Happy Generosity Day

Happy Heart’s Day

To Everybody …

Romantic cards are nice, chocolate is delicious, and flowers are pretty.  We will share nice words and some lucky ones among us will gaze into the eyes of someone we care deeply about, at least for a while.   Nothing wrong with any of this, other than the commercial hype that sells us a very romantic and somewhat unrealistic image of what it means to care for someone else.

Here’s a suggestion:  Try something a little different today …

GENEROSITY  DAY

The goal:  A million simple acts of kindness

Easy … We can do this…  Here’s some suggestions to get you rolling:

Smile at someone …

Open the door for another …

Pay for someone’s coffee anonymously …

Compliment someone (honestly)  …

Apologize to someone …

Let someone go first …

Go first and make the way easier for others …

Carry someone’s load for them …

Smile at someone (more than once) …

Let them have the parking space …

Drive friendly …

Look at the other person when you interact with them …

If you see or know their name, use it …

Visit the Generosity Day Facebook Page to get all inspired and stuff.

Special shout-out to Sasha Dichter for this idea through his Generosity Experiment.  We need more “science” like this.

Trying something different in the Heartland ….

John

Walking That TIghtrope …

“Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara falls. Intelligence is not trying.”

Anonymous

I can hear my mother now … “Just because that crazy Maria Spelterini stuck her feet in peach baskets and walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope doesn’t mean you have to do it too!“

In 1876, we did not have the Internet to distract people from their daily woes, so feats of derring-do had more appeal for folks. Note the crowd gathered on the bridge in the background.

The apparent point of this quotation:

Does ability to do something equate with the need to do something?

An obvious answer is “Of Course Not!” … since to accept this logic would mean we would all be murderers.   Each of us has the ability to take another’s life.   In some cases, we do.  

The difference is in the “Why” …  

A soldier or a law enforcement officer may take a life as part of their duties.   A person being savagely attacked may take their attacker’s life in self-defense.   We agonize with one who inadvertently takes another’s life through distraction or misstep.

We usually only condemn those who intentionally take a life for their own self-centered reasons.

What about other, less traumatic abilities?

We all can be brutally honest, though some find this easier to do than others.

Should we always be brutally honest to the utmost of our personal ability?

Again, the answer most of us would give is probably “Nope” …

Maybe the real question is a more general one about our personal mixture of abilities and competencies:

When do I use my abilities and when do I not?

Why would I use what I have in one case and not in another?  

Ponder this a while … It’s not as simple as it may seem.  

Issues arise, sometimes unexpectedly, around ethics, around laws, around cultural and social expectations, and around our own personal set of quirks and qualifiers.

Considering whether to go further with this question in the Heartland ….

John

Are You a Milestoner or a Reminder … ?

So a group of us are sitting in a very cold classroom listening to a preview of our new online class management system, which will replace our old one with a very different environment.

The discussion is rolling along with many questions, but few answers, since this is rolling out piecemeal through the university.

At one point, we are shown a new function which allows us, as instructors, to quickly schedule and post notices along the timeline of an assignment, from the point assigned to the point due.

Imagine getting a message telling you that you should have a complete outline done on Tuesday, a rough draft message on Thursday, and a final draft ready to check for errors on Sunday.

Amid much excitement about this apparently useful new tool,  about this, some of us talked like this:

“Great, I can tell the students when they should have something done, so they are not waiting till the last minute to complete their work.“

Others of us were talking like this:

“Great, I can post reminders of  where they should be as the time passes.“

Each group used different words to describe both what they would say and even the name given to the reminders.   The first group used “Milestones” and the second group used “Reminders” to describe what we could create and use.