today and the push-pull between enjoying the idea behind this blog/wanting to share my reads and feeling like it is another drag on my time and resources continues...

I guess if I'd wasted less time complaining at the beginning, I would have had more time for book-analyzing!

54

Present Moment

"If we could see the miracle
of a single flower clearly,
our whole life would change."

--Buddha

"Our true home is in the present moment.
To live in the present moment is a miracle.
The miracle is not to walk on water.
The miracle is to walk on the green Earth
in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and
beauty that are available now."

--Thich Nhat Hanh

Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering

This week I finished reading a couple of books. I'd looked forward to reading Sarah Buckley's Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering for a long time. It used to only be available from Australia and the shipping was prohibitive. The U.S. edition came out this past edition and I finally bought it for myself. It was a good book, don't get me wrong, but a lot less creative/inspirational/unconventional than I expected. I was expecting one of those phenomenal birth books that really "goes beyond," but much of the content was a review of the literature/research basically and was actually fairly dry. I loved reading her birth story and her placenta story and her breastfeeding story. There was good evidence-based information about several topics--gestational diabetes, GBS, VBAC, cord clamping, for example--that will definitely make it into my birth blog posts. It is definitely a book worth having. It also seems to be written for the first-time mother who perhaps has had little prior exposure to/information about evidence-based maternity care.

I also finished reading Mother Blessings: Honoring Women Becoming Mothers, which was one of my birthday presents this year from my mom. I'm going to a mother blessing tomorrow, so this was a timely read :) It had a couple of new ideas in it for me like making "birth dolls" together (cool!) and also a family mandala project that sounded really neat (I think I will do it with my kids instead of at a mother blessing).

And, I finished reading The Answer: Making Sense of Life, One Question at a Time. Sections were interesting, but overall I found it kind of "shallow." The author made extensive pop-culture references that I found kind of self-conscious and forced--like, "look how hip I am!" or something. You couldn't go more than two pages without the SAME SENTENCE--"as XYZ musician might sing...[lyrics related to the life question at hand]." Lots of references to tv shows, movie dialog, etc. It grated on my nerves. The central idea was cool though--life is a question and you are an answer--and the author had some good insights to share as well. In the section about "am I missing something?" (which I identified with--that urge to stay "caught up" and make sure I'm not missing anything important!) she said after mentioning Schubert's Eighth Symphony (The Unfinished Symphony), "Because you are full of unlimited potential you will always have more music in you, and yet what you have already composed can stand on its own if you're willing to let it." (emphasis mine). As you may recall, one of my favorite quotes is about not dying with you music still in you. I loved this reminder about what I've already composed :)

That's all I have time for today! Time for 4th of July BBQ, cotton candy, and fireworks!

52

Bearing Meaning

Last week I finished reading Bearing Meaning: The Language of Birth by Robbie Pfeufer Kahn. This had been on my wishlist for ages and I was excited to read it. As it goes with most dissertations-turned-books, it was a somewhat dense and heavy read and I worked through it kind of slowly. I've quoted from it on the CfM blog already and plan to also write about it on Talk Birth. I enjoyed it, but it was different than I expected. I was looking for an analysis of the language used surrounding birth and though I suppose the book addressed that, it was more about the embodied connection between mother and baby and how that is denied/suppressed/ignored/thwarted. So, interesting, but not quite what the title let me to believe. There was an extensive analysis of Williams Obstetrics and also of Our Bodies, Ourselves (and the contrast between the two books attitudes towards the female body).

She also talks about the term "womanist," which I've always liked (comes from Alice Walker), as an more inclusive definition of feminist: "Womanist acknowledges women like the early activists who honor the maternal body ('roundness') within 'women's culture'...a womanist woman experiences the maternal body ('loves roundness') as connected to nature ('Loves the Moon') and the divine ('Loves the Spirit')."

I also finished reading Sheila Kitzinger's Education and Counseling for Childbirth. I'm going to write about it on the ICEA blog.

At least I managed to make a post this week, albiet an incomplete one. I'm working on an article right now that needs to be submitted by the 30th, plus working on some book reviews for a journal, so my writing energy is diverted in those directions...

49

Zen Again...

Today I entered to win a cool sling from Nature's Child (if you would like to enter too--click here). One can never have too many slings! I "won" a Hotslings pouch at the silent auction at the LLL conference last weekend ($6) and was happy about that.

I did finish several books this week, but all I have time for is some Zen calendar quotes (again! I'm starting to go through my semi-regular, "perhaps I should retire this blog/what's the point" thoughts):

"Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral."

--John Burroughs

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

--Anne Frank

Outliers

Our June book club read was Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. Ostensibly, "the story of success" I felt like the book was sort of hastily written, shallowly explored, and sort of lacking a main point that I expected to read about--"what is success anyway?"

Instead, it is a a semi-random seeming look at several individual people and groups of people and the reasons behind their "success":

"I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations [pull himself up by his bootstraps] of success don't work. People don't rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sens eof the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The cutlure we belong to and the legacies passed won by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievment in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It's not enough to ask what successful people are like, in other words,. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeds and who doesn't.

