Thinking About Our Legacy

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Donna Cameron

“It is not the nature of the task, but its consecration, that is the vital thing.” (Martin Buber)

• PEARLS BEFORE SWINE © 2015 Stephan Pastis. Reprinted by permission of UNIVERSAL UCLICK for UFS. All rights reserved.

In the preface to his recently published book, The Road to Character, David Brooks talks about the difference between “resume virtues” and “eulogy virtues.” Brooks describes the former as the skills and proficiencies you list on your resume—those abilities that help you land a job and be successful in your profession. He describes eulogy virtues as the qualities that are likely to be mentioned at your funeral, “the ones that exist at the core of your being—whether you are kind, brave, honest, or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed.” Brooks admits that for much of his life he gave priority to resume qualities rather than eulogy ones.

I don’t suppose many of us want to think about our funerals, or what people are going to be saying about us as they stand somberly at the podium or nosh on Swedish meatballs and potato salad later. But it’s probably a safe bet that they’re not going to be talking about the wealth or possessions we accumulated. And they’re not going to be lauding our knack with PowerPoint or Excel, or our ability to sell cars, write code, or design heating systems. And if perchance they do, it won’t be about the skill itself, but about the heart and soul that we brought to that ability.

Maybe they’ll talk about the passion we brought to our job, the humor, the patience, the integrity, the kindness. And separate from our jobs, they’ll talk about the qualities that stood out to them. For each of us, those will be different and they may include courage, loyalty, reliability, devotion, compassion, commitment. Each friend and colleague will likely see us differently: to one we were a mentor, to another a buddy, and yet to another we were a sociable neighbor or a wise-cracking cubicle-mate. Each will recall different special qualities depending on the relationship and their own needs and interactions. Yet each of us probably has a few overarching qualities that others recognize as our legacy.

Even for those whose jobs contributed significantly to the community’s, or perhaps the world’s, wellbeing—doctor, statesman, author, scientist—it’s not necessarily the skill or the accomplishment that will be cited, but the dedication and intentionality that accompanied that accomplishment. Equally important as the surgeon’s skill with the scalpel is the compassion she brings to her patients and their families, and to her colleagues in the operating theater. And if the author who pens the greatest literary work of the 21^st century is seen off the page as one of the biggest jerks of the century, too, he has earned—at best—hollow tributes.

It bears thinking about now if we want to leave behind us a legacy of friendship, or courage, or faith … or kindness. I have always loved the short poem, Late Fragment, said to have been written by the great Raymond Carver just hours before his death.

It so beautifully describes a life that didn’t end in regret. As we cultivate our skills in order to achieve professional or creative success, we need also to cultivate the qualities of personal success, those that go beyond our technical or career proficiencies. Think about what values or virtues you want to don each morning when you rise, wear throughout your day and tuck under your pillow when you sleep. Whether it’s faith, kindness, integrity, friendship, courage, or all of the above, choose to live your eulogy every day.

It’s either that, or learn to be a damn good parallel parker….

“Love doesn’t mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness.” (Jean Vanier)

The Jerk Shall Inherit the Earth?

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Donna Cameron

Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies, God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” (Kurt Vonnegut)

Well … crap. I’ve spent the last fifteen years reckoning the importance of kindness in my life, and the last five months deeply immersed in an exploration of kindness. And I have become convinced that despite local, national, and world current events to the contrary, people are growing kinder; we are on the verge of a kindness Renaissance.

Turns out I was wrong.

At least that’s one interpretation from an article that appeared in the June issue of Atlantic magazine. Entitled “Why It Pays to Be a Jerk,” author Jerry Useem asserts that—consistent with the old adage—nice guys generally do finish last. He further claims that some of the most successful people in business are also some of the biggest jerks—think Steve Jobs—and that their jerkiness is exactly what led to their success.

Useem does caution that being a jerk can also backfire and lead to abject failure, but bad behavior done right in certain circumstances is often the path to the top.

For example, stealing supplies or provisions just to benefit oneself doesn’t advance you in the eyes of colleagues, but stealing and sharing the bounty with others puts you at the head of the team.

And someone who aggressively claims to have the answers, even when they don’t, is seen as a leader and often elevated to the leadership position. Further, it seems that the more unaware one is of how unfounded and even deluded one’s self-confidence is, the more swift and direct is the narcissist’s propulsion to the top. UC Berkeley Research Psychologist Cameron Anderson explained, “By all indications, when these people say they believe they’re in the 95th percentile when they’re actually in the 30th percentile, they fully believe it.” And somehow they make others believe it, too.

