Secrets of Satisfaction: 4 Rewards I am only beginning to get

Hello … my name is Ramsey. Sometimes I go by RamseyZ. I’ve been hiding for the last five years or so. I’m not sure why. Probably because of fear. Fear of judgement or loss or misunderstanding. I wrote these 12 Core Values nearly 5 years ago and chose to leave my name off of the website. I believed it was because it was “not about me” that I was writing. But was that really true? Or was it ALL about me? Maybe neither and both. Doesn’t matter. What matters today … is that I think I am starting to glimpse and live out some of the Creative Rewards that I theorized of back in 2016 when God revealed to me the 12 Core Values (sorry to be so melodramatic, but I do believe it was revelation, and I don’t take credit for these ideas). So for the first time on this site, I want to share with you from a personal perspective. I want to express myself. That’s a bit of foreshadowing by the way!

Service

I guess in the most basic sense you can think of Service as work in the Community that you don’t necessarily get paid for. But I believe it is so much more than that. Service is an act that builds and contributes for others, it’s an investment in something apart from yourself. The benefit of Service comes back around. People notice your Service, they appreciate your Service, they are inspired by your Service to perhaps join in or to find their own unique form of Service. All these things benefit the common good and benefit you. For me, I’ve begun serving again. I’m volunteering with www.ThePeople.org and I’m getting more involved with my church and my local theater group that my kids have grown up in. I’m trying to make meaningful contributions on things that I care about. I’m trying to use my skills and talents in ways that I am positioned to do so. And I encourage everyone to do that. Find places where you recognize a need and feel uniquely positioned to make a meaningful impact. In your Community, find ways to focus your Service on improving the Opportunities for people to live and thrive.

Love

So much has been written and said about Love over the centuries … and I believe it deserves that and more. I believe that God is Love. I believe that Love is the rock, Love is the foundation, Love is the beginning and the end. I believe that Love is sustainable and renewable, Love pushes out fear, Love spreads and multiplies. I embrace Love and I try and want to always act out of Love. I Love openly and shamelessly; yet ironically I don’t express it in words often enough to my family. I carry Love around with me daily, or perhaps Love carries ME around daily. I encourage you: embrace Love! Love God, Love yourself, Love your neighbors, Love you enemies, Love nature, Love your family, Love other people’s families. When you see a perfect stranger, imagine how their family Loves them as a daughter or son or husband or wife. Lean into Love! Love is the purest motivation and I don’t see how people could commit evil towards another person if true Love for that person is their motivation. When seeking and speaking the Truth, do so in and with Love, so that your Respect for others will grow in their hearts as well.

Innovation

I’ve been working professionally for more than 25 years now. I’ve done a bunch of stuff. Some of it worked great and some of it failed miserably. At some points in time my Productivity has been really high and others I’ve been “hardly working instead of working hard.” Some of the things I accomplish had great Effectiveness and made a real difference. Other times there were unintended consequences, resulting from my blind spots or my arrogance or my lack of understanding. But a couple of times … I’ve found NEW ways of doing things. Better ways. That’s exciting! That’s Innovation. Finding a new solution to an old problem, or finding a better technique that is faster and/or cheaper than how people usually do it, without being less effective. So if you’ve tried and failed, and tried something else, and did better, and worked at it, and found something that works, then great! And if along the way you had some insights about WHY something does or doesn’t work, and you’re ready to experiment and create something NEW that does it better, then now you’re cooking! Now you’ve found Innovation! So when you are being Productive, keep an eye toward Innovation and implement new things if you can show their Effectiveness toward accomplishing your business goals.

Expression

This has been the hardest one for me and the longest time coming. I’m a shy and quiet person by nature. I don’t push myself into a conversation. In a group of 5 people I often do great. But more than that and I’ll just sit back and let the other people talk. Unless I’m facilitating or the one holding the microphone with my name on the agenda. Then I’m fine. I actually love public speaking and group facilitation. Weird right? And I am a writer. But I’ve been writing this website anonymously for 5 years now. So has it really been true Expression for me? Sort of maybe. But I wasn’t really expressing myself until now, because I only just put my name at the top of this blog today. What was I so afraid of? Losing everything. Losing my family, my friends, my job, my home, my standing. If I say the wrong things. It seems like we’ve been talking a lot about Cancel Culture lately, but I was painfully aware of it 5 years ago when I started writing this project. Because perhaps my ideas run counter to the culture. Because my politics are complicated. Because I don’t subscribe to one party line or the other. Because my 12 Core Values are different from others. Because I value Truth so strongly, yet many things I truly believe to be true are not reported by the mainstream news media. As we seek Health & Safety, our Expressions manifest and clarify what’s going on inside and what we’re giving Protection to. Expression connects us to others, for better or worse.

