BE HAPPY, DON'T WORRY! YOU DON'T NEED TO BE A PERFECT PERSON, YOU NEED ONLY TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE WONDERFUL PERSON YOU ARE!

BE HAPPY DON’T WORRY!

YOU DON’T NEED TO BE A PERFECT PERSON

YOU NEED ONLY TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE WONDERFUL PERSON YOU ARE

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© February 28, 2014

If you will stop a minute beating up on yourself, the wonderful person within, crying to be released to the world, will surface to everyone’s joy.  As often as we are told “attitude is everything,” we are conditioned to interpret that to mean, “our attitude towards other people,” not our attitude about or towards ourselves. 

Next time you are down on yourself, next time you’re going through another watershed moment, which we all do several times in our lives, reflect on these little homilies:

To have a friend, you must be a friend, starting with yourself.

The greatest desire any of us has is to be needed, to be loved and wanted and appreciated.  By creating self-acceptance in ourselves, such feelings towards others surface naturally, resulting in our being loved and wanted and appreciated.

The greatest virtue is kindness, to express kindness towards others we must first show kindness towards ourselves.  It is impossible to love everyone, but it is possible to be kind to anyone.

Once we have a tolerance for ourselves, as we are, we will have a natural tolerance for others as we find them.  Then, we won’t find it necessary for us to impress them, but will allow them to impress us.

In order to accept anyone else, it requires that we first accept ourselves.  Self-acceptance is the same as liking ourselves, having a sense of humor about ourselves as we are.

Find joy in doing.  Such joy comes naturally in doing something that we enjoy.  Don’t let others tell us what brings joy, or decide for us what is worthwhile or joyful, and what is not.  Another word for joy is “enthusiasm,” and enthusiasm is nothing less than quintessential joy.

Recognize that with the positive there is a negative, with optimism there is pessimism, with love there is hate.  We are not made up of one charge, either positive or negative, nor should we always be optimistic when circumstances are clearly pessimistic, indeed, as loving as we are we are equally hating of some things, soma behaviors, and some developments.  This is called reality, and we shouldn’t apologize for having a firm grasp of reality, for with it, we lead, we are in charge, and we are secure in our person.

Courtesy is another word for self-respect.  It is as impossible to be uncivil to others as it is possible to self-respecting and still be disrespectful of others.  With self-respect, no person whatever his or her station is more important than any other person.  Respecting one’s achievements and station in life is one thing, to put those achievements or station above personal regard for others of more modest achievements or station is quite another.

To experience self-dignity has nothing to do with always being right, never being wrong, always succeeding never failing, always saying and doing the right thing, and never misspeaking or misbehaving.  Self-dignity is a personal reverence for being human and seeing others in the same light.

To listen is to learn, to always be talking is to take up precious time away from learning.  The highest compliment we can pay others is not only to listen to them, not only to hear what they are saying, but to experience the rhythm and tempo and music of what they are thinking, because when you do, you are connecting with a fellow human being in a way that is richer than all the gold in Fort Knox.

We disparage gossip and yet we gossip.  There would be no novels, no television dramas, no plays on Broadway, no operas or symphonies were gossip to disappear, as gossip is the language that escapes no highbrow or lowbrow, no scholar or scientist, no saint or sinner.  It is the running commentary of life speaking to itself about itself in the moment.  When gossip is malicious, it is evil, and since we are all sinners as well as saints, we can be malicious by accident as well as on purpose.  A word to the wise, then, is always be on our guard when it comes to gossip.

The old limerick, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” we know is garbage.  Words do hurt, and the words that hurt a hundred years ago may still hurt today, as do words just spoken.  That is because words have become weapons for good and evil, celebration and destruction.  When we become too sensitive to words, however, the danger is that words can become more important than what they refer to.  Then, we are no longer in charge and are obsessively compulsively worried about being politically correct when it comes to words.

The beauty of being human is that we are as conscious of being cheerful as we are conscious of being sad.  There are times when it is impossible to be cheerful, times when it is important for us to embrace our sadness and allow it to run its course.  This is not only wise it is necessary.  We need apologize to no one for this, including to ourselves.

We are told from an early age never to argue about race, religion or politics.  The word “argue” is an operational word that implies that whatever opinions we may have about race, religion or politics, or for that matter, anything else, we should keep to ourselves.  If each of us was living in a vacuum, that might be possible but we live in a society in which race, religion and politics are part of the dynamic of life.  A better operational word would be “to discuss.”  We don’t live in a vacuum, and we do have opinions on race, religion and politics, among many other things.  We grow as a society by open discussion and exchange of such opinions.  It would be as wrong not to be confrontational when someone says something harmful, or hurtful as it would be to retire into ourselves in submission.  We differ as individuals, and it is impossible to avoid conflict between us, as it is to avoid conflict within us.  With discussion, and good will, conflict can be managed, and the benefit of such management is that we find it is the glue that holds us together and to our purpose.

There is a place for deprecating humor, as where would late night television comedians be without it?  Self-deprecating humor, if it is used to create a sense of balance, is one thing, but if it is used as self-assassination is quite another.  Were deprecating humor excised from comedians, there would be no audience, as people love to have the high and mighty brought down to size with such humor.  The danger is when deprecating humor becomes a license to make racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, social or personal slurs.   Some euphemize the justification for this claiming it is only sarcasm, but behind every sarcasm is likely to be found a bully.   