I think this explains so much about our political system, or “jerkocracy,” as I am moved to call it. It would seem that some politicians think they’re a lot smarter than they really are and we’ve bought into their delusion. Okay, I know that’s a totally unkind thing to say, but really—do a quick run-down of presidential contenders—doesn’t it explain a lot?

Another distressing example in the article showed that people who are treated rudely and condescended to by salespeople in upscale brand stores (e.g. Hermes, Gucci, Louis Vuitton) tend to spend more money than they do when treated well by another salesperson in the same store. There were some qualifications to this: the shoppers needed to value the brand, the salesperson must convey the image of the brand, and such tactics by the salesperson generally only work once with the same buyer (of course, if you’re selling Rolexes, one sale is probably sufficient). It also completely backfired if it wasn’t a truly upscale store, i.e., don’t try this if you work at Kohl’s or Target.

Givers and Takers

If anything’s clear from the article, it’s that the whole subject is murky. Useem cites research by Wharton professor Adam Grant, author of Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. Grant depicts “givers,” those whom we would generally describe as kind and generous, and “takers,” who are often labeled narcissists and jerks, noting that both givers and takers occupy the top—and the bottom—of the success spectrum.

The conclusion seems to be that you can be successful if you are kind and a giver as long as you are perceived as strong and are consistent in your behavior. And you can be successful if you are an overconfident, narcissistic jerk as long as you are convincing and seen as someone whose success will have a spillover effect on those around him. For both giver and taker, if you don’t convey your understanding of and ability to bring others along on your success journey, you can expect to make a nose-dive to the bottom.

So, it appears we have a choice if we want to be successful: we can be kind or we can be jerks—we just have to do either effectively. While I have undoubtedly been a jerk at one time or another, I hope those episodes have been rare. I choose kindness. Being a jerk to achieve success would be soul-crushing.

Perhaps the choice between the kindness route and the jerk route depends upon how you define success. I’ve never viewed it as either wealth or power. Increasingly, I do define success as spreading kindness and helping others. As long as power, intimidation, and obscene wealth constitute success for some, it looks like jerks will continue to lead.

So, the Atlantic article is discouraging. There does not appear to be a straight path to a kinder and more respectful world. Jerks are still reaping the rewards of their bad behavior. There’s still a long way to go to reach the kindness tipping point.

Nobody ever claimed it would be easy. But, we’re in this together and each time we choose kindness we move that much closer.

“Our lives are made of these moments. Simple words and actions, taken together, weave a single day, and our days become our life. Every gesture is a seed, and the seed determines the harvest.” (Wayne Muller)

Kindness and Generosity – Offering Our Unique Gifts

Posted on April 15, 2015 by Donna Cameron

“Generosity brings happiness at every stage of its expression. We experience joy in forming the intention to be generous. We experience joy in the actual act of giving something. And we experience joy in remembering the fact that we have given.” (Gautama Buddha)

A few posts ago, I wrote about the connection between kindness and a sense of abundance. The logical next step when one’s view of the world is of abundance rather than scarcity is to express that abundance through generosity.

I have been blessed to be the recipient of so much generosity throughout my life—from my friends, my professional colleagues, my family, and even strangers. Their generosity is expressed through the wisdom they so willingly share, through their time, their thoughtful actions, and their kind words.

When we think of generosity, our first thoughts are likely of material gifts or donations of cash, and, of course, these are elemental expressions of generosity, but they aren’t our only gifts.

The Three T’s

There’s an adage in the non-profit world that board members need to be willing to give the three T’s: Time, Talent, and Treasure. Treasure is usually interpreted in monetary terms—especially for charitable and philanthropic non-profits. If board members won’t donate to the cause, it’s hard to convince others to do so. Hence, grant applications will often ask if 100 percent of the board has made a donation to the organization. Boards with “high-rollers” can usually easily answer yes, but if members of the board are part of the constituency the organization serves, there may be some who have little to spare in the treasure department. That’s why applications don’t ask how much board members have donated, only if they have. A $10 donation from someone who may have to skip a meal to make that donation is just as important—perhaps more so—than the $50,000 donation from a corporate CEO.

Being generous with our talent asks only that we are willing to share what we do best, whether that’s fundraising, marketing, budgeting, schmoozing, or baking cupcakes. Each of us has unique talents and part of the job of being human is recognizing them and sharing them where they are most needed.

Generosity of time is an essential element in non-profits and elsewhere. As we have explored in an earlier post, we are often so pressed for time, so overscheduled, that we blow off opportunities to extend kindness. Or maybe we don’t even see them in our rush to meet so many deadlines. Generosity with our time when time is limited can be a kindness beyond measure—especially if we are able to give without conveying to the recipient our stress or our inconvenience.

