First,what you about to read is neither right nor wrong. It just is. OK?
I notice that this thread started by a female (Sherri). Once Sherri
started, others come out and support Sherri. It fascinates me to see the
development of this thread. I don't think it is an coincidence that it
takes a woman to initiate this type of thread. I sense that it's more of
an invisible role. We live in a society where certain topics are taken
seriously only when initiate by certain people. From where I stand, I
sense that if it wasn't Sherri (a female), but rather a male who started
this thread, the response/reaction/volume would have been different. This
is 21st century, but when it comes to emotion and feeling, we still have
the caveperson mentality. We still want to protect female, and let the
male fight the battle. Unless we filter our behavior to be politically
correct, we will find ourselves behave this way.
Now that's out of the way, my next thought has to do with the inner
circle/ posters and learners. Bear with me if this post sounds
convoluted, but I am just typing what comes to mind without worrying about
the consequences.
I believe that we are product of greed . Posting is an intellectual
investment. Once we posted, we are looking for the intellectual ROI. Who
would wants to invest without any returns? After a few investments with no
returns, will you continue to invest? I also believe that this is the
case of expectation vs possibility. I was taught by my parents that the
joy of giving comes from the heart of the giver and has nothing to do with
the receiver. When you give away something, that is a gift to yourself,
enjoy that moment, don't wait for the reaction from the receiver. You
have no ownership of that gift anymore, and have no more say to how the
receiver should utilize your gift. There may be a possibility that the
receiver will do what you had hoped for, but it's only a possibility. If
you learn to leave it as that, then you will seldom be disappointed. But
if you turn that into an expectation, miseries will be waiting for you. I
like to share what recently happened to me, and it reenforces my belief:
I live in a small townhouse, with two big trees near my bedroom window.
Everynight, around my bedtime, a seagal would come by and sing. At first,
i just enjoy the song. Then I discover that the seagal ALWAYS comes at an
EXACT time (down to the minute).Slowly, I begin to expect the sound at the
exact time. When this expectation starts, the joy slowly fades. The joy
is now being replaced by something else. Instead of enjoying the bird
when it's there, I begin to expect the bird to be there (something that is
totally out of my control), and get kind of sad or frustrated when it
didn't come. It takes a while to reverse engineer my feeling, and begin
to enjoy the bird again.
I post once in a while, and very seldom get response from the list. But
my joy comes from expressing my thoughts and sharing them. What others do
with my post is none of my concern. It's not that i don't care. I do
care, that is why i post. I just don't think i have any ownership in what
people do or think or act or response. If my post makes someone happy,
groovy...if not, sorry.
Where am i going with this. Don't know. Just feel like sharing with you
all.
--phuoc-chau nguyen (chau@corp.sgi.com)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>