Monday, April 5, 2010
More Reflections on Burning Bridges
posted by Joy
"The future is brightly illuminated by the burning bridges of the past."
Teflon
This is a quote that I have come to love more and more deeply. As I said goodbye to my old colleagues to begin getting ready for my new job, I was enjoying myself. I reflected on the year that had past, the challenges, how I'd handled them, the colleagues who supported me and those who didn't.
It felt good to say goodbye. I didn't feel like running away or being pushed away.
Don't Slam the DoorNext day, as I was walking the dog, I remembered the quote from Teflon and smiled as I thought "YES, this is it!" I was raised with the expression '
Don't slam the door', meaning that you should never leave a place in an angry manner. So far I would agree, but the way the phrase was interpreted by most people meant, "be sure they'll take you back if you ask."
I did not
slam the door, but I did
close it! I told them how the new company has made the effort to create a position that will fit me. How I am looking forward to it.
When I leave through my front door I do not slam it, but I also don't leave it wide open. I close it. I lock it. (I never used to lock my door, but this one will swing open if I don't so I lock it.)
But you know what? I've always been able to
unlock it when I returned. What I am trying to say is that
burning the bridges doesn't mean that I cannot
build them again if I want to. It might not be exactly the same bridge; it might be stronger and more beautiful; the new bridge could be unstable and break.
Yes or NoBurning bridges also means that, when I get a question, I give a
yes or a
no answer; I don't live in the maybe's. When I decide to leave a job, I leave it. When people say that they would like to see me back, I'll smile and say 'thanks'. It doesn't mean that I'll never be back. But for now I'm gone.
If an ex-employer offered me an old job back the answer would be 'no' -- that bridge no longer exists. However, if they offered me the opportunity to join a new venture with them, I would definitely consider the possibility.
DoubtingBurning bridges is new to me. It feels good, but there are times when I ask myself whether or not this is a bridge that I now want to rebuild, or, what would happen if others still believe that there is a bridge?
Last year I said goodbye to some old friends. Now they just sent me an invitation. This time the invitation included a girl who is now living in Australia and hasn't been back in Denmark in a while. My inclination was
maybe, to keep the door open, to not decide, yet.