The major problem in life is one we never discuss.  Is it because we assume we know the answer, or do we think the answer is self-evident?  Whatever the case may be the hardest person in the world to accept is ourselves.  Saying this doesn’t change anything.  But there is a key to penetrating this conundrum and that is by helping others to like themselves.  When someone says, “Thanks to your help, I feel better about myself,” we are on the road to doing the same for ourselves.
 

Likewise, when we succeed in getting others to talk about their dreams, their ambitions, their ideas, and opinions, we release them from their self-imprisonment, and in doing so, we release ourselves from ours.  

They say it takes many more muscles to frown than to smile.  Try smiling when you least feel like smiling, not for any specific reason, other than to reduce the tension in your soul.  A crazy thing is likely to occur, as you say to yourself, only an idiot would be smiling under the circumstances, and I’m smiling.  As this registers, you are likely to break into a broad grin, and possibly a ruckus laugh at such delightful insanity, for insanity is nothing other than “being out of your mind" in the moment.  

What goes around comes around, we simply cannot change that.  By doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, we get a little better, happier, and yes, wiser, one person at a time.  It all ends where it begins with the Golden Rule.

  

   

SEX ROLE IDENTITY and THE FISHER MODEL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION ©™

SEX ROLE IDENTITY AND THE FISHER MODEL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION©™

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© February 23, 2014

Michael Sam, an outstanding college football player, announced to the world that he was gay before the National Football League went into the draft phase of selecting college players for the next season.  It has been a controversial and courageous act for this young man, but it does not compare with American Olympic Gold Medalist, Greg Louganis, who won two Gold Medals for diving in both the 1984 and 1988 Olympics.  He received death threats, ostracism, and contemplated suicide.  It moved the late Murray Kempton to write, “Why, America, did you, in your arrogance, teach so many of your children to hate themselves?” 

For this reason, alone, Michael Sam’s coming out in this most macho sport is a sign America is a little less arrogant and a little more tolerant of differences.   

We spend a lifetime figuring out who and what we are, never certain to the end.  This includes our sexuality.  Sex role identity is learned behavior.  The gender of male and female is not in our DNA.  Yet religious taboo puts something of a stranglehold on gender roles and what it is to be male and female, or not.  The cosmic irony is that God put DNA of both sexes in our genes to complicate these gender roles and those identities. 

I am not an advocate of hetero or homogeneity.  Perhaps that is because I have never had to struggle with gender role identity or physical attraction, as I sense many do and have.  Can you imagine the courage it must take to find yourself more attracted to what society construes is “the wrong gender,” and then have to build a life around that?   Well, I can’t. 

What I can understand, and I have spent a good bit of my life dealing with this is the “self” and “role demands” on that self.  I have attempted to capture this in a paradigm.    

What follows has been taken from CONFIDENT THINKING (TATE Publishing 2014).  It is offered here to suggest the struggle in daily life is within ourselves and between ourselves and others.  Sex role identity is but one issue, and is unlikely to be the most pressing one. 

THE FISHER MODEL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION © ™

PSYCHOLOGICAL FORCES WITHIN INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS

When you deal with others, you must ask yourself, “Who is speaking?” That is what I asked myself with author Richard Dawkins’ declaration that God is a delusion. He has every right to say that and I have every right to differ with him.  Now, “who is speaking,” not only applies to the person sharing his views, but also to “who is listening” in terms of his reaction to such views.  This brings us to the nature of what I call “the ideal self“ and “the real self.”

How we interpret and react to what we hear is predetermined largely by how we define the information in terms of our “ideal self“ and “real self” to a specific situation. They are both valid parts of each of us and influence greatly whether we define the situation well or poorly.

Taking this one step further, acting on our minds will be two further dimensions of this process, and that is “self-demands” and “role demands.” Once it is clear that our reaction to a given situation is either in terms of our “ideal self“ or “real self,” then it follows that either our “self-demands” or “role demands“ will surface and come into play.

There are two pressures acting on us at all times, the “real self” and the “ideal self.” The “real self” is how we actually are, a side we show when we think nobody is watching.  If we accept our “real self,” chances are we won’t get all bent out of shape when someone penetrates our facade. Given this, there is a good chance we will define our situation clearly and act on it appropriately.

Once we start to think on our own, once we get beyond the support system of our family, and process information in the light of experience, that voice in the back of our head that was our parents is now quiet. It is still there.  But we have grown beyond that voice and have developed our own. We have discovered our authentic self. We cannot have an authentic identity or self until we are acquainted with and comfortable being that “real self” as our friend.

Only we can establish identity consistent with our nature. No one else can do that for us. This gives birth to the “adult ego state,” which is another expression for the “real self.” Thus we have the emotional maturity to see the situation as it is, not as it should be. We are ready to deal with each situation as it arises in terms of its real demands, which might be labeled “role demands.”

The “ideal self“ is how we have been programmed or think we should behave. It is a combination of the “critical parent” (judgmental parent) and “nurturing parent” (parent as apologist).  The irony is once our parents are out of the picture, or remotely associated with us, those two parents wage constant war on our psyches.  Our children are very familiar with these two “parents” as they confuse creating mixed messages.  Why?  Because often when parents should be critical, they aren’t, and when they should be understanding and solicitous, they are critical. 

The “ideal self“ is the “superego state” or “moral self.” It is the judgmental self that owns everyone’s problems seeing every situation in terms of black and white, expecting the situation to behave as it should, not as it is does. Complicating matters further, guilt and self-loathing can take residence in a parent for not having been a perfect child.  Fearing somehow this might be revealed, the parent projects an "ideal self" that has never existed.  For that reason, the parent fears honesty is not only a bad policy but may result in the child stumbling into the same treacherous messes.

