Posts Tagged ‘risk’
“If you find you’re in a hole, stop digging.” – Found in an old Farmers’ Almanac
June 18th, 2010 | 
Author: 
Photo from website below:
http://www.thefreelancefarmer.com/2010/04/digging-hole-to-china.html ……………………………………………………………………………………..
Active Learning means changing your mind, changing your behavior
I think it was Bert Hellinger, a German psychotherapist, who said that he trusted people with their own problems.
Most of us don’t do that as a rule. We tend to want to fix other people’s problems, while ignoring our own.
I think Hellinger’s point is that most of us “like” our own problems, in the sense that when someone tries to relieve us of them, we dig in and demand our “right to do . . . ” whatever it is that we are doing [that is causing our problems].
Strange behavior, what?
As I used to say to clients:
“Most of us would rather keep the familiar old problem, than face the scary prospect of the unfamiliar new and different behavior. What if we fail at the new effort? Embarrassing. Better to keep the old pattern than risk a new pattern at which I might bomb.”
“That’s ridiculous,” my clients would say. “You’re telling me I like my problems? The ones that I am so vociferously complaining about to you?”
“You don’t actually ‘like’ them; you just would rather have them, maybe somewhat like ‘old and difficult friends,’ than face an unknown future, a scary future, trying to make new friends who may turn out to be worse than the old friends.”
The scary/wonderful future
Why don’t we just stop digging? Why don’t we admit that we really don’t wish to depart from our problems. Not right now anyway. Maybe tomorrow . . . tomorrow . . . “and yet again tomorrow” [shades of Shakespeare] . . . or maybe next week? Next month would be a good time to take this in hand. Or maybe next year?
“Let us not fear the scary/wonderful future,” says my friend.
This new and different way holds life in its hands, not the the death of the tired old present problems.
The scary/wonderful new pathway is far superior to the present rut-torn disaster, eh? 😮
The definition of insanity
“I respectfully suggest that the quote “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting it to come out different” is a misattribution to both Franklin and Einstein. According to Google news archive, the earliest news article attributing the quote to Franklin is from 2004 [4]. The earliest attribution to Einstein is 1998 [5]. By contrast, the earliest Google news article that attributes “time is money” to Franklin is 1849 [6]
“The earliest news article in Google’s archives that has the quote “The definition of insanity is doing the same….” is 1991 to Zamberletti of the Vikings. He said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing year after year and expecting different results” [7]
“The earliest reference to “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” is 1989 to David Boswell [8]
“The earliest reference to “the definition of insanity is doing…” is 1986 to Tony Elliott of the New Orleans Saints when he said “the definition of insanity is doing over and over again things that can kill you” [9]
“A similar quote is from “Sudden Death” by Rita Mae Brown, from 1983.
Posted in Learning Difficulties, learning solutions | 
Tags: active learning, change, changing your behavior, changing your mind, Doc Meek, docmeek, failure, fear, risk, success | 
No Comments »
