Shells
Recently within the Leadership Think Tank discussion group of LinkedIn, a rather long thread has evolved and taken on a life of its own regarding whether it is possible for people to change. It seems many of us have something to say about it! I have written elsewhere about this subject, and also added my comment to the thread.
There are many wonderful ideas on the thread, but in some ways it is a hapless question. If you say that people can change, you are going to have to face all the good arguments against that belief, and if you don’t believe people can change, you are going to have to encounter all the good reasons to believe they can.
I only want to add the thought there are times when, like a hermit crab, I believe we have to abandon a once comfortable shell that we have outgrown. If we want to be bigger — if we need to be — we have to leave one shell behind and take our chances in the open until we find another. Sometimes this is a difficult process and takes a long time; sometimes things almost magically come together.
I would say this pretty much explains the last twenty years or so of my life. It also has implications for making decisions about who we can best help and how.
I’m sure you can see what side of the argument I am on.
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Posted: July 20th, 2009 under Transformation.
Comments: 6
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Comments
Comment from Joe McCarthy
Time: July 20, 2009, 9:58 pm
I love the imagery of the hermit crab – very apropos … and a rather poetic rendering of the punctuated equilibrium of change!
Comment from Dan
Time: July 20, 2009, 10:14 pm
Ah, Joe…so good to hear your voice. Back from New Mexico, I’ve heard.
“The punctuating equilibrium of change?” and you call me out for being poetic?
Sometime I’ll tell you the deeper story of why shells are so important to me….or perhaps I have already, on one of those nights when you’ve brought out your flights of rare and wonderful wines!
Comment from Joe McCarthy
Time: July 22, 2009, 8:39 pm
I look forward to learning more about that deeper story, and we will certainly match it with some wine of appropriate depth.
Meanwhile, as serendipity would have it, last night I randomly opened up my copy of David Whyte’s most recent collection of poetry, River Flow, to a page with his poem “The Shell”. Given your interest in shells, I’m sure you’ve encountered it before. For the potential benefit of your readers (including myself), I’ll just paste the first stanza here:
An open sandy shell
on the beach
empty but beautiful
like a memory
of a protected previous self.
The most difficult griefs
ones in which
we slowly open
to a larger sea, a grander
sweep that washes
all our elements apart.
Comment from Dan
Time: July 23, 2009, 11:22 am
There are many kinds of shells.
All of them symbolize the full cycle of growth, beginnings and endings….Shells are lives piled up on the beach; the many lives we have lived in a single lifetime. Sherl Crow said in one of her songs, “We can live lifetimes in a single day.” How true. Shells and more shells: periods, phases, stages; relationships, vocations, beliefs; past, present, future. All with their own cycle of being. We all live along that shore on the edge of….(well, what’s your name for it?)
Comment from Byron Murray
Time: July 25, 2009, 10:43 am
Dan
How about on the edge of belief and faith? Belief in the capacity and faith in the encounter to help us see how wonderful our differences are. Byron
Comment from Dan
Time: July 25, 2009, 11:17 am
Ah, one good answer! Beautiful, Byron!
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