Other Ways to Be Generous

Beyond the three T’s, there are a multitude of other ways we can be generous:

We can be generous in deed: It can be as simple as holding a door for someone, helping to carry a heavy load, or offering a hand. It might be bringing freshly-baked bread to a neighbor or washing someone else’s dirty dishes without grousing. There are so many generous deeds we can offer—big and small—and mostly it’s a matter of training our eyes to look for them.

We can be generous of word: It doesn’t take much to make someone’s day with a kind word. Mark Twain famously said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” Of course, he is also reported to have said: “I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel they have not said enough.” Both quotes show how powerful a sincerely expressed compliment can be. And the wonderful thing is that they’re easy! We can compliment someone on the great service they provided, or the astuteness of an observation, a well-written report, or how their smile brightens a room. All we have to do is pay attention.

We can be generous of spirit: The Buddhist practice of metta, often translated as lovingkindness, teaches practitioners to repeat phrases—aimed first at oneself, then loved ones, then acquaintances and strangers, and finally even to adversaries. The phrases express a wish for happiness, for safety, peace, freedom from pain, and so forth. In offering metta to people with whom we share conflict or difficulties, people who have hurt or angered us, we are, says Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg, “recognizing our essential interconnectedness.” Salzberg notes that in offering metta to a difficult person, we are not condoning bad or hurtful actions. “Instead, we are looking deeply into our hearts and discovering a capacity for lovingkindness that is not dependent on circumstances and personalities.” We are expressing generosity not only to others but to ourselves. That capacity for compassion is our gift to the world.

If we can give nothing else, let us at least give the benefit of the doubt. This is easier to do with family and friends than with mere acquaintances and strangers. If a friend or loved one says something that we find hurtful, it’s usually easy to excuse—“that wasn’t how she meant it to come out,” “I know he’s been under a lot of pressure; he didn’t really mean it.” Why can’t we offer that same understanding to strangers when they say or do something questionable or hurtful? Instead, we generally ascribe the worst motives and label them jerks.

In our office, we continually remind ourselves to “assume one another’s good intent.” A simple statement, but enormously powerful. If I ruled the world (a frightening thought if there ever was one), I’d have the phrase, “we assume one another’s good intent” printed at the top of every meeting agenda and posted on the wall of every room where people gather. It all comes down to the simple generosity of giving the benefit of the doubt to everyone we encounter.

Generosity isn’t just something we do for someone else. When I choose to act generously, the greatest beneficiary is always myself. There is no better expression of the abundance in my life, nor of the confidence that I not only have enough, I am enough. Giving creates a joyful sense of oneness with my world and my fellow creatures.

“No one has ever become poor by giving.” (Anne Frank)

Enough IS Enough! Kindness and Abundance

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Donna Cameron

“True kindness is rooted in a deep sense of abundance, out of which flows a sense that even as I give, it is being given back to me.” (Wayne Muller)

The world offers us two perspectives on abundance.

It’s easier to be kind when we have that sense of abundance that Wayne Muller talks about above. If we are always worrying that there is never enough, or that if I share my bounty with you, there will not be enough for me, it will be hard to extend kindness.

Have you ever felt resentment or envy toward someone who experienced good fortune or great success? Maybe you found yourself rationalizing it (“Well, sure, with his family connections, getting that job was easy”), or minimizing it (“What’s the big deal? So she got a MacArthur Genius Grant—they’re a-dime-a-dozen”). Or maybe you noticed the grinding of your molars as you congratulated someone for their success.

Thoughts like that are focused on scarcity: if she gets a lot, there will be less for me.

Pie, Anyone?

Cultural anthropologist Jennifer James often speaks about the concept of the limited or unlimited pie. If we view our world as a limited pie, our slice is smaller if someone else gets a big piece. But if we can see the pie as unlimited—expanding endlessly from the center—then we have no reason to feel threatened or diminished by someone else’s success or prosperity: there’s plenty for everyone and the size of mine isn’t impacted by the size of yours.

Rarely does someone else’s abundance mean a dearth for us. It doesn’t work that way. Success and good fortune—like sunshine—are not rationed. There’s an ample supply for everybody. In fact, the more we all recognize the plenty surrounding us, the more there is for everyone, because—through kindness and our own contentment—we start helping others to experience abundance. And we share what we have because, after all, there’s plenty. And, like a boomerang or an eager puppy, it bounds right back to us.

This doesn’t mean that kind people never experience envy and pettiness. They’re as susceptible as the rest of us, but perhaps more able to acknowledge and move beyond those feelings quickly.