The perfectionist mania of Leonardo da Vinci may have contributed to his failure to often complete tasks (see Sigmund Freud’s “Leonardo da Vinci,” 1916). It was a way to presage his brilliance “as if only” the work had been completed.  Take the incomplete masterpiece Mona Lisa for example.

The “ideal self” denies its shortcomings and therefore is crippled by them. It is common with passive-receptive personalities to be emotionally dependent on others to make choices for them, to give them advice, and take control. They want someone to blame should things go wrong. By abdicating responsibility, they see themselves as blameless when they misstep.

“Self-demands“ are prominent if we are needy. Needy persons need attention, approval, to appear to be somebody, to have others available to protect their fragile egos, and act as a sounding board for all their woes. Such persons need to make a good impression, need people to know how important they are, need to be associated with people of prominence, need to name drop, need to attend a prestigious university, need to be included in everything, and need constant reassurance.

“Self-demands“ find it impossible for the person to listen, as he is only interested in what is important to him and what he thinks. He can be easily offended with the slightest criticism, but thinks nothing of criticizing others. He is a rumormonger, a gossip, and tends to be passive aggressive, maliciously obedient, or obsessive compulsive.

“Role demands” focus on the situation. “Role demands” constantly change. They differ when listening to a friend, completing a work assignment, or providing emotional support to a loved one. The person who has a firm grip on “role demands“ shows an easy grace and self-confidence as he changes from one demand to another never confusing the demands or the situation. He is not the center of the focus, the demands of the situation are.  He is not judgmental as that is not in his repertoire.  And he doesn’t own other people’s problems.

He brings the best out in others because he pays attention. He actively listens. This does not mean he allows others to set up straw men to compromise him. For example, he would not let a problem drinker get off the hook by hiding in “his disease.” He is not a patsy for his or anyone else’s excesses.

To better understand the difference between these two demands in terms of confident thinking, there is a simple checklist:

With “self-demands,” it is evident that you need to protect your fragile ego when you need others to share your personal biases toward everybody and everything. If others don’t fall in line with your thinking, you are inclined to classify them in belittling stereotypes.

With “role demands,” you perceive the situation in light of its specific demands.  You demonstrate confidence and caring. For this, you earn group trust. You see a synergistic connection between individual and group needs. You have no inclination to compare and compete, to divide and conquer, or put one individual or group against another. You are kind, considerate, consistent, fair and respectful, but also firm. You treat everyone alike with dignity, while holding behavior to a high standard, according to the demands of the situation. You are no pushover. You display confident thinking without badgering others with it. Others feel better for being in your company. You know life is not fair, but that is not relevant. You are not an apologist. The idea of “feel good” applies to “self-demands,” not “role demands.”

You expect your life and work to be judged critically, but fairly, and you expect you won’t always see eye-to-eye with your bosses. So, it is no surprise that others don’t always see eye-to-eye with you. You know life is not divided into semesters where you can bone up for exams, but a series of daily pop quizzes. Success comes when preparation meets opportunity. There is no luck involved as everyone gets a report card every day. The key to “role demands” is readiness.

Consequently, if a person is obsessed with his “ideal self “and “self-demands,” the situation will be poorly defined, misperceived and misinterpreted. It is the blindness of old logic, a fraction that always seeks its integer.  Reason will not convince such a person to think otherwise. It is “the system” that is against him, and he will have it no other way.  He is the victim. It is not his fault. He did nothing wrong. That may be true, but even truer is that he most likely did nothing right. He is an emotional cripple heading toward self-defeat, and if not corrected, a victim of chronic disappointment.  Since the confident thinker is comfortable with the “real self” and “role demands,” he will define the situation accurately.

He will embrace the consequences of his actions, and nip problems in the bud before they explode out of control.  For this attention, his personal security will be enhanced, his professional influence solidified, and his aspirations on the road to self-realization.

This is not to imply that for every step forward there is not a step back, or that surprise and failure do not occur on occasion. It means he is ready for the most stressful situation.  Even when everything is not going well, adaptive tension gets him through the difficulty. He is not paralyzed by maladaptive tension.  This is because he embraces his fears rather than runs from them, accepts the challenges at hand and deals with them the best that he can. At the end of the day, he is satisfied he did his best. The body and mind are one and resolutely resilient. 

“Role demands” place the focus on the job at work and in life off the job.  In that sense, they are contagious, helping others to adjust to what they can do rather than what they can’t do and into accepting who they are rather than who they should be.

There is a natural dynamic in the “zone of conflict” where these forces compete for dominance. It is the tension between the “real self” and “ideal self,” and “self-demands” and “role demands.”  If the "ideal self" and "self-demands" are winning the struggle, it is in the direction of self-defeat.  If the "real self" and "role demands" is winning, it is in the direction of self-realization.

This determines whether the situation is clearly or poorly defined.  The drama of mounting anger is first rehearsed in our heads, often unbeknown to us, before it explodes between us and someone else.  If only we were more self-aware, when social pressure starts to build, we could take a deep breath, count to three, excuse ourselves, go somewhere private, take out a handkerchief and clean our glasses, or any number of other things to bring our pressure gauge down to where we could react without embarrassment.

