EcoHeart for Life

Posted on October 12, 2011 by venagozar

I have a few posts about living through the Heart and not the Ego. Unfortunately this is not one of my favorite subjects because it is vague and opaque, and of interest to only a few people. Many people are naturally turned off by alternative ideas about a different and possibly better way of living that does not follow how they live now. It goes against their lifetime of experience. It goes against the grain of their lifetime.

However I will eventually go down that avenue. We need to raise our awareness and responsibilities to each other and the soil we live on. Living through your heart keeps life choices simple. Choices made when living through your heart are arrived at with respect and responsibility. Decisions made through the Heart are made for all living things on this earth and the Earth itself.

Many people find new ideas or ways of thinking silly, non existent, something only for crackpots, or evil. I was one of those people. I spent over half my life thinking these types of people were dropped on their heads at birth or had some other problem that made them abnormal. I too thought their ideas were between over reacting to silly and did not apply to my life. What is wrong with these people anyway!

There was nothing wrong with the way everyone lived when I was a young boy. The Earth was ours to do with what we wanted, and the Earth would be okay. Sunday School Teachers and my regular School Teachers told me this was so. Dangerous chemicals being sprayed with abandon would break down quickly into harmless states. Garbage and other waste would decompose back into rich earth. Air was cleaned and refreshed and made wholesome by thunder and lightning storms.

My Teacher told us about something called Acid Rain. A few years after that I was told about DDT. It was okay because it was happening somewhere else, not where I lived. They fogged streets in the area and the kids would play in the fog. It was harmless fun, and no parent thought it was really harmful. After all it was a mosquito killer called DDT. What could be wrong with an insecticide that killed mosquitoes?

Teachers told us we should not drink water from the lakes we swam in and local creeks we played in. That water in these places was now a sewage path full of poop and pee, and other household wastes from houses built next to the lakes, creeks and wetlands. We were told the foam in the water was not “Sea Foam” as we kids believed, but detergent from cleaners and laundry products.

Teachers said water in the creeks and streams where I lived in Minnesota were not the clean or healthy water it looked like to us. None of us kids believed that line either. We thought or decided Teachers were exaggerating, making it worse than it really was. We kids were sure Teacher’s did not want us to have any fun. Teacher’s thought it was dangerous swimming in lakes without lifeguards and this was their way of keeping us safe.

Where I lived in rural Minnesota everything was peachy keen. Those problems happened somewhere else. “Sea Foam” had been present in the water since I could remember (all of five to ten years of memories), and I was told it was Sea Foam by Adults, so that must be what it was. I never saw anyone use the bathroom in the water either from those houses.

A year later our Teachers started telling us not to eat snow any more. Because of Nuclear Weapons testing, and Air Pollution, whatever that was, snow and rain was no longer safe for us kids to eat. We did not believe that story either. When I was a kid eating snow was a rite of being outside in the winter, as was catching rain in our mouth in the summer

I believed my teachers were telling tall tales until I stepped on a large turd in waist deep water while swimming at the lake one sunny July day. Scraping someone’s crap off my foot, I realized the lake really was nothing more than a huge septic tank. My Teachers were right. I no longer wanted to eat fish from that lake or most other lakes and streams with houses around them.

Most adults who thought we could live that way forever were very wrong. Those few Teachers and other people like them had the ability to see beyond their lifetime what the world would be like if we did not change how we lived. They were dreamers with vision. These few people correctly imagined our future if we did not change how we were living.

Know Your Formal and Informal Expectations

Posted on March 25, 2010 by venagozar

No matter where you live, what you do, or how young or old you are, sooner or later you know there are expectations that apply to you. Those expectations are not always stated or obvious but are there all the same. Getting along in your family group, work group, or with friends means certain expectations are met.

There is a general division of labor, that is sex, educational, and job based. Terms are used to define the types of labor are used as a rough indicator of work expectations. The terms are “Blue Collar”, and “White Collar”, define what you do for a job, and how you do it.

If you do physical work for a living you are considered a ‘Blue Collar’ worker because you wear work clothes and do physical labor. You know your job as a portion of a larger project. You require some direction and some level of supervision to be successful in your job.

If you have a college education or smart and lucky, you work in an office and you managed your own work or projects. Someone is your boss, but has little day to day interaction with you about your work. You are considered a ‘White Collar’ worker if you meet these criteria. You know what your job is, how to it, and you alone are responsible completing your work.