However, as I reflect on this, my answer has changed. I burned those bridges for a reason. Spending time with those people is like eating an ice cream: the taste is sweet but it isn't really nourishing.
They tell me how much they want to get together, and yet they often hesitate when I ask to set a time. Their way of keeping friendship with me is to meet once a year and have absolutely no contact in between.
I am actually really clear that this is not how I want to do friendship. I like to spend time with people who I find interesting and inspiring, and who want to spend time with me. To accept an invitation from this group of people I would need a bigger reason than a person returning from far away, a person who I stopped writing to because she didn't return my letters.
I guess that the kind of friendship they are offering is just not for me.
Now it's clear: if I had the choice between a day with this group or to spend an hour in the playroom, I would chose the playroom without hesitation. If I had the choice between a day with this group or a cup of coffee and a deep discussion with my girlfriend and her husband, I know what I would choose.
Are you clinging to old bridges? Living in maybes? Often? Sometimes? Never?
Big Love
Joy
Labels: all blogs, burning bridges, change, choices, joy vigh strand, solar system, wants
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Optimism Test: Part Two
posted by Joy
If you wonder if you have read
Optimism Test: Part One, then the answer is NO! Or at least you have not yet read a blog written by me called
Optimism Test: Part One. If you wonder why this blog is called
Optimism Test: Part Two, then you might have the same feeling as I had last Sunday when I was discussing optimism... we never came to the starting point, or rather we never came to what I had expected to be the starting point.
The Starting PointEvery three months I meet with a group of Danish people who have two things in common:
- we have been at the Option Institute as volunteers or program participants
- we want to keep our learned skills alive, and we do this in discussions with other option-minded people.
Last Sunday the topic was a combination of "Learned Optimism" and "Do you act as your own best expert when you think you are ill?" Before the meeting, everyone had had the possibility to take an optimism test based on Martin Seligman’s book
Learned Optimism. With test results as a starting point, we were to discuss whether or not:
- we saw our own health or illness as temporary,
- our health was something we could change ourselves, and
- issues regarding health effect other parts of our lives.
Only this discussion never took place. Instead we had a long discussion on the
questions of the questionnaire.
Question the Questions or Question the Results?I have a tendency to question a test if I do not like the result, whereas I have a tendency of not questioning the test when I get a result I like. That's why, when I program, I love to get someone else to test my program. Otherwise, I tend to know what will be tested when I'm done and I end up with a program that meets the requirements of my test, but which hasn't really been tested!
In my Option group, we spent two hours discussing the optimism test, but I never understood who agreed or disagreed with the results they got. If they are behaving like I often do, they did not like the results. Rather than questioning the results or the reasons for the result or exploring the results had any useful implications, everyone started to discuss the questions.
To put you in the same situation as the people in the group, I will provide you a link to the test, but not an explanation of how to interpret the results (I provided an explanation at our group meeting, and I'll provide the same explanation in
Optimism Test: Part One). For now, you only have the questions and the results.
Optimism TestLet me walk you through three of the questions which ask how you would respond to a given situation.
13. You owe the library $10 for an overdue book:
a) When I am really involved in reading I often forget when it's due
b) I was so involved in writing the report that I forgot to return the book
17. You prepared a special meal for a friend and he/she barely touched it
a) I wasn't a good cook
b) I made the meal in a rush
47. You are in the hospital and few people come to visit
a) I am irritable when I am sick
b) My friends are negligent about things like that
After reading these three questions, let me give you a little insight in me:
- Personally, I haven't turned a book in late since I was 18.
- I've only been at the hospital once and I didn't stay overnight. Only two people showed up, but only three people knew that I was at the hospital.
- I rarely cook and when I do it is often done in a rush, but can you actually prepare a special meal in a rush? Would you still call it a special meal?
So, for me, all the situations are somewhat hypothetical. Does this mean that I can’t answer the questions above? If I do answer the questions, would the results be valid?
Deciding to Trust the TestThis test reminded me of the tests I've done during job interviews. When I go for a job interview and they ask me to fill out a test, I do it, and I answer all the questions. I do not intend to spend the interview time on discussing the questions, and I want to help the people by giving them an impression of who I am, so I respond to the test in the best way I can. To overcome my doubts about the questions, I come up with examples of how the results apply or do not apply to my personality.
Let me show how I responded to the hypothetical situations in the Optimism test.
- If I had an overdue library book, there would be a specific reason for it, so I chose answer B.
- I believe that most people can prepare a fantastic meal when they take the time to do it. I decided to answer with B.
- If someone didn't turn up at the hospital it would be for his or her own reason, not because I was particular grumpy. Anyway, how would they know that I was grumpy not having seen me? My answer again was B.
I know that I did the test "the best I could" without expectations of the output and as a result. I hoped that the output would somehow be useful, that I would be able to recognize some areas of my life where I could become more optimistic.
Do I Trust the Results?One of the participants with a PhD in economy decided to question the validity of the test based on "if you do not understand the question, then you do not know what will be measured." This can be true, but I believe that even though you might not know what is measured, the designer of the test knows what is measured and you can find out later what is measured! In fact, in psychological tests, the questions are often designed and organized in a way so that the participant can't anticipate what would be measured. Otherwise, people start completing answers to get a specific result, rather than to simply report on themselves.
I don't have a lot of background information about the test. I only know that it was made by a man who has dedicated most of his life to research in positive psychology and done a lot of empirical studies. And I must say, when we compared answers during our meeting, all people had chosen answers which seemed to support how they saw themselves as likely to act in general.
As mentioned previously, I tend to trust results that support what I already believe. Last week I got results for a blood test of my Vitamin D level. My doctor said it was normal, but I thought it was low. I compared it to the American Standards and those results said it was very low, and I decided to start taking Vitamin D supplements.
The first time I did the Optimism test, it showed me that I was more optimistic on negative events than on positive events, and so I chose to look into where I have a tendency to believe that positive events does not last. I found this useful, and I decided that the test did measure of how positive I saw myself on that particular day.
The Quality of the TestPersonally I do not find the discussion of the quality of the test very interesting, except from an academic viewpoint: how do we in general set up tests and validate the quality of the tests. I believe that the fact that for this test we cannot give the answers that we would intuitively write down, does not have any influence on the validity of the test.
The validity of a personality test is made by comparing the results with how a person describes himself or herself, or how a professional describes the person.
ConclusionWhen I fill out a test, I do my best to answer. I trust the moment and I believe that the test will be somehow useful. I don't try to second guess the test or to feed the test in a way that will give me the outcome I'd like to see.
When I get the result, my first inclination is to find examples that support the results, and at the same time I will look for examples that do not support the result. Then I'll evaluate the results see what I want to keep and what I want to let go of.
Anyway, with all the discussion on the validity of the questions, we never had the discussion I wanted about how optimistic or pessimistic we are and how that plays out regarding health and illness. Still, I was happy to see how I responded to tests and test results!
To take the test, click
here.
Labels: all blogs, choices, joy vigh strand, optimism
Thursday, January 7, 2010
posted by Joy
Recently I have thought about what loyalty means to me and I want to share with you some thoughts based on the definitions from Wikipedia:
Loyalty and Marketing
The practice of providing discounts, prizes, or other incentives to encourage continued patronage of a business. Generally, loyalty programs are considered less expensive to maintain than allowing customer defection or 'churn'.
In most of my work life I have been working in what we call "Customer Relationship Management" (CRM), or Customer Relationship Management Analysis.
To manage your customer relationship means among other things that you want to decide which customers you want to keep and which you do not want to keep, and how much you are willing to pay to keep your customers.
You might think that it is a simple calculation: money in - money out, by watching the balance. It's not that simple. I used to work for a phone company, and I can tell you: there isn't a simple relation between what the company earns per customer and size of their bills! It's a calculation of the amount of in going and out going calls and where there are directed to and from. What time were the calls, did we get the information on the call or were there delays? How much time did we spend on the customer, what price the phones were that we gave them. And last but not least: who is his network? If we loose one will we then loose others, because they are used to call each other at a cheap rates?
We did not want to keep all our customers, or we did not want to keep them all on similar terms. We wanted to keep the customers who paid well for the services we provided. Among those customers we looked for the loyal customers and we looked on how we could increase their loyalty.
- Step one is purchasing and re-purchasing (what we call having a long lifetime)
- Step two is having them not use our competitors’ products
- Step three is advocating for us
On the other hand: having a large number of customers was important at the stock exchange, regardless of the value of each customer. So we also wanted the not-loyal customers, but at what prize?
Loyalty and ethicsThe concept of loyalty is an important part of ethics. Plato originally said that "only a man who is just could be loyal", and that loyalty "is a condition of genuine philosophy". The philosopher Josiah Royce said it was "the supreme moral good", and that one's devotion to an object mattered more than the merits of the object itself. Loyalty is a quality you look for in a friend.
I agree: Loyalty is definitely what I look for in a friend. I see loyalty in a friend as someone who is true to their word, who'll do what they said they would do. Who will say the same things to my face as they would say behind my back.
I find it interesting that Plato relates justice and loyalty. To be just means to have the "right" morals, but according to whom or what? Does it mean that I can only be loyal to someone or something who is sharing my perception of what the right morals are?
I guess: Yes!
Let me give you an conversation I had with an ex: If I believed that one should never lie and you believed that it was ok to lie but that one should never say something bad about another person. And then you would ask me about your haircut and I didn't like it. Saying that I didn't like it would then be disloyal to you, saying I liked it would be disloyal to me.
What I take from Plato is that loyalty is subjective and that we will always see loyalty according to our own ethics. Even if we see ourselves as loyal, people with different ethics might see us as disloyal.
Loyalty is an illusionIf I get Josiah Royce right then being a loyal friend means that the value of being a friend means more than the value the person you befriend has (according to whatever standards).

