The children of Israel wanted bread
And the Lord sent them manna,
Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,
And the Devil sent him Anna.
—In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery
One of the assignments in my daughter’s latest MBA class will be to write her obituary. It’s a standard values clarification exercise. I pretty much know my own values by now and the idea of an obituary sounds a bit too wordy for me. But I have been playing with epitaphs, brief summaries of my values. I’ve come up with three.
The first one is a natural for Cheerful Monk: Never been eaten by a crocodile.
The second one would be At home in the universe. That search took a lot of my time in my early years.
But those two aren’t quite enough, they don’t have enough passion. So I’ll add a third,
Just a little clod with a stir of might.
That comes from a segment of poetry by James Russell Lowell:
Every clod feels a stir of might,
And instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers.
It reminds me of John Campbell in The Power of Myth
People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality….
Yep, that’s me, just a little clod with a stir of might. There’s a little life in the old gal yet, and I treasure it. 
What about you? How would you sum up your values, your life?
I’ve been thinking about the picture in last week’s post:
At the time it seemed to capture the feeling of the previous week–a precarious balance. But after thinking about it more, that was only a part of what was going on. I don’t like to live my life that way. This picture is a closer match:
schmeis. Used with permission. Owner reserves all rights.
It’s not nearly as spectacular, but I like having a solid foundation. Even when I felt pressed by a deadline I was focusing at least as much on developing needed skills as I was on preparing a specific talk. I still took time out to experiment with, and practice, new techniques so they would be there for me when I needed them again.
My main problem with the talk was I had too much information and had trouble figuring out what to include, what to leave out, and how to organize the mess. Power Point was a blessing. Even though I had never used it before, when I went poking around on the web for some ideas, I came across these tips on how to create a good slide show. The tips not only made it easier for me to get started with an outline, they also gave me a template to use.
Power Point Tips:
My Talk:
Once I had the template and outline all I had to do was to liven the talk with some cartoons and pictures from Flickr.
The talk went well, which was fine, but even more importantly, if I ever have to do something like that again it will be a lot easier. Yes, I do believe in skill development. I feel a lot happier knowing I have a solid foundation to build on.
What About You?
How important is skill development to you?
