TOO MANY NON-PROFITS!

Have you ever wondered why people feel the need to start up their own non-profit for a cause rather than just work with the non-profits that are already working for that cause?

Wouldn't it be more efficient, focused and drain less resources to have one BIG non-profit rocking the water problem, one BIG non-profit tackling the homeless problem, one BIG non-profit healing the disease problem, etc?

It has become trendy in my world to criticize non-profts in a city with more non-profits than any other city in the United States.  "They should stop asking people for money and go out and get real jobs," I heard a friend of mine recently say.

But does he feel the same way about...say...photography?  I mean, shouldn't there be just one BIG photography company that runs all of the worlds photography needs?  Wouldn't that be more efficient?

And shouldn't there be just one BIG clothing company, and one BIG bank and one BIG school and one BIG government and one BIG church and one BIG TV station or film company where everything is streamlined and efficient?

Think about your profession.  Shouldn't there be just one BIG [insert your profession here] to take care of all of the world's needs?

If you're like me, answering that question gets uncomfortable.  It seems like when you start making one BIG anything you start losing something else.  You start losing uniqueness, you start losing leadership development, leadership expression and-- in the long run-- you diminish a culture's capacity to create, not enhance it.

Not everyone loves being a worker bee in middle management of something huge.  Not everyone should.  Some people love to start new things.  Other people love to run old things.  Some like to take broken things and fix them, others like to take the best and make it better.

Non-profits and For-profits should work together when they can, absolutely.  But the presence of many unique people tackling the same problems in their own unique way with their own unique social networks should be celebrated, not condemned.

The same goes for business, governments, churches, universities, and-- yes-- non profits.

We need more of them, not less.  And the ones we have now need to be better.  So get on it.

Take It Off The Shelf

Right now there is a book on my shelf, taunting me.

It was an impulse purchase from Amazon.  I tend to buy books in bulk and then read them over the next, say, 20 years. If “1-click purchase” was crack cocaine I wouldn’t have any teeth and would live in Baltimore.

Or then again, maybe I have it all wrong.  Maybe it’s like the puppy locked out of the house in the back yard.  You walk by the window and he puts his two front paws against the glass, whimpering.  His puppy-dog eyes say it all:

Play with me.

Whether that book is taunting me or whimpering I can’t be sure.  But one thing I know is that it’s on the shelf.  Collecting dust.  Sandwiched between a sci-fi novel and a self-help book.  How terrible.

I tend to put a lot of things on the shelf.  Not just books, pictures and trinkets from the last vacation.  I can also cram relationships, hobbies, hard conversations and dreams between my IKEA purchased, put-together-myself-without-swearing shelves.

Upon reflection, there’s a lot of stuff that is in my life...but barely.  They’re on the shelf.  “On the shelf” means I think about it every now and then, usually before I fall asleep.  My last waking moment is usually, “Oh!  I would really love to do that!  Maybe I’ll start tomor….zzzzzzzzzzz.”

And on the shelf they stay.  Collecting dust.

"On the shelf" items get talked about over coffee with friends or standing in line for an over-priced movie.  "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if...?" we say.  And then the cup is empty or the movie is over and-- for whatever reason-- that idea never makes it into the texture of our daily lives.

The problem is that many of life’s most fulfilling moments, most rewarding risks and most exciting opportunities tend to stay on the shelf.  Like fine china or a grandfather’s watch—we hold those possibilities with such high esteem that we never bother touching them.

Could it be that the keys to unlocking the parts of our lives we most desperately want to change are sitting on the shelf, right in front of us?

So take your life off the shelf.

www.sparkgood.com

No This Without This.

Take a minute and watch the short Youtube clip.  Go ahead, explore your inner geek.



Okay, so this is how it works:  you don't get the elation of victory without first stepping into the uncertainty of defeat.  In geek:  you don't get to experience the thrill of blowing up the Death Star until you first have to courage to almost die trying.

Everyone longs for the victory, for the elated moment when you get the girl, make the winning shot, overcome the obstacles and...yes...blow up the Death Star.  But those moments are unavailable to those of us who don't ask her out, take the shot, fight the odds or...yes...fly into the heart of the Death Star.

So what's worth trying for?  Go for it.

And if you like pictures:

NO THIS:

WITHOUT THIS:

The Game Is You.

