The Way It Is

A guest to our homes is arriv­ing tonight — named 2005. We can treat this guest well in a mul­ti­tude of ways, most imme­di­ate­ly by giv­ing gen­er­ous­ly to tsuna­mi relief. As we learn more about the dev­as­ta­tion and the num­ber of deaths con­tin­ues to climb, it is imper­a­tive that we all con­tribute to the relief of suffering.

In addi­tion, I hope you will also review Heifer Inter­na­tion­al, a world-wide effort to give ani­mals and seedlings to impov­er­ished peo­ple. Although not con­nect­ed to tsuna­mi relief, this is a very wor­thy cause. You can pur­chase an ani­mal (such as a water buf­fa­lo, a goat or a flock of chicks) that will help a fam­i­ly rise from pover­ty. The pro­gram is excep­tion­al because it focus­es on help­ing peo­ple learn the skills of eco­log­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive, sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture as well as improv­ing liv­ing con­di­tions. Take a look at some of their projects.

William Stafford, one of my favorite poets, reminds us all as we begin this new year that we are trac­ing a thread. His spir­it encour­ages a pro­found know­ing. Where will this thread lead you in 2005?

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you fol­low. It goes among
things that change. But it does­n’t change.
Peo­ple won­der about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain to them about the thread.
But it is hard for oth­ers to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies hap­pen; peo­ple get hurt
or die; and you suf­fer and get old.
Noth­ing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

Best to you all, this New Year’s Eve — and thanks for show­ing up here.

Dan

By Dan Oestreich

I am a consultant, coach, facilitator and trainer supporting the growth and development of leaders and teams. For further information about my work and services, please access my Oestreich Associates website.

1 comment

  1. I read your pre­vi­ous post (the prac­tice of lead­er­ship) and it was like a new vision to me. There is some­thing I would like to add on, and I will try to explain it by reminiscence.
    Four years ago, I had to lead a group of 28 engi­neers for exe­cut­ing a project in my coun­try. Some of them had almost twice my age. I remem­ber one they I gath­ered them for a meet­ing in my office and I tried to explain them our sit­u­a­tion and the way we had to exe­cute our jobs. There was my best friend among us, who is now my first advi­sor. After the meet­ing, he asked me:
    Do you real­ly believe in what you said?
    I empha­sized “yes, by all my heart.”
    “But you couldn’t trans­fer what you believe to these peo­ple. You couldn’t use the pow­er of words in the exact way.”
    Then he per­suad­ed me to prac­tice on this so I could find an approach to share my world with the oth­ers. At that time, he could not show me an exact method of prac­tic­ing, so I tried hard to find it myself:
    First, I tried to devel­op my “Self-knowledge”, I need­ed a good con­scious­ness on my beliefs, and a list of rights and wrongs based on my opin­ion so when I talked to these intel­li­gent, inquis­i­tive and some­how anx­ious peo­ple, I could make prompt impres­sion on them.
    Then I endeav­ored to under­stand the ciphers and the rid­dles of the words, so I could chose the best terms for expound­ing what I exact­ly want­ed to say. It was real­ly a hard work, which has con­tin­ued all these years ‑and I’m quite aware that it should be with me all my life -.
    Now I believe in the pow­er of words. It often may con­vert to a destruc­tive pow­er because of irra­tional use and I have expe­ri­enced it in both the busi­ness and fam­i­ly life.

    Ellin

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