RSS Feed
Twitter
Batam - Selamat Tinggal AIT
Setiap pertemuan selalu ada perpisahan. Tanggal 13-April-2005 merupakan tanggal yang sangat bersejarah dalam hidup saya karena saat itulah perjalanan hidup saya berubah 180 derajat ....
Note: Photo ini diambil seminggu sebelum VeriS keluar dari AIT
=========================================
There is a Buddhist story about a poor farmer whose
one horse ran away. All his neighbors came to him in sympathy, saying
"What bad luck!"
"Maybe," he responded.
The next day the horse returned with several other wild horses. "What
great luck!" his neighbors exclaimed.
"Maybe," he responded.
A few days later the farmer's son was trying to tame one of the wild
horses when he was thrown off and broke his leg. "What terrible luck!"
his neighbors said.
"Maybe," he responded.
A week later the army came through the village to draft all the young
men but seeing the broken leg of the farmer's son, they left him in
peace. "What wonderful luck!" the neighbors said.
"Maybe," the farmer responded. And so it goes.
My life is a series of lucky accidents strung together starting from
the moment of my conception. I was a diaphragm baby.
In college I was planning to go into politics. Then in the spring of
my junior year the bicycle trip I had planned to go on was cancelled
because the leader broke her arm. So instead I went on a camping trip
and it changed my life. I soon gave up politics and began teaching
leadership on wilderness expeditions. And on one of those expeditions
I met the woman who would eventually become my wife.
Later I built a successful company teaching leadership with lots of
employees and several offices around the world. Then, as luck would
have it, my company crashed along with the economy and the Twin
Towers. It turns out, after some introspection and a solid dose of
therapy, that I wasn't enjoying the business the way I had built it
the first time. So I rebuilt it in a much smaller, sustainable and
fulfilling way.
While I might not have been happy about it at the time, each turn of
luck was a catalyst that brought me closer to the life that I'm
happily living now.
Often we operate with the impression that we are in control of our
lives. I remember long conversations with my wife, Eleanor, about
exactly when we should have our second child. Two miscarriages later
we realized it wasn't up to us. And when Sophia eventually came, we
knew that any time would have been the right time.
Some strokes of luck are small. Maybe you enjoy a conversation with
someone new. Maybe you read a poem that happened to be sitting on
someone's desk. Maybe you bump into the car in front of you. Only
years later can you see how fundamentally that moment may have changed
your life.
Some strokes of luck are big and you know at the time they will change
your life. Maybe you win $10 million with a lottery ticket you didn't
even know you had, as recently happened to a woman in Australia. Maybe
you lose your job.
What we don't know is how those things will change our lives. All the
research points to how poor we are at predicting how we'll feel about
something once it happens to us. Lottery winners are no happier than
before. Paraplegics are no less happy.
And there's something I've been noticing about people who have lost
their jobs recently. They seem happier. Relieved, almost. Not
everyone. But in many cases, the fear of losing your job is worse than
losing your job. I know a large number of employed people who are
miserable on two counts: They hate their jobs and they're afraid of
losing them. They're scared and stuck.
But once you lose your job you can move on. Daniel Gilbert, professor
of psychology at Harvard University, explained this phenomenon in a
recent New York Times article, "What You Don't Know Makes You
Nervous." "When we get bad news we weep for a while, and then get busy
making the best of it. We change our behavior, we change our
attitudes. ... An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy
present with nothing to do but wait."
So when your luck changes, what should you do about it?
Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck has done a tremendous amount of
research to understand what makes someone give up in the face of
adversity versus strive to overcome it. Her research shows that if
someone believes his talent is inborn he'll give up quickly, because
any obstacle is a sign of his limitation. He's hit a wall; he can't do
something and won't ever be able to.
But if someone believes her talent grows with persistence and effort,
she'll work to master the challenge. She'll view adversity as an
opportunity to get better.
So here's the good news: You can change your results by changing your
mind-set. When Dweck trained children to view themselves as capable of
growing their intelligence, they worked harder, more persistently, and
with greater success on math problems they had previously abandoned as
unsolvable.
Luck changes. Call it fate. Call it God's will. Call it an accident.
