Are you serving a Greater Good in your microcosm?

Posted on February 12, 2009 by pdncoach
My friend Jared Vogel is a curious sort of person; by that I mean he is curious about life, learning, everything around him really, and he brings out the curiosity in others. We have wonderful conversations, Jared and I. A book we are reading called Wild Goose Chase brought a new word into our vocabulary. Jared, being the scientist, had to look it up. Today I share with you some of Jared’s thoughts that arose from his learning the word “paleolimnology“. Give yourself the time to read his thoughts – they raise useful questions for you to consider. Thank you, Jared, for sharing.

paleolimnology
(¦pāl·ē·ō·lim′näl·ə·jē) The study of the past conditions and processes of ancient lakes. The study of the sediments and history of existing lakes.

Learning that word: paleolimnology made me remember my studies in evolution where scientists regard lakes as a good place to track changes in a species because the lake is a microcosm relatively isolated from outside influences.

Because the fish in the lake will never breed with the fish in another lake ( under normal circumstances), they evolve to fit the exact niche of that lake. They thrive in that particular climate, under that particular light condition, eating that particular food.

It’s an interesting concept: the evolution of a microcosm – one species becoming the most efficient at surviving in a niche. A species becomes the most efficient by never getting out of its microcosm.

Those that are most suitable for conditions breed with others that are most suitable for conditions, and they have offspring that are more suitable still. If a species stays in one place long enough, it becomes the best at surviving and multiplying. It evolves.

But evolution is boring. No one has ever made an action movie about someone becoming efficient within his microcosm. Human curiosity wants to see the fish in a different environment. Human curiosity wants to see how it would react to a different set of challenges. A northern pike may be pretty ferocious in a river in Illinois, but how would it do in the Amazon amongst some piraña? Human curiosity takes things out of their microcosms. Human curiosity created the mule, and it brought the horse to America.

Sometimes, though, it isn’t curiosity that changes a species or takes it out of its microcosm, but a knowledge of the greater good. Take for example penicillin: a subspecies of a type of fungus. Microbiologists grow it in a niche designed specifically for it so that it can become the most efficient at surviving. The penicillin lives in a petri dish where it’s easy for it to survive. It wouldn’t be able to leave this friendly environment, nor would it want to if it was able.

Microbiologists know that the penicillin would be useful in a different environment – an infected human body. They know that this is a place where the penicillin can live well eating bacteria and also do its environment good ( also by eating bacteria). It’s a knowledge of the greater good that breeds the penicillin into a different species and takes it out of its efficient microcosm.

How similar is this to God’s will in our lives? If we live in our microcosm and are not interfered with, we can become the most efficient at surviving within our niche. But God knows that efficiency is boring. God wants to breed us into something more useful like mules or amoxycillin and take us out of our microcosm to be put somewhere that we will not only thrive, but we will do our surrounding environment good.

  • How efficient are you in your niche? How energized are you by where you are now?
  • Where else might you thrive and also serve a greater good?
  • What would have to change?
  • How would you need to change?
  • What change would you like to be in the world?

Thank you, Jared, for joining me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.

Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in challenges, change, curiosity, efficient, evolution, greater good, Informal Learning, paleolimnology, questions, Wild Goose Chase | Leave a comment

Purpose is Filling

Posted on February 9, 2009 by pdncoach

Why don’t I do what I know I should do?
Why do I procrastinate?
What keeps me from focusing on my real priorities?
Where did the time go?
I wish I could get more done.
If only I had more time…

These are common issues my clients mention frequently. They are issues I have struggled with from time to time. I know you face the same struggles, too.

Our church youth pastor, Brian Talty, had a curious opening to his sermon on Sunday morning. “How many of you like pie charts?” he asked. No one raised a hand. He then went on to talk about priorities and values; how he, like many of us, seem to have our priorities in order – God, family, work, service.

