The Danger of Tribes

"Tribes" is one of the new words that everyone from marketers to social activists are using. Let's not get all giddy about fitting into a tribe, being a tribe and being lead by a charismatic or insightful creator of a tribe without pausing to think. (Whether that tribe is called a group, committee, team, family, race, religion, psychographic...)

We can't avoid the fact that there are tribes all around us any more than we can avoid our own membership in multiple tribes. We can avoid ignorance in how we engage others inside and outside our tribes if we'll open our eyes to both sides of tribes.

There are pros to tribes. What are some?

• You are with people who think like you
• You are immersed in traditions, thinking, culture and lessons of those who've "been there".
• You get to leverage the ideas and efforts of people on the same page
• You can make a big difference in your community and outside of it
• "Positive peer pressure" from those who know you

Oh, there are many more, I know.

But we'd be fooling ourselves if we didn't pay attention to the other side. The cons of tribes or of the tribe mentality are:

• Arrogance that we get it while they don't
• The mentality that the ends justifies the means
• Individual personalities, needs and aspirations get lost
• Identities (of individuals) are warped as is the menu of possible actions in life based on the identity of the tribe rule the day
• People shut their minds off and let the leader do their thinking

Of course there are more here on the con side as well.

The point, though, isn't that tribes are bad. The point is to think. The point is to consciously choose which tribes you belong to and to be aware of the tribes you belong to without your choice (color, heritage...). The point is to be aware of the great benefits and the wonderful possibilities from casual or engaged membership in a tribe as well as the dangers and the pity seemingly inherent in tribes.

MLK Jr. said it all when he spoke of the day when people are judged by the content of their character rather than...(any tribe that separates, divides and sets one against another). Be Good. Be part of that tribe--those committed to being good and doing great in humility.

Be Good - Do Great,

RR

Interruption or Opportunity?

Here she comes...the old lady next door wants to talk--you're just trying to do some work in your yard.

Not NOW! A school bus pulls out just ahead of you--now you're stopping every 100 yards for a quarter mile local tour of your neighborhood.

The list could go on of course but it's instructive to think that we call these things interruptions.

Really? What got interrupted?? Your plan? Somewhere along the line we buy into the notion that our plan is the plan and then we become frustrated and less than our best when our plan is interrupted. Silly rabbit...

No. Your plan is your plan and then there are another 7 billion other plans.

At the risk of being all chipper-personal-growthy on you. Your choice is to see reality and accept the unexpected as an opportunity to bring more of what you want into the world or you can deny reality (not a good plan), think you are the center point of time and history, continue to be frustrated by people and their thinking that their plans matter.

I'm just saying...

RR

The Dabbler's Lament

A paragon of endurance, Mother Teresa labored in the gut of Calcutta for decades giving everything she had to help the "poorest of the poor". She held the hands of lepers, applied medication to open maggot-infested wounds of the dying and held the skeleton-bodies of broken infants as they left this life.

She didn't seek attention, she avoided it as it took her from her what she knew to be most important: expressing love to all those who society was mindful to forget. The world sought her.

The dabbler's lament is elusive fulfillment. He knows that he ought to do things, whether for others or even himself, but he doesn't think in terms of self-sacrifice except as it serves his more immediate purpose. That purpose might be recognition to feel a sense of value, pity so as to dismiss his responsibility, guilt to better control another or the perpetuation of an image that needs occasional maintenance.

Having lost a sense of "mission", the dabbler needs to be seen. She survives on consciously created PR campaigns designed to have people see her a certain way. So self-absorbed is the dabbler that she's lost part of her humanity--becoming blind to the needs of those around her.

Chances are, you're neither a Mother Teresa nor a total dabbler. Reflecting on the dabbler's lament and the joyful life of a saint:

Where do you see you need to engage people differently?

Where is your "mission field"?

Though these examples are somewhat black and white...we still are forced to choose and live that shade of gray. I wonder what you'll choose.

Your Servant,

RR

Finding a Hero Amongst the Living

I like Booker T. Washington, Ben Franklin, Mother Teresa and a slew of other brilliant but long since departed people.

• I work to have Washington's dignity.
• I study and evaluate myself to gain Franklin's sagacity.
• I consistently look to give earnestly and generously so to imitate Mother Teresa's compassion in action.

Someone said to me recently, "You really should have some heroes that are still alive." I was first surprised by the truth of this observation and after I stopped laughing, I asked myself why I don't have any living 'idols'? Well after a couple months of reflection, I have an answer.