Growing up from young child to adult, people around you change their expectations of you as you grow. It is almost like a change from blue collar to white collar worker as you mature. As a child you are usually doing something because a parental figure told you too, and doing that something because it needs to be done. As you grow, you do more on your own because you know they need to be done.

Expectations in the work place, social circles, and families are both formal and informal. There are tasks you must complete, and certain behaviors are expected from you. In your social life, your family expects good manners, and your respect for each of them. Your friends expect you think like they do, and to be there for them if they need your help.

Informal expectations are harder to define because they are not talked about nor obvious. In a business setting, a company has policies in place that determine how employees are expected to conduct themselves, and solves differences. These are written down somewhere and everyone working for the company is expected to know them and follow them.

Informal business expectations may on occasion appear to conflict with formal expectations. For example, there may be a formal company expectation of how problems are solved. This may involve a formal process of creating a system of problem definition, all possible solutions, mapped out better solutions, leading to a best solution. Informally, the correct solution may one that is decided over a beer after work, or a weekend basketball game.

Knowing what informal expectations in your work or social group are and following them is important. Informal expectations may mean publicly supporting decisions out of your control while privately disagreeing with them. You company expects you to meet certain standards of dress, behavior and language. These are formal expectations and are written down and talked about.

Completing certain family chores necessary for family unity and happiness without being told once you reach a certain age become informal expectations. Breaking one or more of these expectations and conflict is sure to follow. If you are young adult newly living on your own, new to the workplace, or joining a new group, learning both formal and informal expectations makes your day go better.

Bad Decisions Can Hurt

Posted on February 21, 2010 by venagozar

I was in a conversation today when an interesting remark was made. The remark is applicable to many conversations and circumstances. Once heard I thought the remark would be applicable as a life compass to help everyone make better decisions. Decisions we find ourselves making are not always the best when we look at them after the fact. I will use driving as a simple example here too with myself as the main character.

The morning starts out bad. The power went out, the alarm clock died, I wake up late because of of the clock and the power, and because I went to bed later than I should have the night before. I start my car, and think if I drive fast to work I will make it faster than if I take my time and follow the speed limits. The time saved is really only a minute or two, and the speed limits are fast enough. That is reasonable thinking although I am not thinking reasonably at the moment.

I am almost to wherever I am going, and suddenly there is a police car behind me with red lights flashing. The Policeman has done his duty, no slacking off for him, and I am looking at a hefty fine. Checking my watch I see I have lost ten minutes when I only was two minutes ahead anyway. Now there is the matter of my insurance company finding out, and depending on what I do for a living, the company I work for.

Getting to work in thirty-two minutes late instead of thirty-six minutes late is not a life changing event. A speeding ticket in in and of itself is not a major life changing situation. Hitting another car, and injuring the other driver, or running over someone crossing the street because I was racing along, would be a life changing event I would live with the rest of my life.

The issue of abortion for example; in the thinking of some people is getting the abortion is not the whole issue. What is the whole issue, is the behavior that led up to getting pregnant in the first place. Why would anyone get pregnant with someone they do not wish to have a baby with? Why was someone having unprotected sex if they did not wish to be pregnant in the first place?

Pregnancy and abortion are trigger words for high profile articles, and are used here to point out a thinking flaw most of us tend to share at one time or another in our lives. We find ourselves taking an action even though we dread one of the possible outcomes. We somehow prevent ourselves, or downplay that outcome while we are making the decision.

If you have not guessed by now the remark, and I bet you thought I forgot about it and went off on a tangent, was a word picture about getting pregnant when not planning to, by someone you do not want a baby with. The actual wording is of little importance, but the idea behind it should be on the top of everyones decision making list.

As I thought about what was said, I saw another ‘Rule of Three’ in the making.

What are the worst possible outcomes within reason?

Is the best outcome worth the risk of the worst outcome(s) actually happening?

How seriously will the outcomes you do not want, if they happen change your life?

When looked at through those three lenses, what seems like a good idea at the moment is not worth the risk of what could happen if something goes wrong. If something goes wrong, looking at yourself in the mirror every day, knowing a poor choice you made, because you can not make it right, is the real painful result. Who wants to wake every day knowing it easily could have been a different choice if only?

