Find Your Voice

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Paradox




A statement which seems contradictory or absurd, but which expresses a truth.


Freedom is not doing what you want, freedom is wanting to do what you have to do...this kind of freedom is always rooted in practised habit. - Northrop Frye


If you want to move forward you have to stand still. To achieve certain goals it is important to first understand them and instill the right habits and practices which will enable you to achieve your goal. Most importantly - allow your goals to be altered because of the willingness to re-examine them.


If you simply jump in without hesitation the haste will cause error. It is like a child that wants to ride a bike without standing still first and listening to his father's instruction. It does not mean that you remove error completely but perhaps disapointment and pain can be reduced greatly or even removed.


We are not brought up to embrace paradox, only human rationality which serves our own purpose. Everything has to happen quickly and efficiently and decisions have to be made faster than the speed of light because there is no time. Not true!

By doing less you achieve more. Take the concept of 'time management' as an example - I don't believe in it. How can we think that by organising the details of my life I am in charge of time - it's absurd. Instead I believe we have to detach ourselves from constraining kronos time (watch time) and attach ourselves to kairos time (season time). In other words look beyond the ticking seconds to the important matters that stretch beyond our own reality to make every second count.

Now just to be clear: I believe in punctuality and I will not let the falling leaves in autumn dictate my approach to life. To get a grip you got to let go.


Don't plan, prepare. If I want to be prepared I cannot consider only one option. To be truly successful we have to be uncertain where we are going but not about who we are. Knowing who we are empowers us to know how we are going and that is the destination.


It is like a ship on the open sea. If you see yourself like this you position yourself to innovate, in other words you are ready to embrace different opporutinities as they arise and are in line with the purpose of your voyage. It is important to mention that once again you need to know who you are and know your final destination although you don't know every detail of the course. Always have your true north!


This brings an important question about where we are heading both individually and together. Perhaps this could be the source of the next discussion...

3 comments:

Pieter H. Walser said...

Here is an interesting article I read on the subject of SLOW DOWN. I am still not convinced, but it's interesting.

Pieter Walser

"An interesting reflection: Slow Down Culture

It's been 18 years since I joined Volvo, a Swedish company. Working for them has proven to be an interesting experience. Any project here takes 2 years to be finalized, even if the idea is simple and brilliant. It's a rule.

Globalize processes have caused in us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results. Therefore, we have come to posses a need to see immediate results. This contrasts greatly with the slow movements of the Swedish. They, on the other hand, debate, debate, debate, hold x quantity of meetings and work with a slowdown scheme. At the end, this always yields better results.

Said in another words:
1. Sweden is about the size of San Pablo, a state in Brazil.
2. Sweden has 2 million inhabitants.
3. Stockholm, has 500,000 people.
4. Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux, Nokia are some of its renowned companies. Volvo supplies the NASA.

The first time I was in Sweden, one of my colleagues picked me up at the hotel every morning. It was September, bit cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park far away from the entrance (2000 employees drive their car to work). The first day, I didn't say anything, either the second or third. One morning I asked, "Do you have a fixed parking space? I've noticed we park far from the entrance even when there are no other cars in the lot." To which he replied, "Since we're here early we'll have time to walk, and whoever gets in late will be late and need a place closer to the door. Don't you think? Imagine my face.

Nowadays, there's a movement in Europe name Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing. Slow Food is against its counterpart: the spirit of Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week.

Basically, the movement questions the sense of "hurry" and "craziness" generated by globalization, fueled by the desire of "having in quantity" (life status) versus "having with quality", "life quality" or the "quality of being". French people, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than Americans or British. Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen their productivity been driven up by 20%. This slow attitude has brought forth the US's attention, pupils of the fast and the "do it now!".

This no-rush attitude doesn't represent doing less or having a lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, with attention to detail and less stress. It means reestablishing family values, friends, free and leisure time. Taking the "now", present and concrete, versus the "global", undefined and anonymous. It means taking humans' essential values, the simplicity of living.

It stands for a less coercive work environment, more happy, lighter and more productive where humans enjoy doing what they know best how to do. It's time to stop and think on how companies need to develop serious quality with no-rush that will increase productivity and the quality of products and services, without losing the essence of spirit.

In the movie, Scent of a Woman, there's a scene where Al Pacino asks a girl to dance and she replies, "I can't, my boyfriend will be here any minute now". To which Al responds, "A life is lived in an instant". Then they dance to a tango.

Many of us live our lives running behind time, but we only reach it when we die of a heart attack or in a car accident rushing to be on time. Others are so anxious of living the future that they forget to live the present, which is the only time that truly exists. We all have equal time throughout the world. No one has more or less. The difference lies in how each one of us does with our time. We need to live each moment. As John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans".

Congratulations for reading till the end of this message. There are many who will have stopped in the middle so as not to waste time in this globalized world

Anonymous said...

Wow!Paradox's a hard thing to understand sometimes.I myself have learned quite recently that it is absolutely neccecary to stop, ask questions(even in the things that we take as a given)and to be open to change. Without willingness this will never be possible.
But that the revelation that comes by doing this is absolutely life changing!
Thank you for challenging me...

Mark and Elena said...

Let me preface by saying that, Jan-Derick, I am not really responding directly to what you have said but using your blogspace to post something that recently interested my thought-life. So I apologize. I have undermined your leadership of your own blog. On the other hand, the concept I have been thinking about is most definitely paradoxical. That being said, here are a few lines from scripture to provide a context for my thoughts:

“Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.”

“Now concerning the matters about which you wrote, ‘It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.’ But because of the temptation to sexual immortality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.”


Very recently it came to my mind that for some time now I have not been sufficiently trusting God to grant me spiritual pleasures in Christ. And I rightly observed, I believe, that this tendency is rooted in my own unbelief (but what sin is not). However, today I believe the Holy Spirit (may I say reverently) startled me with a truth by which I am still shocked. The truth is this: just as every husband or wife (according to the apostle) has the right and claim to enjoy the conjugal rights of marriage, namely, the pleasures of sexual intimacy with his wife or her husband, so each believer has a right and claim to enjoy the immediate pleasures of spiritual intimacy with Christ. What perhaps startled me the most about this truth was how presumptuous it sounds. How can anyone have a right or claim upon the Uncreated God? Especially a right and claim to something that is so subjective and pleasurable? I mean, for one to claim a right from God such as the right to live in a safe environment or the right to have food is one thing. But a claim upon spiritual pleasures in the invisible God through Christ sounds a bit ludicrous, let alone plausible. But here is the catch. It is presumptuous for a believer, one who “belongs to another” (Christ), not to claim his or her “conjugal rights” in Christ. By not advancing with boldness by faith into the throne room of grace with an expectancy, yes even a claim, to receive a “conjugal” experience of Christ, those “pleasures forevermore,” is to presumptuously disregard the very mediatory work of Christ which was for the express purpose of purchasing the “vows and wedding ring” of the New Covenant which grants every believer the claim to enter the “bridal chamber.” On a groom’s wedding day, he is not most excited about saying his vows and giving the bride the ring. He is most excited about the consummation of those symbols that evening. So it is with Christ. Christ did not “endure the cross, despising the shame” simply so that men and women would be saved from hell. He did it because of the “joy set before him.” He did it to purchase conjugal rights for every believer, that He might enjoy and be enjoyed by every son and daughter he would receive. Let every believer humble himself and herself and approach Christ boldly with an expectancy of experiencing the pleasures of conjugal intimacy with Christ, which in the wisdom of God, was purchased that day on the tree.