Too often we “pop off.” This is a form of rage. This was the case with actor, Mel Gibson, a deeply religious zealot, director of the acclaimed film, “The Passion of the Christ“(2004), when he was stopped for erratic driving. He resisted arrest, and went into a hysterical tirade against Jews, police and society, inconsistent with what he professed to be his “real self.”  Gibson insisted this was an aberration, and simply the harangue of a “wild ass drunk.”

Freud would not agree. He would say he had real issues between his “ideal self“ and “real self,” as well as between his “self-demands“ and “role demands,” and that the persona he attempted to project of the devout Roman Catholic was loaded with conflict and inconsistency, and that all this repressed tension had to eventually surface. Unfortunately, when such rage finally surfaces, it is almost always ill timed.  Before you judge Mr. Gibson harshly know that part of us has little interest in our best interests; part of us has little regard whether our actions are destructive or constructive. The angels and demons of our nature are always active and likely to surface the more we confine ourselves to high stress situations with little down time. 

The Fisher Model of Conflict Resolution©™ is never static, never one-dimensional, and can be accelerated or retarded by the clash of emotional temperaments. While we are at war within ourselves, this same conflict goes on within others as well.  Consequently, a given situation can be perceived in multiple ways. This complexity can be mind-boggling but it need not be.  Be kind and accepting of yourself and you will inevitably find yourself kind and accepting of others, whatever your predilections.

TRUTH AND NATURE, A COMMON TAPESTRY

TRUTH AND NATURE, A COMMON TAPESTRY

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© February 23, 2014

 

REFERENCE:

RW is a person I’ve only met once.  I have been a fan of her essays on the Dr. Donald Farr e-mail Network for some time.  Her words are descriptive of nature that are akin to her spirit.  Nature is her theatre and she blesses it and is blessed by it, and expresses that rapture with such joy that it becomes the reader’s as well.  I confessed to her in an earlier exchange that although from Iowa I have never been on a farm, never been into animals with the possible exception of the human species, and was ashamed of my ignorance.  Next time Betty and I are in Iowa she has agreed to give us an educational experience, which we are looking forward to.  In this essay she bridges her world with mine in a most kind way.

 

A READER WRITES   

 

TO OPENING the wonders of nature to you and Betty...would be much like you revealing your thoughts on mankind.  They are foreign one to the other. 

While an appreciation of nature takes complete immersion, I only see you completely lost in wild thoughts of mankind and the battle you do refining the various cultures and histories into a whole tapestry. 

You must deal with art, religion, schools of thought, and possess the complete dedication to sort among them to find truth.

Nature is easy, note and reflect, accept and appreciate.  Four directions: each its own way; the elements: fire, wind, water and to me light.  Nature reveals more mysteries than man's mind ever uncovers. 

Thomas Macaulay wrote much about man but he is dead to today's world.  A great shame his essays on life and death, his value of history is forgotten as today history omits much of the struggle to arrive at conclusions, as seen by many denying the basics of WWII. 

Thomas Merton was a chicken as he ducked much that you wrestle to the ground.  You rise again to battle yet again.  You embrace the machinery of fairness and correctness in the work place.  You have condensed daily life to the best one can squeeze from its overwhelming complications.

However, the world of man has lost its compass and morality is an eradicated word from the vocabulary of leaders.  What makes a leader would be a conflict in itself. 

Give me the snow melt and the world beneath it as is my world today...a new mystery tomorrow.  E.O. Wilson balances the world of nature and science in his study of ants, and applies it to man's struggle to work together.  This gives little to the ponderings your mind uncovers. 

As I have said before, walk on in your ponderings.  Great things can be revealed but only to those strong enough to endure. 

I often laugh at our cats spending hours watching for the voles to emerge from their nests, and Mark reminds me of the time I spend marveling and recording the comings and goings of the whole of Nature. 

Be well, Jim and Betty!  And, Betty, the day will arrive when you can spend your time in the luxury of staying home.  Your book could be life with Jim.  I know how hard it is to have a mate you have to knock on his head to enter his world.  Hands on face and pull it to yours as he is so completely immersed in his own world of thought. 

RW

 

DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

I feel blessed that I know RW, and I know my wife Betty does as well.  What is more authentic and true than to be one with nature?  Thank you, RW, and

Always be well,

Jim

PUNISHMENT NOW, ABSOLUTION LATER! THE ORDEAL OF BOOK SIGNINGS AND WHY DO AUTHORS ENDURE THEM!

PUNISHMENT NOW, ABSOLUTION LATER! THE ORDEAL OF BOOK SIGNINGS AND WHY DO AUTHORS ENDURE THEM!

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© February 22, 2014

It has been some time since I last had a book signing.  They have become camp for book publishers large and small, and crucial for self-publishing or semi-self-publishing authors.  I don’t exactly fit in these defined categories as I have had my own publishing company, been published by established publishing companies of long histories, and have most recently been published by what I would call a hybrid of these categories in that its primary business is self-publishing authors, but for some reason chose to give me a contract for ten of my books, nine second editions and one, first edition.

                           Long time friend, Janet, at the "book signing."

           

   This publisher has invested a great deal of labor intensive time and publishing acumen in this project.  My sense is that it took far more time than the publisher expected thinking republishing my books would be a slam dunk.  In other words, the publisher, once it received the copyrighted manuscripts, thought creating second editions would take a minimum of editing to put them between soft covers.  Implicit in this strategy was that the author would self-promote and self-market these books with its expert guidance.  Not apparently considered was that the author was in his dotage and not a fresh talent.