Option Of Changing The World

Posted on January 20, 2010 by venagozar

Are you going to do it, or not? What will your choice be? Every day when we are actually awake and paying attention, there are available options. Because you are reading this, you have many more options than half the people in the world. You more than half the population of the world can take and option that may change the world forever in ways never imagined.

As we go through our day most of us are not aware of making any choices. The way we tend to think about our day is everything is pretty much planned out. We know what we are going wear, what we are going to do, when we are going to eat, and what we will do with our free time.

In the course of thinking what we are going to do we will have made a number of decisions. The simple act of waking and deciding what we are going to do with our day involves any number of decisions we are not even aware we are making.

Do we really have to wear the clothes we picked out, spend our day doing what we know or decided we need to do, and end our day in the manner we determined we would when we woke? For the most part we do have to do what we have planned because we are on autopilot. If we do not do what we planned, it is possible we will have made some choices that take us down avenues of life we never thought possible.

When paying attention to how the day unfolds, there are small decisions that need to be made depending on circumstance. These are the options that pop up every day. Subtle small choices that really seem to have no impact on anything we are doing or are likely to do. Big things sometimes come in packages so small we never even notice they exist.

For example, it is not uncommon in these times to have people at intersections holding out their hands, a can, or a hat, asking for money. Some hold signs, some stand dejectedly looking at nothing in particular. It is so common most people hardly notice any more.

Someone you see everyday looks like they are having a really bad day even though you were not told about it. Maybe you are the only person to notice, or maybe you are the last person to notice that something is wrong in their life. Do you pretend you do not see their pain and suffering like everyone else has today?

The phone rings and it is someone asking for donations for some charity. They spend whatever seconds you give them trying to convince you that the situation is desperate and it is practically your civic duty to part with some hard earned dollars for their cause. Maybe it is important, and maybe it is a scam to part the unsuspecting from their money.

These are options that enter life almost each and every day. Some are so small and slippery they enter and leave without being noticed. Others are larger, and demand not only attention, but possibly time or money.

There are the few and far between well disguised big options. Everything in your life has happened for this very moment. The chaos of life has collaborated to create a sequence of events to put you into a position where you are the only person who can take the option to act on something that needs to be done.

It may not be an option of epic proportions such as Jason and the Golden Fleece, Sacajawea, or Marie Currie, but it may be as big, or bigger. When everything falls into place at the right, or wrong time, you may well be the only person in the world with the totally unique qualifications to accept this particular option and follow it to its end.

Of course there is always the option of passing. Saying no, or doing nothing. That is the most painless way away from the situation. In doing that the world will go on as it always has, and the option of doing something meaningful and making a difference will slip into the future somewhere, to appear again in another form. Waiting until the time is right for you to be given an option.

Life options such as these can be though of as entrances to a building you have never entered before, and know nothing about. WIthout realizing, you have the option of going through the door – or not. If you do nothing, nothing will change. If you choose the option to go through the door, you may change the world in ways you never imagined.

It doesn’t take courage to take an option. It doesn’t take strength, stamina, or athletic ability. It does take an awareness to know the seriousness of the option you are presented with and wisdom to make the correct decision. Will you take the option?

Pregnant Soldiers in Iraq

Posted on December 22, 2009 by venagozar

On the news tonight, Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo has made it a punishable offense for women and their military partners becoming pregnant in Iraq. Of course some of our nations most powerful Women’s groups, and some U.S. Senators are sending out letters, phone calls, and are putting their political influence into the equation to have this general order overturned.

Any person in charge, whether it is a Mom and Pop shop, or a world wide company needs to have certain granted authorities to be effective. For the Military, this authority is even more critical. No company, especially a military organization, can be effective if its leaders do not have the authority they need to perform or complete tasks in their area of responsibility.

Imagine what would happen if a leader of a company was not informed of the companies tactical and strategic plans? The company leader when meeting with high level customers would not have the confidence to pitch the company to those customers. Nor would they be able to do the normal give and take of business negotiations. The company leader would not even be able to know if they were making round or square widgets a year down the road. Their position would be severely compromised.

Any business needs a certain minimum number of people to get the job done. The military, same as high tech, or other niche company, spends a lot of time and money developing people to do a specific job. For jobs in the military, it may take months of training and practice to obtain basic proficiency in a certain task.

In my senior year of high school, there was a draft board and a draft. I was appalled at the number of people I knew who were my age, that were desperate to evade the draft. Not because they believed war was wrong for whatever reason, but were scared to serve their country because they could be wounded or killed.