No matter how well we plan our lives, we're not fully in control. But
how we face our luck -- good and bad -- is in our control.
How's this year going? Are you having good luck? Bad luck?
Maybe.
Note: Photo ini diambil seminggu sebelum VeriS keluar dari AIT
=========================================
There is a Buddhist story about a poor farmer whose
one horse ran away. All his neighbors came to him in sympathy, saying
"What bad luck!"
"Maybe," he responded.
The next day the horse returned with several other wild horses. "What
great luck!" his neighbors exclaimed.
"Maybe," he responded.
A few days later the farmer's son was trying to tame one of the wild
horses when he was thrown off and broke his leg. "What terrible luck!"
his neighbors said.
"Maybe," he responded.
A week later the army came through the village to draft all the young
men but seeing the broken leg of the farmer's son, they left him in
peace. "What wonderful luck!" the neighbors said.
"Maybe," the farmer responded. And so it goes.
My life is a series of lucky accidents strung together starting from
the moment of my conception. I was a diaphragm baby.
In college I was planning to go into politics. Then in the spring of
my junior year the bicycle trip I had planned to go on was cancelled
because the leader broke her arm. So instead I went on a camping trip
and it changed my life. I soon gave up politics and began teaching
leadership on wilderness expeditions. And on one of those expeditions
I met the woman who would eventually become my wife.
Later I built a successful company teaching leadership with lots of
employees and several offices around the world. Then, as luck would
have it, my company crashed along with the economy and the Twin
Towers. It turns out, after some introspection and a solid dose of
therapy, that I wasn't enjoying the business the way I had built it
the first time. So I rebuilt it in a much smaller, sustainable and
fulfilling way.
While I might not have been happy about it at the time, each turn of
luck was a catalyst that brought me closer to the life that I'm
happily living now.
Often we operate with the impression that we are in control of our
lives. I remember long conversations with my wife, Eleanor, about
exactly when we should have our second child. Two miscarriages later
we realized it wasn't up to us. And when Sophia eventually came, we
knew that any time would have been the right time.
Some strokes of luck are small. Maybe you enjoy a conversation with
someone new. Maybe you read a poem that happened to be sitting on
someone's desk. Maybe you bump into the car in front of you. Only
years later can you see how fundamentally that moment may have changed
your life.
Some strokes of luck are big and you know at the time they will change
your life. Maybe you win $10 million with a lottery ticket you didn't
even know you had, as recently happened to a woman in Australia. Maybe
you lose your job.
What we don't know is how those things will change our lives. All the
research points to how poor we are at predicting how we'll feel about
something once it happens to us. Lottery winners are no happier than
before. Paraplegics are no less happy.
And there's something I've been noticing about people who have lost
their jobs recently. They seem happier. Relieved, almost. Not
everyone. But in many cases, the fear of losing your job is worse than
losing your job. I know a large number of employed people who are
miserable on two counts: They hate their jobs and they're afraid of
losing them. They're scared and stuck.
But once you lose your job you can move on. Daniel Gilbert, professor
of psychology at Harvard University, explained this phenomenon in a
recent New York Times article, "What You Don't Know Makes You
Nervous." "When we get bad news we weep for a while, and then get busy
making the best of it. We change our behavior, we change our
attitudes. ... An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy
present with nothing to do but wait."
So when your luck changes, what should you do about it?
Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck has done a tremendous amount of
research to understand what makes someone give up in the face of
adversity versus strive to overcome it. Her research shows that if
someone believes his talent is inborn he'll give up quickly, because
any obstacle is a sign of his limitation. He's hit a wall; he can't do
something and won't ever be able to.
But if someone believes her talent grows with persistence and effort,
she'll work to master the challenge. She'll view adversity as an
opportunity to get better.
So here's the good news: You can change your results by changing your
mind-set. When Dweck trained children to view themselves as capable of
growing their intelligence, they worked harder, more persistently, and
with greater success on math problems they had previously abandoned as
unsolvable.
Luck changes. Call it fate. Call it God's will. Call it an accident.
No matter how well we plan our lives, we're not fully in control. But
how we face our luck -- good and bad -- is in our control.
How's this year going? Are you having good luck? Bad luck?
Maybe.