Though it doesn't seem really evolved, it was true. I found I was protecting myself from learning that someone I'd admired was really a scoundrel. I didn't want to find that I'd invested any part of myself emotionally in someone who had plenty of time and opportunities left to mess up. I liked the neat and finished product that a dead and revered icon provided.

By unconsciously and exclusively following the dead, I was denying the inspiration that comes in the practice of virtue in the living.

I'm happy to report that I'm appreciating the endurance of Dan Jansen, the perspective of the Dali Lama and the consistency of Ron Paul. I don't have to agree with each person's lifestyle, politics, or anything else. I can admire their application of virtue.

In whom do you see virtue? How will you imitate it today?

Following and Leading,

RR

Doing Something...

I've come to detest within myself the tendency to talk about, with impotent intention, what I want. I've been saying I want to be fluent in Spanish for 15 years and have heretofore done very little to substantiate my noble sounding professions. I've gotten my "feel good" by telling people and having them say nice things about my capacity and commitment to learn. Talk about compromise...

Enter the Japanese disaster.

After initial sickness over the seemingly never-ending disaster, I felt that same unsettled feeling I got whenever I hyped my desire to speak Spanish. We all get urges. Those who make a difference in their world (personally and globally) do something with what they know and what they know they must do.

There is so much I can't do but what I am doing is a 5k run/walk to benefit the Red Cross' efforts in Japan. What do you know you must you do in your life that you can no longer just talk about?

Doing Something,

RR

Here are the Run for Japan details followed by expectations:

• April 2, 2011
• 10:30 warm up
• 11am start time
• 11:30/12 Lunch -we'll figure something out...maybe pizza on the tall-handsome guy.
• Boxwood Park (Rotterdam) -right off of I-890 and less than 2 minutes from exit 25 of the NYS Thruway
• Goal $50,000. Yes it's an obnoxiously high goal.
• Make checks payable to "American Red Cross" and place the words "Japanese Aid" in the memo section. All funds will be directed to the earthquake and Tsunami relief efforts in Japan and the Pacific. Red Cross will send you a receipt for your tax deductible gift.
• No cash PLEASE!
• If you want to give toward this specific effort for Japan and can't make it--or you have any questions email me at: Ron@RonRenaud.com
• Email if you are coming or can reasonably say that you can vouch for x number of others coming. We need to know how many cinnamon rolls will be needed to soothe the famished runner!

Expectations:

This isn't a fancy organized run. It is a run with kindred spirits for the sake of recognizing our own blessings and good fortune while we give of our relative abundance to those who've lost much.

Be bold-dig deep and give as much as you feel compelled to give, no pressure. Well not too much anyway.

There will be no bibs -you're responsible to know who you are at the start and end of the race! That's a joke...

Sorry, no aid stations along the way but my wife and a few friends will be baking so it'll be worth your while to run back to where you started!

Winners? When you contribute to the betterment of another you win. You are cordially invited to come and win!

This isn't an event sanctioned by any running governing body. It's a 5k route that I've measured out with my car and regularly run with a pal--Scott, if you must know.

Please tell anyone and everyone you know! Let's do something special.

Peace,

RR

Sometimes You Have To Get It To Get It

42 floors, 809 steps, 100% effort until you collapse... Who wouldn't want to climb the Corning Tower? Once each year the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) puts the Corning Tower race on to benefit the people who are suffering with Cystic Fibrosis.

I'd done it two times prior to this year because, as the cliché goes: it was there. As I signed up, wrote a check to the CFF and scheduled it in my calendar I got thinking that I didn't even know what in the world CF was.

I read about it and became upset as I thought about how people suffer so. Well days, weeks and my upset quickly passed and last night was the race. I don't know my time but let me just say, I never stopped and climbed as fast as I could go. Good job, Ron! Thanks.

When I reached the top I staggered to an open space, collapsed onto my hands and knees and struggled for my breath for about 5 minutes. The dust (and ???) in the stairwells gets deep into people's lungs as they exert and creates havoc for for the competitors trying to breathe for a few hours to a few days after.

On my hands and knees, literally gasping for air, for those few minutes-I got it. CF creates severe symptoms including lung infections that make breathing difficult...oftentimes unto death. I knew I'd recover in minutes. Many will never recover.

Some runners will have just enjoyed their time, some will give more to CFF in hopes of a cure. Both are fine. I'm grateful that I was forced to pause-and in that moment connect a bit deeper, through my temporary suffering, with my own humanity and with those whose suffering will not subside so quickly.

Grateful for Health,

RR