It mystified me from the beginning that this publisher wanted to enter such a contract with me, first, because my books span 44-years, second, because they are mainly to a niche market that chose mainly to ignore them when first published with rare exception, and third, because I don’t write to any choir but to an audience that may or may not relate to my empirical experience and my cut on that experience. 

I have had the benefit of some brilliant people who have done a yeoman like job to connect me with an audience, at some risk to their profession, reputation and own careers, yet they have done it, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

I am thinking in particular of an author, an academic and a mainstream editor and journalist.  I don’t hear from them anymore for I have a reputation of wearing people out as I can be quite demanding.   There is no bend or no give in my integrity, not even the width of a hair follicle.  I don’t say this with false pride or bravado.  It is just the way I am built. 

Yesterday, I had a "book signing," in which one person showed up and bought two books.  She is a great supporter of my work and a loyal friend.  Many planned on coming but were otherwise engaged, or simply forgot or just didn’t feel it was worth the effort.  In any case, I share this with you, my loyal readers from around the world, who reads my books and this blog.

By some curious happenstance, “Fragments of a Philosophy” that I occasionally post draws the biggest international audience and response.  My muse for these is Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom I believe knocked them off with equal alacrity and spontaneity that I do.  Consequently, I suspect when I am gone that they will endure if my works otherwise do not. 

My daughter, Laurie, drove me to the "book signing" in downtown Tampa in a crowded quaint little coffee and sandwich shop.  She is a model and although well into her fifties has not lost her beauty as the picture here shows.

 

Dr. Fisher with his daughter, Laurie, at the "book signing."

As we were sitting there with our one client, whom I have known for several years, Laurie, who is not known to be philosophical was just that.  She is tall, six-two, strong of will and thought, and of my four birth children, the second oldest but always the strongest, the mother hen of the four, the person who has always been there for the other three, while the other three have never been there for her, because she being strong and them being weak they never saw the need. 

Yet, she confessed that was not true, as she sat there with me and our one client.  She said that she often hurt, often felt alone, and could use someone to talk to, someone she could trust to say her mind, someone she could connect with, but alas, it seemed that others always had a greater need to share their woes with her and little time or inclination to entertain hers. 

Laurie is another reason why I have such a high regard for women.  I have never met a man in my life as strong as my daughter.

That said I wasn’t prepared this morning when I woke up to remember some words she said at the “book signing.”  I think she feared I was depressed or disappointed with only one person showing up for the book signing.  I was actually relieved.  I prefer being where I am here, right now, writing these words in the sanctuary of my study, contemplating, composing, constructing and creating a litany of words that rises out of my soul and finds a way before my eyes as they do now.

Laurie said to Janet, the lone client at this book signing,

“Authors are important to us.  They record our lives and tell us who we are.  They tell us stories of those lives that were they not to tell us those stories we would miss the joy of living.  I cannot imagine life without authors or without the stories they tell us about ourselves.  I’m glad they have the courage to write and record their thoughts when most of us simply take these thoughts for granted.” 

She went on talking to Janet while my mind drifted off into other things for, at the time, the wisdom and the insight her words conveyed bounced off my tympanic membrane without as much as a tinkle.  But somehow that vibrating mechanism penetrated my psyche to collect in my dreams and resurface as a sensation with significance as I woke up today.

The other thought was the title of this piece, “Punishment and Absolution,” which also came to mind as I woke this morning.  Writing is something akin to punishment because few things are more difficult, and yet people write and write and write some more.  I hope they enjoy something like the absolution that I experienced in my daughter’s words that rose, unexpectantly, from her dreamy eyes. 

A TOP EXECUTIVE RESPONDS TO “MAD AS HELL!”

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© February 20, 2014

REFERENCE:

As preface to these remarks this executive, from a Fortune 100 company, said in an aside that he remembered another young man who came to me for help decades ago.  “You told him,” he continued, “that he was all screwed up, and you were right, but he got better.”

Indeed, he did as this response illustrates.

He adds, “I’m glad your books are taking off, and more importantly, that you’re around to see it.”

 

*    *    *   

AN EXECUTIVE WRITES:

Dr. Fisher,

If you don’t mind, I’d like to respond to the reader below from the perspective of an executive who’s hired a fair number of people over a long career.  My intent is to “drop the pants,” so to speak, on the system in a way I wish someone had done for me when I was young.

Prelude:  The following are just my opinions.  I may state them directly because I believe them to be true, but in the end they are just my opinions.  Take them as no more than that.

Humans are unique in that we’re the only species that live in two domains, the theoretical and the empirical.  The theoretical is between our ears where anything is possible, and the empirical is the material world where life plays out.  Theoretical has the ideal, empirical is what it is at the moment. All codes of ethics, value systems, etc. come from the theoretical domain and are subjective.  They feel concrete to us, but they too are just opinions. Some help us in the empirical domain, some do not.  There is no “should be” in the empirical domain. Citizens of the theoretical domain view the empirical as a disaster; citizens of the empirical domain say, “Disaster or not, I have to deal with it”.

These domains operate on different foundation premises.  While it’s true that every man-made item in the empirical world started as an idea in the theoretical, it’s also true that 99% of the ideas trying to migrate from the theoretical to empirical fail because they violate the foundation premises of the empirical domain.

