Forgotten abilities

by Blair Warren

This is more a note to myself than anything, but for those who may be interested, here it is…

For weeks I’ve had a little, handwritten note on my desk.  The note contains just 6 words that make up three phrases.  The six words are:

- Assign meaning

- Create context

- Decide relevance

When I scribbled this note in the middle of the night, I didn’t quite know where I was going with these ideas.  Still, I placed the note on my desk and have read it dozens of times since.

While I hope to develop these phrases into something more substantial than just this blog entry, here are my thoughts as of today:

These phrases represent powerful abilities all of us can develop.  But for various reasons, few of us choose to do so.

Rather than actively “assigning meaning” to the things in our lives, we passively accept what we’ve been taught things mean.

Rather than actively trying to “create the context” of our lives, we passively accept whatever context is presented to us and then go about adapting ourselves to it.

And rather than actively deciding what is and is not relevant in our lives, we passively accept what we’re told is relevant, or have been taught is relevant.

Of course, we all have moments where we take a proactive approach in these areas, but not often.  And if we’re honest, it’s probably far less often than we’d like to think.

It is difficult to exercise these abilities as we get little or no social reinforcement when we do, but these abilities are, nonetheless, there for the taking.  And when we take them, what we can accomplish will often astonish us.

Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006 at 06:42 AM

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