It’s a different outlook on life when you see yourself as a part of the entire cosmos, rather than just an inhabitant of a village, city, country or even planet Earth. When you acknowledge that we’re all tiny parts of an enormously vast web of life. On top of this only during a short period in time, unless you believe in some form of after life.
When you look towards the sky and notice far away stars, there’s a chance for your problems to shrink.
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The crux of customer service
Yesterday I’ve been reminded that there are selling-buying relationships that benefit, even require, to go beyond a mere transaction. What had happened?
A monthly parking card, at the Zagreb trade fair premises, got swallowed by the apparatus which is supposed to give the card back before one is leaving the parking lot. It has worked properly in numerouses instances before, not yesterday, though. Two days later, when I came back to park at the same place, I enquired as to what could be done. A friendly clerk gave me some valuable advice and directed me to an office named “Office for security”.
After a “This is Yugoslavia” public company office reality type of throwback moment, the two clerks in the office were smoking (it must be decades since I last experienced such a scene here in Zagreb), I got brushed off by saying “There’s nothing we can do. You should notice that on the apparatus that swallowed your ticket there is a button. You need to press that button and someone will help you.” The problem was nobody had responded to that button but they wouldn’t have any of that. 0 empathy, 0 care.
An opportunity passed to prove customer satisfaction matters, to be seen and lend a helping hand, turn a negative into a positive experience. Granted, it’s nothing major but the obvious neglect was disappointing. I wonder how AI will impact customer service. Will it become better or worse? Will we loose opportunities for human connection?
Money equals energy
We continuously buy things, services, something, with money. It pays off (pun intended) to realise money is nothing else but energy with which we fuel someone else’s activities. Further down the timeline, the money we spend is being used to pay for something else, circulating energy. It never seizes to exist, it just changes its location.
There’s always a story
Whatever happens in our lives, we attach a story to it. Someone threw a stone at our window, said something about us to a colleague at work, send us a greeting card, cut us off in traffic, it’s never only that. We create a story around it, the why, the who, the what, it becomes so much broader than the mere occurrence. We have to make sense of whatever is occurring, attaching both our mentation and imagination, our perception and interpretation, to what is going on. For better or worse, it creates the frame for our reality. There’s a chance to look outside of the frame, through introspection and a deep dive into the mental models and deeper beliefs based on which we we operate. It’s not easy but it can be done. Here are 3 recommendations on how to do it.
1. Sit in stillness
I believe the world would be a much more peaceful place if, from a young age, we learnt how to sit in silence, how to be with ourselves, observing, in a non-judgemental way, everything that comes up.
2. Talk to a professional
It could be a counselor, a psychologist, a psychotherapist, a monk…someone who is schooled in the arts of conscious living and wisdom.
3. Explore the deeper realms
Family constellation, spiritual retreats, personal growth events, get to know yourself, the spiritual being that you are who is having a human experience.
Gratitude
What’s your favourite practice for becoming a better human being?
Is it praying, exercising, showing compassion or kindness? I find gratitude impactful. A daily practice of writing down what you’re grateful for. Try it out, it does make you see the abundance you’re already living in.
Wabi-sabi
These days I’m pondering the concept of perfection, the illusion of faultlessness all too common in our Western world. Is the quality according to specifications? I confess I’m afflicted too and suffer from the results of this chronic infection.
Wabi-sabi strikes me as a good alternative, that feeling almost all Japanese will claim to understand, though shake their head in disbelief when asked what it actually is. It contains many of Zen’s key spiritual-philosophical elements but here’s the challenge: “Essential knowledge, in Zen doctrine, can be transmitted only from mind to mind, not through the written or spoken word.”*
If this sounds like a Jedi mind trick, I understand. Wabi-sabi offers potential relief from the “seek out imperfections and get rid of them” mode of operation. It moves us to a state of being that sees beauty precisely in the imperfections. This has major implications on aesthetics.
May you live an imperfect life!
*Page 16, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, by Leonard Koren
4 stages of consciousness
I’m currently enrolled in an online education programme named Life Visioning Mastery, by Mindvalley, a fun company headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The teacher within this online course is Michael Beckwith, founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center. I find his model of the four stages of consciousness intriguing.
Stage 1: to me
In this stage we perceive life happens to us. Outside forces, such as laws and regulations, the weather, other people, mold us into the human beings we are. We are stuck in a narrow frame of being, one in which we blame others for how we live.
“There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses. Both the strong and the weak grasp at this alibi. The latter hide their malevolence under the virtue of obedience: they acted dishonorably because they had to obey orders. The strong, too, claim absolution by proclaiming themselves the chosen instrument of a higher power — God, history, fate, nation, or humanity.”
– Bruce Lee
Stage 2: by me
Once we move away from blame and develop a sense of self responsibility we start taking ownership of our life. We start operating with intentions and perceive ourselves as the primary driving force of our own life, the one that manifests and brings things into being.
Stage 3: through me
Have you ever heard someone say “I don’t know how I achived this, I didn’t even do much about it?”, e.g. a Sales person who is convinced he hasn’t really put that much effort into it but things just started to unfold in mysteriously positive ways. People who are operating from this stage of consciousness surrender, let go of the notion that they need to push and force things into existence. They lack a need for control and let life energy pass through them. They become a vehicle permeated by life force.
Stage 4: as me
In this stage we realise that the universe is infinite whilst ever evolving and we are part of the infinite! We ourselves are an expression of this life force, it’s not just something outside of us that visits, that touches us, we are part of it. We become free of the illusion that we are separate.
Anything that resonates with you or you diagree with in regards to this model? Let me know by dropping me a message. Have a great day.
The price of a low price
If you have the scale for it and a vision for becoming profitable making a low price your primary strategy is a valid option. The challenge is there’s usually only one player with the lowest price and it tends to lead to a race to the bottom, making it extra hard to keep doing it successfully. It’s even harder to figure out how to do marketing.
I believe Seth Godin is right when he says: “Low price is the refuge of the marketer who can’t figure out how to do marketing.”
Repressed citizen
This is priceless.
Climate change
The 15 year old Greta Thunberg, a Swedish activist for climate change, recently spoke at the COP24 climate conference in Poland. COP24 is the informal name for the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
This is worth watching.