Ever notice how well you can get to know someone when you're not trying to?

Road trips are probably the best example of this.  The point is to drive somewhere, but over the course of the next 8 hours of playing music, reading in the back seat, eating over-priced chips from the gas station and talking about important and mostly not important stuff, you begin connecting with the people in the car with you.

This can happen on road trips, this can happen playing basketball or poker or even watching The Bachelor on TV.

With road trips the object of the game is to get someplace but the result is often times friendship.

With basketball the object of the game is to win, but by striving to win you can often times become friends.

When it comes to Sparks the object of the game isn't a destination or winning-- the object of the game is you. 

Now, not only is that a game worth playing but-- as with basketball and road trips and watching TV shows-- while you play or drive you also connect with people in unexpected ways.

Ask yourself this question:  What games are you playing in your life-- what environments are you putting yourself in-- where the object of the game is you?

Not in a narcissistic way but in a way that helps you become more compassionate, more proactive, more alive.

The Game is You.  And when you play that game well with others you get to know others in surprising ways.

www.sparkgood.com

I Don't Know.

A little while back I tweeted something in Latin.

Huc venite, pueri, ut viri sitis.

 

Considering the meaning of that phrase, this post is appropriate.

 

The response to that tweet was a little unnerving.  A few friends made a joke about it (let's be honest-- Latin tweets are a tad pretentious...and so is using the word "tad")  

 

But a few people actually gave me a hard time about the tweet since they didn't know what it meant.  

 

The irony is that I didn't know what the it meant when I first read it either.  I don't know Latin.  I was reading a book and it didn't tell me what it meant.  I had to look up the translation on Google.  Took me about 2 seconds.

 

Few people who read my tweet knew what it meant.  Almost everyone looked at the tweet and said what can be the hardest 3 words to say in the English language:  I don't know.

 

What's frustrating is when "I don't know" is followed by a period instead of a comma.  "I don't know" with a period is like saying "I don't know and I don't care."  This is fine when it comes to Latin tweets.  But often times we get in the habit of the period with things that actually do matter, and our confidence in our own ability to learn, solve problems and overcome obstacles becomes damaged.

 

"I don't know" followed by a comma means "I don't know but I'm going to find out."  The coma is the 2 second Google search.  The coma is curiosity and a confidence that you can probably figure it out if you put a little elbow grease into it.  

 

Granted, the comma is more important when it matters.  

 

So what matters to you?

I Love Awkward.

I was in a group of people a few months ago and someone in the group was acting a little...awkward.  As that person behaved in their own little world people looked at each other, smirks were exchanged and one person even mouthed silently:  awkward.

Awkward as a title has become a socially acceptable form of rejection.  It often times becomes code for "I don't like that person.  They don't belong."  We feel bad when we say that out loud so we just stick with a euphemism:  awkward.

We like it when Michael Cera does it but not when that dude over there does it.

Of course, this is a little personal for me.  As a textbook INTP-- according the the Meyers Briggs Type Indicator-- I am by definition socially awkward.

And let me tell you:  I love awkward.  My favorite people in the world are incredibly awkward.  It's fantastic.

So here is a short ode to awkward:

Awkward is creative.  Awkward by definition is non-conforming.  Awkward sees things from a different perspective.  Awkward says what it thinks.  Awkward misses social cues, but often times social cues miss the minority opinion that society needs to hear most.  Awkward is not fashionable.  Awkward is not a fad.  It is not a trend.  It is not retro glasses, indie bands, plaid shirts and tight jeans.  Awkward does not have hand drawn title credits.  Awkward can't be bought, taught or faked.  Awkward throws people off-balance.  Awkward is uncomfortable. 

In our best moments we are all awkward.  Which is to say in our best moments we are all unique.  So next time you are tempted to mouth awkward when so-and-so tells a joke without a punchline or that girl over there misses a social cue, remember:  reject their uniqueness and you reject your own. 

I love awkward.

Favorite Book Of All Time

"Everyone quotes G.K. Cheston but nobody reads him."  -- Isaac Anderson

G.K. Chesterton is hand down my favorite author.  He could best be described as C.S. Lewis on crack.  Chesterton was often times called "the master who left no masterpiece" since he was a newspaper columnist for most of his career.  His works include philosophy, ontology, poetry, play writing, journalism, public lecturing and debating, biography, fantasy and detective fiction.

