More Wisdom – Less Busyness
Spring and Easter are a time of rebirth and renewal. Although it is snowing here in Calgary today, I know that somewhere there is spring and it will arrive here in due course. Calgary is like that. The weather is unpredictable and the time of year is basically irrelevant. It can snow in any month and it can be t-shirt weather in any month. Maybe that is why I like it here. It is unpredictable … like people. My latest reading material is called “Predictable Irrationality”. I am thinking the weather in Calgary is beyond that although way to Rationally Unpredictable.
The book by Dan Ariely is a great read about why people do people things … again and again and again. The sub title is “The hidden forces that shape our decisions“. The stories are great and really make you think about the things that make you go “Hmmmmm”. Those stories and the beginning of a documentary I heard on CBC about Positive Ppsychology are swirling in my head looking for meaning. The Positive Ppsychology piece began with a reminder that the brains we have today are the ones who survived in the dangerous times of our predecessors who had to fight off wild animals and hunt for food to survive. The ones who were skeptical, cautious and fierce were the ones who survived and breed to create later generations. Those characteristics are not always helpful these days where food is readily available and our neighbour is our friend not our competition. So the skills in a land of scarcity are not easily translated to a land of plenty. We are still acting as if we do not know where the next meal is coming from when there is a fast food restaurant on ever corner. We are negative assume-rs because our ancestors survived in the wild. Hmmmmm.
Sooo Does our ppredictable irrationality come from that evolution of the brain that has not quite caught up to our society and our communities? Could it explain why we seek busyness and activity rather than wisdom? Is busyness our badge of honour in a society that values time? Is it peculiar to North America? Does Europe have a more civilized approach where leisure or time to live instead of time to earning a living is the thing that is the measure of success? Does that make Eurpoe more evolved than North America? So many questions to guide this weeks entries. TTFN