When my orders were called out as I was ending initial military job training, I was aghast to hear I was going overseas for three years. I steeled up and decided I signed my name on the dotted line, and I was responsible for keeping my end of my contract. I broke the news to my family, and made a conscious choice to make lemonade out of the situation.

During my first year overseas, some of my fellow workers decided they did not want to be either in the military and/or overseas. Suddenly there was a rash of people who ‘got religion’ and became pacifists. Others went to the First Sergeant and declared they were ‘Gay’. This was 1980 when it was not well accepted to be Gay in most places of our society.

A decade later when we were in the first of what seems to be a long term conflict in the Middle East; Men I worked shoulder to shoulder to for years suddenly were having back, knee, and other hard to disprove ailments trying to cheat their way out of their commitment.

Women have always known that allowing themselves to become pregnant was a free ticket out of the military. In a peace time environment, the numbers of pregnancies were low, and I imagine it did not matter that much. In a war zone however, the situation is completely different. All women soldiers signed up to rake on an important role, and all are needed and depended on for being there to do their job.

These groups, and even the Senators are wrong in trying to step in and halt the Commander from imposing a penalty for a soldier becoming pregnant along with her partner. There are penalties for becoming over weight, taking illegal drugs, and pretending to be ill when you are not. Sanctions such as Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo’s newest are no different.

Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo should be left to manage his manpower as he sees fit. We as citizens do not make good arm chair military policy makers. Let the sighted lead the sighted, and do not mix up personal choice, civilian rights, with military policy. Most women and men in todays armed forces are doing the best job they can, and they serve their country with pride, what about them, what is fair for these proud soldiers?

We are waiting for you

Posted on February 5, 2009 by venagozar

We should not define ourselves through the approval or disapproval of others, but rather by accepting ourselves and appreciating who we are. When we are young children, maybe even babies we do things that elicit a reaction. If moving the muscles in our face receives a response, we try it again. If it works a second time it becomes a part of who we are.

Being accepted and approved of by those around us is very important to our well being. It is what makes society function from a tribal setting to a country of billions. If we are not accepted by those around us for who we are, it is hard to be happy.

Often we take the need to be accepted farther than we should. We do certain things or perform certain acts, not because we want to, but because it is something we think we need to do to receive acceptance from those around us.

Often those rituals we are performing are restrictions we place upon ourselves. Dressing a certain way is a good example. When we are children it never enters our minds how we are dressed. It is only when others in our social circle start to notice what we are wearing that our clothing becomes important to us.

This forming and changing to conform rules our life throughout our high school and early adult years. We conform and change so often we are not even aware we are doing it, and have been doing it. As we change, we change our speech, our taste in television, books, and other entertainment, and opinions of people and the world.

We wake each day and put a happy face on for the world to see, showing everyone we come into contact with how much like them we are. We observe certain few people who seem to be naturals in our chosen circle and emulate them. We also start feeling less than because we are not that talented and natural at being who we want the world to see we are the same as that person or persons.

What would happen if instead of trying to be like everyone else with a few minor differences, we worked on becoming ourselves? Really being who we are, and not settling for being a little bit of who we really are?

Each day we wake, each of us makes almost invisible changes from who everyone thinks we are to who we really are. Most of the time we are not even aware of the process. It may be something as odd as waking up, and wondering why we said what we said to someone the day before. Or maybe why we watched a different television program the night before instead of the program we always watch.

Our inner self knows who and what we really are, and manipulates subtle changes in our lives to help us become us, and not a poor clone of who we think we want to be. Women are the most obvious and successful example during middle age. We men go through a major process too, but we are not as successful as women are in identifying and becoming the real us.

Those people we tried to emulate all those years, were themselves, and they were comfortable with who they were. The real us is perfect too once we remove all the additions and subtractions we made to ourself to fit in. The real us is the person who has stripped away all expectations belonging to others about us, and they become the person they were born to be.

Once we are us, and not an act, we start to have a clear understanding of why we are in this world, and what our true purpose is. At this point we enter in a race against time to accomplish whatever it is we were meant to do.

How much healthier it would be if we did not wait until some future time to become us, stripped away the facade starting right now, and became the real us. How much more we could accomplish as we perfect ourselves along the way instead of going through separate processes. Who am I, and what is my purpose would not be as painful of a process. We need you, start now on the path to finding you.

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