  • Like many people, I have pledged my desire to give God the “biggest slice of the pie” that is my life. I devote a portion of my day to, well, “devotions”, a part of my week to church, prayer, and fellowship with others who share my faith. I find myself praying incessantly. We do these things, yet something still gets left out.
  • Most of my weekends from about October 1 through March 1 each year is spent travelling to and from my sons’ hockey games. During the week much of my time is devoted with my boys or to my boys.
  • I work from home (I have for six years) and I am amazingly productive and disciplined. My work is an extension of my life’s purpose – I am fortunate that way.

We can strive and seem to have our lives in order, yet still feel that there never seems to be enough time. Why is that?

We treat time like a commodity, something to be bartered, portioned, sliced and served, something we can “buy low and sell high”, as if we could increase our collection of time or trade it away when needed. Fact is, we are contained in time and merely have the opportunity to move through it in 24-hour increments – no more, no less.

Brian Talty did one more thing at the end of his sermon that I will never forget. He took a real apple pie and sliced the largest portion of it to represent the largest portion of life in which one might make God the priority. As he held it with a pie server, it began to fall apart and drop in pieces back into the pie pan. God isn’t something for whom we can carve out a portion of our life. He is the apples inside the pie. He pervades everything, every moment, of our lives.

God, family, work, service – these are not the portions of our lives we must “balance” against each other. These are the things that fill our lives; these fill each moment of our time when we are living On Purpose. When I stay focused on what is most important to me, I always have enough time. I am not playing family against work – they both give purpose to everything I do with my time.

  • How are you portioning your time?
  • How could your priorities and values fill all that you do with your time?
  • Do you schedule time for spiritual renewal, time for family, time for work, time for service?
  • How might you begin to allow these to pervade all that you do, all the time?
  • How might your life be different?

Let me know your thoughts.

Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in family, focus, God, priorities, procrastinate, Purpose, service, time management, values | Leave a comment

A Tribute… To Making the Most of Every Amazing Day

Posted on February 6, 2009 by pdncoach

It’s not that I am lazy or that I don’t have plenty to write about this week; it’s just that I am inspired by so many people, particularly my friends who have already joined me at The Intersection of Purpose & Now.

Today, I am sharing something from my good friend and fellow blogger Brian McDermott, a principal with GrowthWorks Inc., near Minneapolis. He, the tragic yet inspiring story about his niece, Ciara, and her favorite poem by e.e. cummings, all remind me of my search to experience 5 Recordable Positive Interactions each day. Although Brian and I mostly interact via email, the web and sometimes by phone these days, it is always – most definitely – a positive interaction.

Here is Brian’s post for the day:

Just over three years ago, my niece, Ciara, was the victim of a murder-suicide. Today is her birthday.

If Ciara were alive she would be 34, and I have no doubt she would be continuing to do the amazing things she was doing as a police officer — at that time working in a high school — to make her part of the world a better place for those she touched.

I’ve begun working on a book to tell her story because… The night after Ciara’s murder, 1200 high school kids turned out for a student-organized vigil. I was staggered by that response. The high school principal confirmed for me that this was an extraordinary response. “You don’t get 1200 high school kids to do anything,” he said… And this was just the first of many reactions that convince me there is an important, helpful story to tell.

Ciara was also a gifted writer and a poet. Her favorite poem was I Thank You God for this Amazing Day by e.e. cummings. We shared it at her memorial service and I want to share it here with you to help mark this day as special.

I thank You God for most this amazing day:
For the leaping greenly spirits of trees
And a blue true dream of sky
And for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(I who have died am alive again today,
And this is the sun’s birthday;
This is the birthday of life and love and wings
And of the gay great happening illimitably earth)

How should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing
And — lifted from the no of all nothing — human merely being
Doubt unimaginable You?

(Now the ears of my ears awake and
Now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings

This is the beginning of trying to share the story of someone who made a difference.
Happy Birthday, Ci.
Brian

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Posted in 5 Recordable Positive Interactions, Brian McDermott, e.e. cummings, GrowthWorks, Purpose | Leave a comment