For the rest of us, on those days when we wake up feeling less than, it is easy to lose sight of what really matters. That’s when a sense of abundance needs to be summoned. Maybe we feel less than attractive, or less than smart, or less than capable, or less than secure. Or maybe we are aware that we don’t have the wealth or resources that others do. Focusing on what we don’t have—whether real or imagined—only ignites a downward spiral.

As trite as it may be, it’s the old “glass half-full or half-empty” conundrum. We create our own reality by how we look at the world. If we view it through the lens of “not enough,” that is what we train ourselves to look for and we are never satisfied. If we view it through the lens of abundance, then how easy it is to be satisfied, and to see that there is enough to share.

Without a sense of abundance, we can neither give nor receive. We hold our own possessions too tightly, and we have neither the open eyes nor the open hands to see and receive all that the world is offering us.

A Different View of Abundance…

To believe we have enough, we must first believe we are enough. We are surrounded, though, by messages that tell us we are not. These are messages of a different kind of abundance: the copious consumption and assiduous acquisition that are so prevalent in Western society.

Even if we’re lucky enough to have family and friends who see us as whole and perfect just as we are, the media bombards us with messages that we’re not. Magazines show us the fashions we’re lacking, or the youthful skin that we’ve lost. Television shows us—both through advertising and Hollywood’s relatively narrow view of beauty—that we’re far from adequate: some bits are too small and some are too big, some are too curly and some are too straight, but, good news, there’s a product to fix all our faults. Ads about weight, skin, and hair plague us online, and continually remind us that there’s a wonder drug or serum just waiting to solve our problems.

We are subtly and not so subtly taught to believe in our own inadequacy: we are not enough, something is missing. And the solution is always out there—something that will fix us or make us whole. If we just buy the right stuff, acquire the missing magic ingredient…. If we allow it, it becomes an endless quest for more.

The view of abundance we see from the lens of kindness tells us we have what we need to live a life of joy and meaning and service, and we are fine just as we are. The commoditizing view of abundance whispers to us that we aren’t enough and need to acquire more to be adequate. We hear them both … which voice resonates more deeply with you?

“He who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will reap bountifully.” (St. Paul)

Extend Yourself

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Donna Cameron

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” (Dalai Lama XIV)

Dr. Dale Turner

Years ago, theologian, speaker, and extraordinarily kind man, Dr. Dale Turner, handed out little green cards with two simple words printed on them: “Extend Yourself.” I have no religious background or education, nor any inclination toward such, but every time I heard Dr. Turner, he touched me to the core. He also made me laugh—a fine combination. I’ve carried that little card in my wallet and had those two words clipped beside my desk for nearly three decades. It seems to me that the phrase “Extend Yourself” captures the essence of kindness. It also highlights the difference between niceness and kindness.

Nice is something we can be without extending ourselves. Nice is tipping the hat, holding the door, smiling at the cashier. Nice may even be dropping a dollar in someone’s hand if we do so without looking the person in the eye and saying a genuinely caring word. Kind is asking how we can help, offering our hand, jumping in without being asked, and engaging in conversation that goes beyond the superficial. All of these actions have an element of risk—we might be rebuffed, ignored, or disrespected.

Nice generally doesn’t inconvenience us. I can share my bounty with you because I have plenty. Kind is when we share knowing that we may not have as much as we would like, and that’s okay. We often go out of our way to extend ourselves or to be kind.

Generosity

Extending ourselves is an act of generosity, whether material or relational.

Recently there was a story on NPR describing how the impulse to generosity seems to be hardwired in our brains. In a study of children, researchers found that they smiled significantly more when they were giving treats away than when they received the treats themselves. But what the researchers found to be especially interesting was that the children smiled significantly more when they gave away their own treats than if they gave away an identical treat provided by the experimenter for the purpose of giving away.

I saw another story two days ago, about Calvin Olsen, a second grader in Las Vegas. He told his parents that he had been given so much for Christmas he didn’t want anything for himself for his birthday. Instead, he wanted “to give all my birthday presents to kids that need them.” He asked for $25 gift cards for older kids and presents for the little kids. Sixty people came to Calvin’s birthday party. He collected over $600 in cash and gift cards for kids and teens in foster care, $100 of which was from his own savings.

That impulse to generosity that Calvin Olsen and the kids in the NPR study have seems to be an instinctive knowledge of the rightness of “extending yourself.” Let’s hope as they grow older we don’t “help” them unlearn it. Instead, let’s learn from them.

A Year of Living Kindly

adventures in trying to live a life of kindness

Tag Archives: Generosity