I think I’ve come to the conclusion that by NOT expressing myself, I lost a lot these last 5 years. Out of fear of what I could have lost if I spoke up more. I need to walk my own talk, and let Love cast out fear. My name is Ramsey. And it’s nice to meet you!

Journey to Justice - 4 Methods to Seek Fair and Desirable Outcomes

This week, Joe Biden was inaugurated President of the United States, closing perhaps the most divisive election season in America’s history.  This past year, Americans have cried out for Justice.  In the middle of the year, people who lean left cried out for Justice for black lives that they believe were stolen by police.  At the end of the year, people who lean right cried out for Justice for the election that they believed was stolen by their adversaries.  Each side attempted to point out and confront systemic issues that caused these injustices.  Each side sought to gather peacefully and make their voices heard, only to find extreme people on their fringes resorting to violence and destruction, which sullied their efforts and caused anger and distrust against their cause.  Both of these issues were fueled by anxiety and economic repercussions of COVID-19 and the measures taken in response to it.  So now, in the face of broken systems and shattered trust, how do we seek and find Justice?  The 12 Core Values offer 4 Practical Methods to seek fair and desirable outcomes.

Opportunities

Opportunities are fair and open chances to participate and succeed in society.  There are Opportunities to work, speak, own, rent, go to school, operate a business, get healthcare, go out to have fun with friends, or go to a loved one’s funeral.  For hundreds of years, people of color have fought to get even basic Opportunities that white people have taken for granted, from sitting at a lunch counter to getting a mortgage to be able to afford buying a home.  Today, in some areas, no one is allowed to sit at a lunch counter due to restrictions for COVID-19 social distancing. Nearly everyone agrees that every citizen has the right to vote and that they should be able to do so in a safe and straightforward manner, and that their vote should be counted once and counted toward the candidate of their choice.  The ideal situation is that everyone has the same Opportunities for success, even as we recognize that many Opportunities are competitive, and only some can achieve them.  Yet, people have different starting points, different privileges and different strengths.  So how do we make it so that everyone has a fair shot, a real chance to win, a level playing field?  We need to make systems fair and honest and transparent.  We need to remove the dominance of money and influence.  We need to invest in preparation of people so that they have the tools, knowledge and experience to be competitive and potentially successful.  And we need to remove barriers and restrictions and lockdowns that prevent people from operating their businesses and having the freedom to pursue their passions and desires.  As people find that they have fair and open Opportunities to succeed, we will once again build trust in each other and our institutions.

Respect

Respect is mutual admiration and decent interactions even among people who do not agree with each other.  Honest competition leads to mutual understanding of what it takes to succeed and acceptance of others’ victories when we lose.  However, Respect is difficult to hold for others when we believe that the system was stacked against us, when we were discriminated against or dismissed without serious consideration.  Further, Respect for “the other” goes out the window when we see entire groups of people described as racial slurs, deplorables, anti”this”ers or domestic terrorists.  Once we dehumanize people we haven’t even met, we can justify unfair treatment of them or the use of any means necessary to achieve our righteous ends.  But if both sides firmly believe their ends are righteous and both sides use any means necessary … where does that leave society?  A warzone and battleground of hate-filled and nasty factions.  We must turn away from bitterness and reproach.  We must make efforts to recognize and encourage and respect common ground and treat others with Respect.  We must follow rules and norms to achieve our ends, so that we can Respect ourselves, even as we point out the injustices that many laws and systems perpetuate.  We must start somewhere!  Treating others the way that we would like to be treated is a necessary first step to rebuilding trust, fairness and Justice.

Effectiveness

Effectiveness is the confirmed assertion that our actions resulted in the outcomes that were intended.  In manufacturing, it is not enough to produce a large quantity of goods, if they are the wrong size, or they don’t function properly.  In social issues it is not enough to “just do something” about it, if it doesn’t solve the problem.  We now have two vaccines for COVID-19, but will they be effective at preventing the disease without causing adverse physical reactions?  We have highly trained and well funded police forces, but are they disproportionately targeting and interacting with people of color, leading to greater loss of liberty and lives?  We have the most accessible and flexible voting system in our nation’s history, but were the votes counted, processed and reported in a fair and legitimate way?  In all of these examples, we need more transparency of methodology, more investigation and measurement, more reporting and analysis of results, more open conversation and dissenting viewpoints, more truth and admission of shortcomings.  In order to build Effectiveness, we need to openly and honestly review and evaluate our systems and our own beliefs.  It is HARD and scary to question our own perspectives and customs that we rely upon.  Yet when they are at odds or in direct contradiction with our fellow Americans, that self-reflection is probably the ONLY way that we can arrive at truly effective and just solutions.