So maybe loyalty is an illusion, or loyalty is based on an illusion. It is not based on values or facts but just a decision: this is what I make up that loyalty is and these are the people or causes I want to be loyal to. And no one can prove that I am loyal.
Loyalty within HierarchyWithin hierarchies loyalty usually has to be given to authority.
This is one of my favorites, because I know that when it comes to authorities I have a different way of showing loyalty than most others: I am authentic! I believe that being honest is one of the biggest signs of authenticity and loyalty I can give. Some people believe that obeying or pretending to agree is the biggest signs of loyalty.
Loyalty in the BibleJesus said, "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other." (Matthew 6:24 NIV)
Attempting to serve two masters leads to "double-mindedness" (James 4:8), undermining loyalty to a cause.
James 5:2. The Bible also speaks of loyal ones, which would be those who follow the Bible with absolute loyalty, as in "Precious in the eyes of Jehovah, is the death of his loyal ones", (Psalms 116:15)
I used to believe that I had made up my own religion. I wasn't brought up in a religious home but as a kid I learned a lot about the bible. And what I understood was that "God will always forgive you", "There are no sins" and "Thou shall love thou brother". What I got was: we are all doing our best and God loves all of us. I really meant
ALL OF US. So you can imagine I got confused when I heard people condemn gays or people of other religions. First I thought that they just hadn't read the bible yet. Later I thought that I had just made up my own religion since I seemed to get something different from the same book.
I believe in Jesus saying that you cannot have two masters. You have one or none. But this also means to me that if God exists, them I am one with God. Because if I am loyal to God I cannot be loyal to anyone else unless they have the exact same morals as I have. I can only be loyal to God if we share the same morals. If not there will be times where I will be disloyal to him or to myself. I believe that I am always doing exactly what I want to be doing so I cannot really break my own moral standards, I can only change them. So if I am loyal to God then my moral and my ethics are the same as God's morals.

