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Two Important Things I've Learned
Feb. 25th, 2009 11:07 pmI was talking to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lyster tonight about philosophy and it occurred to me that I ought to share two of the abiding life lessons that have become my own life philosophies.
The first, and most important, is simple: "Secure your own mask before assisting others."
I've found that many people struggle with the morality of that, but I tend to believe the flight attendants when they say if you don't save yourself first, you won't be able to save anyone else. They're the professionals, after all.
The second is a philosophy for dealing with others, and I usually act it out, because it involves motion. It's a training technique from aikido, but it works with mental motion as much as it works with physical momentum.
Imagine you are facing a friend (or an enemy), and you are butting heads. You're coming at each other from opposite directions. The more you try to move each other, the more you get locked up in the conflict, because you are pushing against each other. If you want your friend, or enemy, to see your side or to move in your direction, sometimes you have to move behind him and walk forward with him toward the goal.
We used this in tutoring: as a tutor, you might see in an essay the eventual shape it would have when it was finished. But you couldn't just tell the student, "Here's where you're going with this," because they'd see it differently and butt heads. You had to go from their perspective and guide them forward toward the goal. Often times, you'd end up some place different than you thought you were headed at the beginning of the paper. And that journey was worthwhile, too.
lyster tonight about philosophy and it occurred to me that I ought to share two of the abiding life lessons that have become my own life philosophies.The first, and most important, is simple: "Secure your own mask before assisting others."
I've found that many people struggle with the morality of that, but I tend to believe the flight attendants when they say if you don't save yourself first, you won't be able to save anyone else. They're the professionals, after all.
The second is a philosophy for dealing with others, and I usually act it out, because it involves motion. It's a training technique from aikido, but it works with mental motion as much as it works with physical momentum.
Imagine you are facing a friend (or an enemy), and you are butting heads. You're coming at each other from opposite directions. The more you try to move each other, the more you get locked up in the conflict, because you are pushing against each other. If you want your friend, or enemy, to see your side or to move in your direction, sometimes you have to move behind him and walk forward with him toward the goal.
We used this in tutoring: as a tutor, you might see in an essay the eventual shape it would have when it was finished. But you couldn't just tell the student, "Here's where you're going with this," because they'd see it differently and butt heads. You had to go from their perspective and guide them forward toward the goal. Often times, you'd end up some place different than you thought you were headed at the beginning of the paper. And that journey was worthwhile, too.