Protection

Protection is holding on to what is dear and not allowing harm or foul to come to those and that which we love and cherish.  When Protection fails it is devastating.  Everyone has people and things that we love and feel the need to protect.  These are both tangible and ethereal … real-life things and people as well as ideas and concepts.  We can all agree that many things are worth protecting.  We just don’t agree on what those things are.  We get into real trouble when we perceive that other people are protecting things or ideas or people that we don’t agree with, or that we think are evil, or that we ourselves find threatening.  We must begin to understand that in those cases, our Protection is perceived by others as a threat.  When one person carries a gun for Protection, people around them may wonder and fear if they will use that gun on them.  When one person carries themselves with pride and confidence, people around them may wonder if they will tear them down or attack their own standing.  We must not abuse our own power even in the act of Protection.  We must not create fear in others in order to compensate for our own fears.  Instead, we must be clear and outward about what we seek to protect, and we must honor other people’s needs for Protection of what they love.

In search of Justice, we must build systems and trust.  We must protect what we love, while not threatening things that others love.  We must evaluate and improve systems so that they are effective in delivering the outcomes that we desire.  We must treat other people well and hold positive views of them, just as we hold for ourselves and desire them to hold of us.  And we must give everyone their best and open chances to succeed.  This has been a very difficult time for our nation.  If we continue to act like warring factions, we will all lose.  For Justice to prevail, we must find honest common ground.

Path to Peace - 4 Strategies to Avert the Second American Civil War

In the waning days before the 2020 American election, society looks more divided than ever.  The reds and the blues are firmly entrenched in their positions and already voting for their candidates.  It seems that both sides firmly believe that they will win, in fact that they cannot lose.  Both sides seem convinced that the other side will do anything to win, and that the only way the other side can claim victory is by cheating.  Likewise, each side seems convinced that the other will not back down, will not concede peacefully, and may get violent.  In short … the Second American Civil War feels imminent.  Some even feel it’s been raging for months now.

So what happens in the weeks following November 3rd?  What can we do to keep the peace as the mail-in ballots are counted?  What can we do now to get ready?  And how did we get to this place?  Please consider the following 4 strategies, adapted from the 12 Core Values.

Truth - Seek it, Speak it

The great irony of our age is the nearly unending volume of information and the simultaneous lack of verifiable Truth.  We no longer have a few reliable trusted sources that everyone recognizes as authoritative.  Now we have legacy media hanging onto a claimed mantle of authority.  Now we have independent journalists doing their own reporting.  Now we have mobile phone camera eye witnesses recording and broadcasting events in real time.  Now we have systems and networks where short posts and photos are spread around, out of context, within bubbles of like-minded people.  And can any of it truly be trusted?  The technology exists to fabricate anything.  Who and what should we believe?

It is essential to seek and speak Truth.  Seek Truth by looking broadly, venturing outside of your bubble, getting as many perspectives as possible.  Dig in, research, click the links, check the sources.  LISTEN to what people have to say.  Weigh and value their words and images.  Then make up your own mind using discernment, common sense, a preponderance of evidence and your gut.  Then and only then, speak Truth.  Share what you’ve learned in an honest way, based in real context.  Speak the Truth in Love.  Understand that people may not believe you, and give them the grace and Respect to have their own opinions and understandings.  

It has been said that the Truth shall set us free and that lies are a prison.  Truth today is hard to come by and will take a lot of time and effort to get back to a place where people can agree on a single Truth.  In fact, the groupings of people we are in (often called tribes) are reinforced around what they choose to believe as Truth.  One vital requirement for averting civil war is to reconcile the realities of tribes into a single understanding of the Truth.

Community - Build it, Live it

Even though we interact increasingly online, we live in physical proximity in the real world, in physical space.  The people around us make up our real Community.  Our neighbors live next door and down the block.  We can see them come and go, we can hear their music or their shouting, we can smell their barbeques or their garbage.  Good or bad, appealing or repulsive, there they are, and here we are.  So what do we do?  Do we engage with our neighbors?  Or do we pretend they don’t exist and find our relationships online?  Do we pitch in to build and clean up our Community?  Or do we channel anger and desperation into breaking windows, burning cars and destroying businesses?  Who do we choose … our neighbors or our tribes?  