Until WW2, most Americans were solid residents of the empirical domain, endowed with what my parents called “common sense”, earned through experience.  Starting with us boomers after WW2, formal education replaced experience and we became solid citizens of the theoretical domain, only to hit a brick wall upon entry into the empirical.  The young man below has hit that wall in his job quest.  So, here’s how the empirical domain works with regards to hiring:

As a leader, my success comes from my people.  I can make mistakes and drive the whole car into the ditch, but my success only comes from my people.  Hiring someone is like marriage, easy to get into and sticky to get out of.  Consequently, it pays to spend considerable effort on the hiring end thus to avoid the necessity of the other end to the extent possible.  When it comes to hiring, there are two processes in play, mine and HR’s.  Frankly, I will take a candidate from HR only as a last resort.  Why?  Because my agendas are business success and HR’s are everything but.  Once I buy it, I own it, and all sales are final. One learns quickly to buy carefully.  I've found that the key is to get the best people I can, set the ground rules clearly and get out of their way. If I treat them as adults, they will behave as adults.  If they make honest mistakes, that’s no problem.  If I detect treachery, I lose confidence in them and replace them with someone I do have confidence in. How they hire their people is their business, I hold them responsible for performance and meeting their objectives.  Most copy my approach eventually, learning the same lessons I did the same way I did.

 I’m watching the workforce and talking to people all the time, keeping track of who’s talented and who is not.  I have a backup person(s) in my head for every member of my core team.  When a slot comes open, I will fill it from my back up list or with someone recommended by someone I know.  The organization says I have to play ball with HR, so I let them go through their machinations, and they eventually bring some resumes that sit on my desk.  I may look at them, I may not.  If someone is obviously from Nazareth, then I may mark that for future consideration, but it’s been decades since I've taken an HR candidate. HR doesn't seem to care. They get paid to go through their process.  When you throw a resume into a company, you’re throwing it into the HR process, subject to all the issues you've outlined below.

Do not despair!  My process is workable, and once past your initial trepidation, it’s actually enjoyable. It’s also less competitive; the majority never figure it out.  The objective is to be the guy in my mind toward the day an opening arises.  Lead the target.  Think several career moves ahead and start today to find the paths that let the people who would fill those positions get to know you.  That needs to be worked within your organization and also outside of it.  Join as many organizations in your industry as possible and participate.  Don’t just hand cards to everyone, but specifically look for and target the kind of people who can help you downstream. Look for small ways to help them to maintain contact. If you can recruit them as a mentor, that’s priceless and sometimes it’s a simple as just asking.  It’s really hard to judge someone from a resume, and letting them get to know you takes a lot of their downside fears off the table.  If you’re unemployed, that’s especially true.  People assume you’re unemployed for a reason, probably bad.  Everybody has a story, so yours gets immediately discounted even if true.  If you’re long term unemployed, people figure a hundred guys have already looked at you and written you off, ergo, why bother. Personal contact is the only way around this.  It’s not fair, but fair is a concept of the theoretical domain; in the empirical domain, fair is defined differently. Every executive I know, operates the same way.  You can’t afford not to. If you take what HR gives you, you end up with a dysfunctional mess.  Welcome to evolutionary de-selection from the executive ranks.

With respect to embellishing your resume, I strongly recommend against it.  First of all, if you’re doing your networking well, the resume becomes a non-issue.  Secondly, it will catch up with you.  True, one can gain a short-term competitive advantage through dishonesty, but the long term punishment can be severe.  Those of us who are older have all seen people fall from spectacular heights because they falsified their resume at some point.  I have personally known colleagues who went on to be executives in other companies that were fired because their embellishments were accidentally exposed.  This isn't a right or wrong issue, it’s a smart or stupid issue.   The same applies to politics.  Be politically astute, but not overly political.  One can rise quickly beyond one’s capabilities via politics, but some day somewhere, if you’re wearing the black belt, someone’s going to expect you to perform as a black belt.  If you haven’t done the homework along the way, you’re Wiley Coyote.

The front door is heavily guarded, but the back door is usually wide open.  It’s worth the effort to find the back door.

Think long term.

DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

Yes, I remember that first time you came to see me, as if it were yesterday.  I sat at my desk a long time after you left, and thought about how common greatness is, and how you in all your "fucked upness" were its embodiment.  I often talk about you with my Betty, and am glad Betty has met you, and knows of you.  Betty has taught me about something more important, love, which my uncle first expressed in words to me that had little meaning at the time. 

A long time ago, my uncle escaped the narrow confines of Irish bigotry to become a prominent professor at the University of Detroit.  He represented a window of opportunity out of those narrow confines of Irish bigotry that encapsulated me. 

One time after coming home from a business trip to Europe for Nalco Chemical Company -- I was even younger than this young man profiled here – I had dinner with my uncle, a widower, in Detroit, and then stayed the night. 

He listened to me through dinner, and then we returned to his home.  He retired to his bedroom and then returned in his pajamas.  He found me reading in his study.  He picked up a book and started to read to me.  I stopped and listened.  His voice as quiet as a breeze, his back to me, then he turned around with tears in his eyes.

I'll never forget those tears -- and said, "Jimmy, it is not about that (meaning the things I was pontificating with great gusto all evening long), it is only about love." 

He turned and went to bed without another word.  It was as if he slapped me silly with his gentle voice and words.  I was married and the father of four children and knew nothing about love. 

Somehow after you left that first time we were together, my mind turned from thinking about greatness to how much love that young man (meaning you) had in his heart.  I think love bridges the gap between the theoretical and empirical. 