He was witty, poetic, and weighted over 300lbs. A kind of bumbling absent minded professor who would go out to buy groceries for his wife and then forget on the way what he was supposed to be doing.

Sounds like my kind of guy.  Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." - Everlasting Man, 1925

"Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision." - Orthodoxy, 1908

"Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere." - ILN, 5/5/28 

What I love most about Chesterton was that he was friends with all the people who disagreed with him.  In a time when philosophical debate could fill a concert hall Chesterton wrote a book called Heretics which was essentially about all of his friends-- George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Mr. McCabe, Lowes Dickinson, Rudyard Kipling-- and other intellectual giants at the turn of the 20th century.  They loved to debate, and they loved each other-- even though they thought each other were completely wrong and destroying Western Civilization.

My favorite book of his, and my favorite book ever written, is his spiritual autobiography entitled Orthodoxy.  It tells of his sincere journey as an agnostic inventing his perfect life philosophy and, at each turn, how he discovered his perfect life philosophy is more ancient than he thought.

I often buy Chesterton in bulk to give away, more out of affection for the author than how helpful his books tend to be for my friends.  It's a small book, but it took me a year to get through when I was 17 years old.  I now read all or parts of Orthodoxy several times a year.

I highly recommend it to you as well.

Challenge Your Self

Ever meet someone and you can tell that they only read/watch/listen to what they already think/believe/feel?

Like when people only listen to NPR.  Or only Conservative Talk Radio?  Or only FOX?  Or only religious books?  Or only irreligious ones?

Diversity not only helps you understand perspectives different than your own, it can help you see your own perspectives from a whole new light.  Sometimes we learn things that move us to abandon what we thought we knew.  Sometimes all that happens all at the same time.

No matter the destination, it happens when we challenge ourselves.  When we allow ourselves to be exposed to views that are different and perhaps even hostile to our own.

There are a million ways to do this.  But let me offer one:

Two books I enjoyed reading.  Both showed me aspects of my life, my spirituality, that I haven't thought of before.  One is an affirmation of the concept of spirituality, the other is an honest and passionate criticism of it.

Reason Driven Life is a point-by-point counter argument to Rick Warren's evangelical best seller The Purpose Driven Life.  It is smart, dry and frank enough to make religious conservatives very uncomfortable.  

Soul Cravings is a kind of spiritual anthropology that dives into our longings and how those longings point to God.  It is also smart, personal and evocative enough to make any honest skeptic perhaps a little more curious.

Being uncomfortable.  Being more curious.  Not such bad places to be, no?

So whaddaya say?  Challenge Your Self.

What's Your Filter (Part 2)

On an earlier post I asked the question "What's Your Filter?"

All of us have a kind of filter for how we see the world.  How we choose what to interpret as beautiful or healthy or good.  Good has a tendency to hide everywhere.  It hides in science and philosophy.  It hides in different and conflicting models of government and political theory and (occasionally) conflicting political parties.  It even hides in different religions.

There is something beautiful in every faith tradition-- in Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Scientology, Judaism, Humanism and other isms not yet labeled by Humanity-- all have elements of beauty and potential abuses by the same Humanity that labels them.

But no matter what your perspective on conflicting political parties, scientific theory or religion, everybody has a filter that shapes what our views on good and evil are and everyone's filter is shaped by something. 

So when my friend Michael asked me what my filter was I gave my answer.  The filter I try to use-- as best I can in my own clumsy way-- when it comes to searching for Good; the tuning fork I use to find my resonance with beauty; the water stick I use to find pools of compassion, intelligence and life...

...is this troublesome, 1st century, middle-eastern rabbi by the name of Yeshua.  It may sound narrow or obscure, but as best as I can tell the way he saw the world-- the way he lived and related to other people-- was captivating, compassionate, provocative, and often-times uncomfortably honest.  He was counter-intuitive and is-- to me-- strangely attractive.  He compels me the way Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King, Jr. or Gandhi does.  And yet these titans of humanity were strangely attracted to this Yeshua as well.

I don't always get it right (less than I probably think).  I've got a long way to go (I can't wait).  But Jesus (Yeshua) is my filter.

And he finds good in the strangest of places.