It is essential that we build Community and live in peace with our neighbors.  As freedom of movement is reduced through travel bans, lockdowns and 2-week quarantines, we spend more time in our local Community.  With supply chain disruptions, factory closings due to illness and difficulties shipping goods across borders, consumer goods (food, medicine, other supplies) become more expensive and difficult to get.  Locally produced food and supplies become more important.  We increasingly need to work together within our physical Community to make sure that we have what we need, and that we can help our neighbors with their needs.

We seem so divided as a nation into our tribes, and that is amplified by the online groups and echo chambers where we spend our time and focus our attention.  Perhaps if we lifted our eyes away from our screens and towards our neighbors, we could again see each other as people who have far more in common than we have in differences.  There is understandable anger and frustration at the wrongs and evils that play out in our world, and protesting and demonstrating are vital ways to bring attention and change.  But at the end of a demonstration, why cap it off with looting, burning and destruction of our Community?  What if we ended protests with Community Service projects instead?  What if demonstrators planted gardens, passed out blankets, washed cars and repaired broken windows?  These acts of kindness and Community building would go a long way toward bringing peace and prosperity.

Health & Safety - Eat it, Breathe it

COVID-19 has been named the invisible enemy.  This year it has dominated our thoughts and actions for the Health & Safety of ourselves and others.  Cultural norms like shaking hands, hugging, and meeting face-to-face have been set aside.  People are encouraged to limit their time out and about, and to wear face masks when they do.  What impact has all of this had on our Health & Safety?  These measures slow or prevent the spread of the virus, but many have asserted that they lead to unintended consequences like depression, addiction, suicidal ideation, postponing of medical diagnostics and procedures, domestic violence and lack of exercise.  Further, the loss of income and jobs lead to malnutrition, anxiety and desperation, endangering large swaths of our population.  In the age of COVID-19 … how do we find and build significant Health & Safety for ourselves and those we care about?  What can we do?  What can we control?

COVID-19 is a highly contagious virus that manifests with mild to moderate symptoms in most people, with the exception of those that are older, who have compromised immune systems, or who have existing underlying health problems.  It is a serious and terrifying proposition for those who are vulnerable.  But for the vast majority of people, a strong and healthy immune system is able to fight off the infection.  Vitamins such as D, C, and Zinc are known to boost the immune system and their deficiencies are associated with less effective immune systems.  The basic tenets of personal health such as eating healthy foods, taking vitamin supplements and getting exercise still apply.  Further measures apply for those in higher risk categories.  In every other outbreak in human history we have quarantined the sick, not the healthy.  We need to protect the vulnerable, but not shatter the lives of the innocent and the masses.  

We need to find our way back to some kind of new normal. We need to get moving again.  And we need to do things that are positive and constructive, not just negative and destructive.  To find peace, we need to be healthy and safe … but we also need to be productive.

Productivity - Work it, Do it

There is so much work to do, in every sense of the word.  Work to do to get the economy booming again.  Work to do inside of ourselves to feel better and navigate this new reality.  Work to do to create fun and life giving activities for ourselves and for others.  We need to start!  We need to get to it … quickly and efficiently.

So many people have been made idle by layoffs, business closures and restrictions.  As the lockdowns ease up, we need to reopen schools, stores and restaurants.  Yes, we need to take safety measures.  But we need to push ahead.  The economy is all about flow of resources, circulation of money through the system.  We need to get the blood of the economy pumping again.  So that means we, as customers, need to go out and participate, spend some money, invest in our local businesses, have some fun, tip our servers generously.  

We must also understand that we can’t consume our way to a solution.  People are happiest when they are producing things that they love.  Productivity also extends to artwork, yardwork, and housework.  Especially for those whose regular jobs are not available right now.  Producing for ourselves and for those around us keep us feeling useful and appreciated.  We can meet our own needs and those of people around us through creative Productivity.

One way to fight despair and desperation is to take action … any action.  Do something!  Build something.  Fix something.  Paint something.  Write something.  Grow something.  Record something.  Whatever your heart desires.  The crucial thing here is to create instead of destroy.

To find peace and preserve our nation, we need to be honest with each other and seek the truth and understanding beyond our bubbles.  We need to reach out to the people living around us, listen to them, connect with them.  We need to take actions to protect and build our own health and safety, and that of the most vulnerable around us.  And we need to get moving again!  We need to build instead of destroy.