This has been fortified in life as I went through a spell when I read about saints, many, many saints, and came to the conclusion that although many of them confessed a love of God, which I didn't dispute, I didn't sense always a consistent love of man, in fact, I often felt palpable evidence of quite the contrary feeling. 

I have not been too enamored of saints ever since, and it shows in A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA, the most honest thing I have ever written.  My sense is that honesty is not enough in this sick world of ours at the moment.  But as long as there are people like you, we have a chance of surviving as a species.

Love, for me, is the key no matter what your ethnicity or sexual orientation. That is the theoretical in conversation with the empirical.  

One final thought, Josiah in my GREEN ISLAND novel was real.  He was murdered on my estate, a Bantu (black man) with whom I would have conversations such as this.  He was 27 when he was murdered.  The crime was handled by the Afrikaner government as if a dog had been run over in the street.  

I've always had tremendous respect for you, and I'm not surprised by your dichotomous paradigm of theoretical/empirical or subjective/objective or feeling/thinking differentiation. 

It is your opinion, but it has a solid and rational foundation, a basis.  I must add, however, that in my executive-consulting-counseling-coaching career it has often been found to be missing. 

Were it to exist as an operational model in the macrocosm, in my view, there would be no need for my efforts through my many books and articles. 

With these efforts, I’m trying to reach ordinary people who happen to rise to uncommon heights such as yourself, or ordinary souls who have never managed to get beyond living paycheck to paycheck.  They can be of any ethnicity, nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation, or occupation as I see them simply as the different faces of humanity.

I don’t write for scholars or academics, for any vested interest or constituency.  I am not for “winning friends and influencing people,” if it means compromising my good sense.  With my template, I can be equally critical of the good guys as I can be of the bad guys because I see them pretty much the same – meaning I see bad in the good guys, and good in the bad guys -- only they wear different uniforms, live in different neighborhoods with different incomes and lifestyles. 

As you are older than this young man, I am senior to you.  And as you take a detached and reasonable perspective, I take a somewhat heated one.  Like you, I was trained in science and have made my coin in the empirical world, but always the theoretical world has had almost a magnetic attraction to my disposition. 

My da wanted me to be a New York City cop (empirical) and my mother wanted me to be a Jesuit priest (theoretical), and I have somehow, or I might say, inevitably, come to combine these orientations in a career that now spans more than 50 years. 

Everything you say about Human Resources (HR) I concur with, everything! 

In my writing, I call HR management's union.  I have seldom seen HR demonstrated the courage to put executives in the frame of the selection process.  HR gravitated towards this, I believe, by default as most executives have not been interested in the time consuming process of creative involvement which the selection of people demands.

It is reassuring to have you express your commitment to the process with your grace and eloquence on these pages.  Thank you.

That is my subjective theoretical side speaking, but it is based upon my empirical experience.  Emerson is a constant presence in my writing, and I feel his smile as I read your words. 

As long as life generates such a spirit as yours, there is hope as your words are an expression of courage.  Should this young man read your words, my sincere desire is that he weighs each sentence with the wisdom it contains. 

We don't know anything new when it comes to the theoretical.  Alas, who can improve on Shakespeare's "To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst be false to any man"?

Dr. Fisher

MAD AS HELL! A PROFESSIONAL REACTS, OR HOW THE ELECTRONIC SWEATSHOP IS TRANSFORMING THE WORKPLACE OF THE FUTURE INTO THE FACTORY OF THE PAST

MAD AS HELL!  A PROFESSIONAL REACTS

OR

HOW THE ELECTRONIC SWEATSHOP IS TRANSFORMING THE WORKPLACE OF THE FUTURE INTO THE FACTORY OF THE PAST

 

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© February 17, 2014

A READER WRITES:

Dr. Fisher, in your experience has the world always been this messed up?  I am beside myself with anxiety, frustrated to the point I don’t know who to trust.  Do people who lie get ahead, and those that don’t stay behind?

Have resumes always read like science fiction?  I say that because I feel I am competing with Superman like characters who conceive convincing fiction when they submit their credentials.  Has recruiting always been so impersonal.  I say that because human resources recruiters feel no necessity to meet you.  They prefer you send on line your fiction and the best creative writers get follow up on-line interviews. 

It feels as if your resume or curriculum vitae, whatever you want to call it, falls into a Stephen Hawkins black hole with 100,000 others never to be seen again.  Sure, some get hired.  By accident or design, by cunning or knowing the game, they create the key word or words that activates the science fiction reading filtering machine, and “Voila!”  They are given an interview. 

It doesn’t stop there.  They have the temerity to be imposters to the end, walking in for the interview with their Magna Carter made-up credentials, careful to highlight what could be easily confirmed, and to bury the rest in the nebulous beyond the interviewer’s interest in verifying.  I know.  I have seen this film in action. 

Do I have to play the game, betray my values in order to be successful in this life?  Should I join the cue of dissembling with made up achievements?  I worked in Europe, and speak Spanish and Italian fluently, and some French, and could offer a confection of European achievements, but they’d be totally bogus.  I could also inflate my salary history – including my European experience – but what’s the point? 

I have a solid work experience, some college, but experience that many MBAs don’t have.  I’m in my thirties, and should be in the best working years of my life, and I’m treated like an interchangeable part that could be discarded without as much as a fairly well. 

If I sound jaded, it is because no one hiring seems to give too hoots about what you can do.  All the interviewer wants is to read your fiction on paper and hear the right words coming out of your mouth that resonate, regardless how phony. 

What kind of an illusion are we living in?  Has it been reduced to “catch me if you can” type of world, where nothing is authentic and everyone successful feels no shame in sustaining the fiction?