Biologists often talk about the 'ecology' of an organism: the tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew from the hardist acorn; it is the tallest also because no other trees blocked its sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich, no rabbit chewed through its bark as a sapling, and no lumberjack cut it down before it matured. We all know that successful people come from hardy seeds. But do we know enough about the sunlight that warmed them, the soil in which they put down the roots, and the rabbits and lumberjacks they ere lucky enough to avoid? This is not a book about tall trees. It's a book about forests..."

I guess I get a little bored by forests, because my eyes started to glaze a bit when he began to analyze the birth dates of successful hockey players and the cultural background of plane-crashing-pilots...

He did have some things to say about meaningful work, which I'm always interested in: "Work that fulfills those three criteria [complexity, autonomy, and relationship between effort and reward] is meaningful. Being a teacher is meaningful. Being a physician is meaningful. So is being an entrepreneur...Hard work is a prison sentence on if it does not have meaning."

More about the hard work--a sentiment that I actually take some issue with: "But a belief in work ought to be a thing of beauty. Virtually every success story we've seen in this book so far involves someone or some group working harder than their peers...Working really hard is what successful people do..."

And I really start to take some issue with his opinions about hard work and public education: "'We had a girl in this class...She was a horrible math student in fifth grade. She cried every Saturday when we did remedial stuff. Huge tears and tears...She just e-mailed us a couple of weeks ago. She's in college now. She's an accounting major." I get stuck a little on this--so it is a "success" to make a child cry and cry over work she hates if she then ends up majoring in a related field? (and my question is also, did she choose accounting because she actually likes it, or because she was trained to think it was a "successful" field and that she would make more money in it...)

The conclusion too made me stumble (and this is where I find the book really lacking in a critical assessment of any kind as to what constitutes success--the title would suggest we're only talking about the cream of the crop. The truly extraordinary. The very unusual successes. And, yes, there is the obligatory Bill Gates analysis included therein. But, it also talks about "the success of Asians at math" and about hockey players, so...): "...how many more would now live a life of fulfillment, in a beautiful house high on a hill?"

That's it. The last line in the book. Is that the culmination of success? A beautiful house high on a hill? I think success is more multifaceted than that. And, it also depends a great deal on what value system you are coming from as what constitutes success--my own value system does NOT agree that working 360 days a year is the best road to success. (One of his quotes was a proverb about anyone who works 360 days a year cannot fail to make his family rich.) If you are "addicted" to your computer (or whatever) and slaving away to be the "top" of your field, how are your relationships doing? I'd venture to say poorly. It reminded me of The Last Lecture in that perhaps this is a "male" lens with which to view success--hard work, lots of money. Other research has shown that women "tend and befriend," so perhaps that is why I consider quality of relationship part of my own definition of success.

I have LOTS more I'd like to say and other thoughts that I had, but this will suffice for now and I doubt I will end up having time to come back and add to this post. So, this analysis/exploration this will remain imperfect and incomplete, but so be it!

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Yes...

I'm going to be out of town this weekend at a conference and thus unable to post about any books (weirdly though, I haven't finished ANY this week--I'm in the middle of several).

So, all I have to offer this week are some quotes from last year's Zen calendar:

"So let your awareness be vast and inclusive as if the whole world is taking plac einside your mind. Hear everything, see everything, feel everything with this simple greeting on your lips 'Yes.'"

--Gary Rosenthal

"A happy life consists of tranquility of mind."
--Cicero

"You shouldn't allow yourself
to be confused by others.
Act when you need to,
without further hesitation or doubt.
People today can't do this.
What is their affliction?
Their affliction is in their
lack of self-confidence."
--Linji

Diplomats and Breastfeeding

I had an interesting dream last night that I feel inspired to post about. I was in a sort of waiting room area with quite a few people in it including my sister-in-law and also a Diplomat (distinguished older gentleman with gray hair). Z wanted to nurse and so I picked him up and then turned slightly away from the diplomat in order to start nursing him. My sister-in-law said something like, "I see you're trying to hide from everyone. I can't believe you're STILL breastfeeding him." The diplomat then said, "at the Embassy we have an old saying: we work together as smoothly and comfortably as a good latch."

LOL! My dreaming brain cracks me up :)

Small openings...

A couple of weeks ago at the church, the topic was "The Purpose Driven Life, or: Why Do You Get Up in the Morning?" (originally a sermon given at the UU church of Fort Myers, FL). Anyway, I liked how it opened: "The above question stirs in that 'frighteningly honest' 'small opening into the new day which closes the moment you begin your plans.' How you answer it is what gets you going, keeps you focused, and convinces you life's worth all the effort." I realized that I rarely get a chance to notice that "small opening" in the new day any more--I have to hop up and get down to work too quickly. What I've observed in the past is that each day dawns with a sense of optimism and promise and like, "the world is spread out before me and what a wonderful place it is!" but that I can quickly get derailed or lose that sense of "wonder" and get bogged in minutinae (which reminds to remember my "elimination of nonessentials" quote from a few posts ago--it is my new favorite quote to help keep me on track).