If I am God I guess that everyone who believes in God is God. But in my thought process this leads to God is everyone, and this means we are all the same, which really confuses me because I experience that we are not always loyal to each other. I have had friends who would one day say that they would help me, and the next day they would say that helping me would mean being disloyal to someone else.
I just want to be loyal in my own way, to my own standards, and I am blessed with the knowing that my loyalty is the same as being God.
So maybe loyalty is one big illusion based on an illusion. Maybe that's why Wikipedia writes that:
Loyalty plays an important rule in Literature.Labels: all blogs, beliefs, choices, empowerment, joy vigh strand, Loyalty
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
posted by Jeannene Christie

I had a really interesting experience Friday evening while commuting home from work. Calgary had a snow fall in the afternoon and by rush hour the snow had melted and then frozen. The main roads were slathered with ice. There were many collisions and abandoned automobiles. The Calgary area was in gridlock big time.
What is normally a twenty minute drive, took me four hours. Most of the time I was not moving and when I was moving, it was more like creeping than driving. I was going so slowly the speedometer didn't move!
I had plenty of time to think and observe my thoughts and feelings as well as other people and what was going on around me.

I was fascinated by the varied array of emotions I felt: bored, content, relaxed, frustrated, grateful, excited, happy, worried, hopeful, curious, compassionate, thrilled, elated. Each emotion related to whatever I was focusing upon. For example, I felt bored when I thought of all the other things I could have been doing. I felt relaxed when I focused on my breathing. I felt grateful for my snow tires. I felt compassionate while praying for others.
It seemed like everything was in slow motion. Time stretched. Perhaps it just seemed this way because I am so often moving in fast forward?
Our regular fast-paced ways were brought to a HALT. Conditions made it too dangerous to proceed as usual. With this in mind, I got to thinking about our planet. Normally I just zip along that road without thinking about how amazingly easy it is to get from A to B or the costs of doing so. Have we made it too easy?

Although not always in our awareness, so many trees, animals and people face far greater life-threatening conditions everyday.
Are we slippery sloping ourselves off this planet? Do conditions have to become personally inconvenient before we STOP, pay attention and make changes?Have you ever taken the time to do something that you normally do really fast (e.g. eating, brushing your teeth, shopping) really slowly? What happens when you do? Do you see any benefit to yourself or to the world in doing so?
Slowing down for those four hours allowed me to see more, assess my choices more carefully and explore new ways of responding to situations and events around me. It was neat to see that many people got out of cars and buses and walked. They exuded liberation!

Going at the speeds we usually do, it is easy to simply whiz by all the other metal boxes on the roads and not pay attention to the fact that there are people just like ourselves driving them. This gridlock situation offered a different opportunity because we were all going so slowly. I deliberately looked around at the other people, smiling and even laughing at times. I felt camaraderie with my fellow traffic-jammers. We were all in it together. We all had the same choices--misery, amusement, etc.
After about 3 and a half hours of being in traffic, I reached a downhill in the road. Several cars and buses had pulled off to the side at the top of this hill. Few drivers were attempting to drive down it. They waited until the driver ahead was many car lengths away before attempting the descent. I contemplated pulling off to the side but I thought, "Even though many other drivers are not attempting this hill,
I have no reason not to try (so far I had not been slipping). If I do start slipping, then I'll create a new plan."
I went for it!
It was an exciting and scary challenge. I went slowly and cars from way behind me were slipping close to me. I made it down the hill perfectly and all the way home safely.
Click on the title of this blog to read and view a CTV news article and video about this weather story. There are people's comments as well...all the different perspectives are very interesting!
Labels: choices, dangerous conditions, traffic, wake up call