Living a Blessed Life
Staring out of my office window this is what I see. I have a wife and 3 children who love me and I have never really wanted for everything. My mother was told I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth when I was a child and I suspect I've always agreed with that.
By dint of one sperm meeting a particular egg around January 1967 I was born to my parents who looked after me, schooled, fed and encouraged me. I failed forward from one job to another until I found something I was good at, but even when I was down to my last ￡30 in the world, mired in debt, I never felt despair. I never felt that my very survival was at stake.
As we watch the horrors of life in other parts of the world unfold on our on the web, TVs and newspapers I remind myself to be grateful for what we have. I can't watch events like Children in Need for long because I feel physically sick, my anger and sense of impotence, and it sets me to wondering:
How are we culpable for the plight of those we are donate to help?
Why aren't we more grateful for the privileged lives we live?
I puzzle how to bring this sense of living a blessed life to my children's attention because even though projects like Live Aid, Children in Need and organisations like Oxfam, Red Cross and MSF bring the plight of others to our attention, it seems distant, and a simple act of switching channel puts it behind us.
A specific area that we seem to have learned to take for granted is education. When children from developing countries talk about education their eyes light up with wonder and excitement. Ask children in our schools what they think about education and we hear "boring" or "stupid" in reply.
I have been inspired by many people in this regard but among them are Kiran Bir Sethi, Sugata Mitra and Shukla Bose and Sir Ken Robinson.
I'd be grateful for any recommendations on other thought leaders and speakers on the subject of bettering education. I want my children to learn to learn with passion and unbridled curiosity so they pass that love of learning on to their children and those around them.
PLEASE SHARE YOUR LINKS TO OTHER EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT LEADERS VIDEOS AND WRITINGS.
The Ally Method?: Unlocking Deliberate Growth, Powered by Precision
3 年Komal Shah here are some links you might find helpful
Coaching to the soul - for coaches who want to go deeper
10 年Excellent post, Marcus, thanks! I think the real problem with education is that we have reduced it largely to the gathering of information. We don't encourage curiosity, we don't encourage emotional development - learning has mostly become about learning how to conform and about acquiring information. Ken Robinson nails it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY&spfreload=10
George Santayana. As parents we can only help create an environment that has the potential to allow and encourage our children to thrive with life and learning. Outside environment, access to resources, lotsa love, and setting a good example, (my) kids have to learn to carry their own rucksacks (motivation & aspiration). Children that become achievers off their own backs have staying power for life. Children pressed and moulded into another's vision can end up with crushed spirits and rocky paths.
The Ally Method?: Unlocking Deliberate Growth, Powered by Precision
10 年Thanks Danni. I read Solshinitzyn when I was about 13 or 14 and it was profoundly disturbing. Perhaps had a lasting effect. Will also check out Hope's Husband. Thank you
Screened
10 年Marcus, Put down your Marxist influencers, Churchill, Truman, FDR, Freud, Einstein, Ziegler and Joel Oesteen, John Hagee, Joyce Myers and Feinstein and pick up THE GULOG ARCHIPELAGO by the powerful author, Alexzander Solshinitzyn. Read very carefully. Then Google " Hope's Husband" by the late Nord Davis Jr. If you are not holding your head in your hands and weeping openly, you still believe Stevie Wonder is blind and you believe a real effort is made to " feed starving children" I suggest kneeling and giving your entire TOTAL life to the God of our father's who is found ..IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD. meditate and ponder every possible meaning of that and behold who this God brings into your life