I know, Dr. Fisher, I am ranting, but I needed to talk to someone, and writing this has helped if you can believe that.  I am normally a happy guy, and people enjoy my company, but I’ve gotten sour of late, and they don’t like it and neither do I. 

You seem to understand people like me.  I find your books and missives consoling, but to be candid, they don’t solve my problem. 

This may sound self-serving, but I feel the world rewards the wrong people, and it has resulted in a dumbing down of all of us.  The reason I say this is because I have been used as a reference by people I know for things they have not done, listing companies they have worked for that do not exist.  When they do state real experience, it is exaggerated just enough to be a lie, but not enough to be detected, so they move ahead, and it really ticks me off.

What is my status you might wonder?  I was made redundant when my employer had to pay a multi-billion dollar penalty for fraudulent practices.  The company didn’t lose a beat, but it put me on the street, writing this.  Any suggestions?

 

 

DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

It will be no consolation to you but our national workforce of nearly 160 million finds some 80 million underemployed, unemployed, or like you suffering suffocating frustration looking to be reemployed.

While the Information Age industry celebrates its achievements, the stark reality is that 2014 resembles the sweatshops or factories of the past.

The 1930s was the era of the union movement when ordinary working men and women were treated by American industry as interchangeable parts.  It was interesting that you see yourself in such terms.

Nor do I expect it will help to point out that our capitalistic society has always been more interested in what is legal as opposed to what is ethical.  Profits have always come before people, and this is not likely to change anytime soon. 

As to when people attempt to finesse the system by cheating, and believe they are getting away with something, they end up cheating themselves.  When they play “quick and dirty” with the system, it is obvious that they forget the system is “us,” collectively, and is not an inanimate construct, but quite real in its consequences.  We, as a society, rise or fall by the level of our authenticity.

That said we are on the precipice of another iteration of the automated culture, the culture workers feared 80 years ago and flocked to unions.  Computers are transforming the workplace, be it an office or production facility, a MacDonald’s or a Wal-Mart, a real estate office or financial or brokerage house, an amazon compound or a google complex into a factorum that resembles in all the essential ways the factory of the past. 

Barbara Garson writes in “The Electronic Sweatshop” (1988) that the MacDonald’s system turns inexperienced teenagers into short-order cooks; new college graduates on Wall Street with access to expert systems into financial whizzes, whizzes who can be instantly replaced by newer college graduates.  After two, four, six or more years of college, professionals are being turned into clerks.  We have even automated social workers, and as you have found out, a machine puts you on hold or says it will see you now. 

What I have alluded to in my writing, as you know, is that we are automating the idea of the boss.  Work, the quality and efficacy of it can be tracked electronically with no need for a supervisor much less a manager.  It has made management anachronistic and bosses atavistic.  Garson, in 1988, saw the future of monogamy in the office.  Well, the future is here!  Moreover, electronic surveillance, which was just gearing up thirty years ago is ubiquitous today, and has become accepted as normalcy as evasive as it is.

Professionals have watched this happen, and without protest, without the courage and sacrifice that the poorly educated and exploited workers of the 1930s endured, taking on the Robber Barons and captains of industry for a living wage, reasonable working conditions, job security and benefits including a retirement plan consistent with their contribution to the enterprise.

That has all been essentially scuttled in 2014 with a whole new lexicon to describe work such as outsourcing, hiring temps, contracting professionals for specific periods without benefits or any guarantees, resulting in such workers being unemployed or underemployed more than employed.  My sense is that this has been your plight. 

You are a brain worker and caught in the web of the sweatshop as if it is 1930 and not the 21^st century.  You are mad as hell, but so were three metadata leakers, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning who upset the secret world of spying.  To various degrees they rose out of the trenches in modest careers to shock the system.  Working in the electronic trenches, they became David exposing and downing Goliath of this factory world.  They are called “traitors,” but as professor David Cole of Georgetown University puts it,

While we members of the public have learned from each of these men about what our government has done behind closed doors in our name, they have taken it upon themselves to reveal hundreds of thousands of secret documents, only some of which may have been justifiably disclosed.  No one elected them to act as our conscience.  But if they didn’t so act, who would?

What am I advocating you do?  Certainly not as these young men have done.  But as I suggest in “The Worker, Alone” (2014), this is reality:

You must consider yourself an independent contractor.

To get ahead of the game, you must enhance your value added skills to represent yourself as brains for hire.

You have no choice but to accept that you are your own company, which means being first and foremost loyal to yourself and your self-interest.  That means treating whatever job you have as that of a sales person dealing with a customer, a customer who can summarily fire you without cause because he can.

The inflated value of formal education is deflating rapidly, whereas the honing of experience in a specific endeavor only increases value exponentially.  In our pragmatic society, when someone has what we need and want to complete our own success, we are willing to pay for it.  That means pricing yourself fairly on the job, but never underpricing or undervaluing your worth.

We are a sweatshop society because we have been overwhelmed with the rush of technology and underwhelmed with value of people as persons.  With all the wonders of this Information Age, our universities and all other institutions, including government, operate with a factory mentality. 

We have not escaped our past, or found a way to deal with what we don’t know.   You cannot change society, but you can change yourself. 

You were a happy person, be the happy person that you are.  That is part of your bankable worth.

Don’t apologize for being “mad as hell,” simply use it to breakthrough your angst.

I wish you well in that regard,

Dr. Fisher