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Thursday, January 04, 2007

Ask.

The first of the 2007 mottoes is in effect.

Ask what people need.

It's my job to do this and then translate it into an action plan, and execute the plan. It's also the foundation of community organizing, a set of trainings that I refer to often. This year I'll focus extra hard on the important bit of asking and not assuming. Offer help when you see it's needed, and don't forget to always ask, "What do you need? How can I help?"

Monday, January 01, 2007

Under consideration.

I'm working through potential mottos for 2007. (While trying simultaneously to distill what 2006's might have been. Or could have been. I'm not considering what it _should_ have been.)

My friend Laura (Laura-of-the-hard-jobs, I call her) differentiates between life mottos and annual mottos. I admire this, and she's the inspiration for the mottoization of 2007. I usually think of myself as having figured out my values in the way back. On a daily basis, I think of myself as refining the application of those values. I usually think that my values don't/ haven't changed. My perception of the constancy of my, uh, Value Palette is primarily based on 1. My firm your work-is-the-greatest-part-of-your-life-so-choose-well policy, 2. My ongoing focus on loving kindness, and 3. My firm policy of supporting other people in the sheltering of their hope. I suspect an inventory of my values is due to flesh out fuzzier parts, or more accurately to bring clarity and focus to what I'm already doing.

Potential 2007 mottos under consideration:

*Give as much as you can.
Bringing a focus to what I'm giving, to whom, and if I'm giving enough. Or too much. Redefining give and much and can. Intention.

*(Motto TBD)
Working towards things vs. contentment with what you have. Striving discontentedly vs. settling into (for?) contentment. Working on big, hard things vs. reveling in the joy of the everyday. A Nobel prize vs. sunlight on eyelids.